[MUSIC PLAYING]
BILL KIRBY: So welcome to Kunshan Duke Daxue, Duke Kunshan University.
And here we are at DKU in its final months of construction
in the middle of Kunshan in the middle of Jiangsu provence.
And I'm here with Dr. Mary Brown Bullock,
who's the executive vice chancellor for Duke Kunshan University.
And Mary thank you very much for welcoming us.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: Well, thank you for being here.
This is you fourth, fifth, sixth time?
BILL KIRBY: I've been here many times.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: Many times, right.
So you've seen these building grown.
BILL KIRBY: I've seen these buildings grow.
And I've seen grow here-- and I've never imagined quite frankly it
would be as beautiful as it is, this main academic building.
But we're in the middle of the most ambitious American effort
in higher education in China, since the building
of the Yenching University in the late 1920s, a university that
would have an enormous impact on China in the Republican period and then
still today as the campus of Peking University.
So Mary tell us what's behind us and what's going on.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: Well, as Bill said, we
are in the final months of construction Duke Kunshan University.
We will open in August for our first classes.
BILL KIRBY: Of 2014, so this may be aired after that.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: 2014, and the building behind you
is the centerpiece of the campus.
We call it the academic building.
You can see that it has-- I don't know if you can pick up
the fine glass edging, but it has some elements from Suzhou Gardens,
as well as having a very distinct, modern look.
And I think that's what this campus is designed to do.
It'll be a cutting edge technologically.
But aesthetically it tries to draw on the region we're in, the Jiangnan
region, particularly the Suzhou region with canals and lakes.
You can't see it here, but there will be water everywhere on campus.
And instead of a grass quadrangle, we have
a lake in the center of the campus.
So this is one of the ways that we're trying
to really develop the elements of the region.
This building will house faculty, students, auditorium, classrooms,
dining room.
It's about 200,000 square feet.
But as you can also see, we have four additional buildings,
which will be opening this fall.
And we will have housing for 200 students, a 200 bed conference center.
You're welcome to come and use our conference center.
BILL KIRBY: Thank you.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: And a service building.
So this is really the beginning of Duke Kunshan University.
BILL KIRBY: And it's phase one of Duke Kunshan University.
It's phase one of three on a 200 acre campus right
in the heart of the fastest developing part of China between Shanghai
and Nanjing-- right in the heart of what may someday be, I think,
a city called Nanhai-- Nanjing-Shanghai.
Or maybe not just a city, because this will ideally remain green.
Now in terms of getting around, so much water here, will you have gondolas?
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: No, I don't think-- we have beautiful bridges.
We have beautiful bridges that evoke a Chinese bridge feeling.
But it's actually true that when you come from the student dormitory
to the classroom, you have to go across two bridges.
So that will be kind of fun.
I think we all enjoy seeing the lake in its final manifestations.
BILL KIRBY: Well, we're here right before the opening.
And this will air after the opening.
And we'll know a bit more at that point how things have gone.
But it's an extraordinary effort and extraordinary ambition
on the part of Duke and also on the part of Kunshan.
So congratulations, you're almost there.
MARY BROWN BULLOCK: We're almost there.
BILL KIRBY: Thanks, Mary