Exchange Magazine, Fall 2003 - Duke University's Fuqua School of ...

14 FUQUA EXCHANGE
STAYING CONNECTED
FEATURE BY PAMELA BABCOCK
When engineer Dave Raaf (Global Executive class of 2003)
researched business schools, he quickly nixed programs that
would have restricted his business travel. Working on an
ExxonMobil Development Co. pipeline project off the coast of
Nigeria required more than a year in Paris and frequent travel
in Europe, Indonesia and Malaysia. Fuqua’s use of technology
meant Raaf could stay on the job without making weekend
trips to a home campus.
“Fuqua has made it very easy to stay connected,” Raaf says
from Paris, adding that “the tools available electronically are
fantastic. It provides the best solution for me whether I’m in
Houston, Paris, Jakarta or enjoying a layover in an airport.”
Fuqua’s a leader in connecting with students, alums, friends
and others—whether they’re in Durham or continents away—
with technology that’s exciting, innovative, people-oriented
and thoughtful.
On any given day, Raaf’s professors use a virtual learning
environment that includes bulletin boards, chat tools, CDs,
flash presentations, audio files and e-mail “to teach and learn
with us,” he says. Recently, Economics Professor James Anton
immersed students in video segments from The Maltese
Falcon, The Princess Bride and Dr. Strangelove to demonstrate
game theory, while Professors Gerry DeSanctis, Bob Price and
Fuqua alumnus, Gary Mayo ’98, led chats on technology management
and corporate responsibility.
“One thing that has helped to take the school forward is this
unique and thoughtful approach,” says Nevin Fouts, Fuqua’s
associate dean for information technology. “The sense of connectiveness
is critical to all of Fuqua’s environments—for
folks who are largely here at the Durham campus or who are
not connected because they are separated by distance.”
“Place and space” is Fuqua’s signature approach to learning,
and is perhaps most evident in the Global Executive program,
which debuted in 1996. During the 19-month program, multidisciplined
student teams convene face-to-face only five times
with faculty in North America, Europe, Asia and South
America. Between residential sessions, faculty members deliver
instruction using interactive, distance-education technology
designed to complement and extend the classroom experience.
The approach is also used in the Cross Continent and Weekend
Executive MBA programs.
“A lot of times people think distance learning is almost as
good as being there, but we actually think the mixture of ‘place
and space’ makes the experience stronger,” says Pete Goldberg,
director of Fuqua’s Center for Excellence in Business
Education and Distributed Learning Support. “We’re working
with a population of students that are engaged in their jobs
while they are in school, and who are based all over the world.
They bring that perspective into the program.”
Students not only benefit from others’ international work
and cultural experiences, but technology may even level the
playing field. A student reticent to participate in a classroom
because of personality or cultural issues “may actually thrive in
an environment using technology,” Goldberg says. For example,
students for whom English is not their native language may
flourish on discussion boards, where they can read and digest
information before formulating a response.
Fuqua has a staff of IT professionals supporting distance
education,including content developers who work with faculty
to create programs, software engineers who can build small
applications or distance learning tools and support staff who
can help put up web sites, train students and faculty and
troubleshoot problems.
Fuqua’s overall web space includes its external web and the
FuquaWorld intranet, where students, faculty and staff can reference
events, view announcements, look up classmate
pictures, search for alumni and watch multimedia messages
from Fuqua leaders and service organizations. There’s also a
link for executive MBA students to virtual learning environments,
and AlumniLink, which features links to Fuqua news,
events and directories, as well as Fuqua’s career management
center, Duke Corporate Education, lifetime e-mail forwarding,
the Fuqua Store and more. All are connected through the
Internet.
“The AlumniLink has worked pretty well for me,” says
Jordan Friedman ’04, an intern with IBM’s Blue Fusion project
in Raleigh. “Technologically, being able to search by different
fields for alums by companies or by geographic region and