What Happens at Duke When Faculty Think the Numbers Don't Add Up

Story about a questionable China venture at Duke from Inside Higher Ed appeared today. The numbers didn't add up. It reminds me of something at UCLA that rhymes with "motel." Excerpt below:

Faculty members at Duke University’s business school expressed deep reservations at a meeting last week regarding the viability of what were supposed to be the first programs at the university’s new campus in Kunshan, China.

Following the recommendations of two committees convened to design the programs -- a master's of management science and an executive M.B.A. -- the faculty sent the M.M.S. program back to the drawing board, with the E.M.B.A. program’s fate contingent on a redesign of the M.M.S. The faculty decisions also put off a review by the full university faculty that has been scheduled for this month -- and those moves could jeopardize plans to open the China campus in fall 2012.

The decision is another blow to Duke’s plans to create a campus in China, and reinforces complaints that the university's administration pushed forward on the campus without faculty approval. Over the past year, faculty members and outside observers have criticized the university’s administration for pushing ahead on the program in the face of poor financial projections. They also have argued that faculty members have not been as involved in the planning process as they should have been.

Some of those critics said the rejection of the programs could be the death knell for the controversial plan, which has already been criticized as financially infeasible. Administrators and business school faculty say the decision will not kill the campus, but is just one step in a deliberative process that will make the China campus stronger and more viable and exactly the kind of deliberation that critics say has been lacking from the process...

Full tale at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/06/06/duke_university_faculty_reject_degree_programs_for_china_campus