Everybody's Business

At a September ceremony that featured Cossack dancers, Chinese acrobats, and a Beatles tribute band, leaders in the Fuqua School of Business announced plans to develop a network of five new partner campuses designed to bring business education to students and scholars worldwide.

While Fuqua has spent two decades increasing the global reach of its programs, the $500-million initiative represents a major step forward not only for the school but also for the entire university, according to Blair Sheppard, the school's dean.

"It's essential for business education, for business research that we plant ourselves in the markets that will shape the economy in the twenty-first century," he told a crowd of students, faculty members, and visiting dignitaries.

At the ceremony, Sheppard announced that the first partnership in the new network would be with the Graduate School of Management at Russia's St. Petersburg University. The other partner programs will be located in London, Shanghai, Dubai, and New Delhi.

The plan calls for Fuqua to establish a significant presence in each location, instead of the more casual affiliations found in some other international business programs. Each of the campuses will support all Duke M.B.A. programs, including Executive M.B.A. programs. Each also will include a Duke Corporate Education site or partnership, open-enrollment executive education, at least two research centers, and Fuqua faculty members, as well as service-learning activities tied to local needs.

Duke's M.B.A.—Cross Continent program, which immerses students in business communities around the world, will be revamped to take advantage of the new locations. Beginning next summer, the program will be held in each of the five regions before wrapping up with elective courses at the Duke campus.