Dear Fuqua community,

As we enter into the season of thanks and reflection, I want to take a moment to tell you how profoundly thankful I am for this institution and for each of you.

Fuqua is in a tremendous position of strength, due to the innumerable contributions of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. When the pandemic hit, we had a goal not just to survive, but to come out on the other side better than we were pre-COVID. 

In every way, the Fuqua School is stronger today than at any time in our now 50-year history. Because of this strength, now is the time for someone else to write the next chapter of the Fuqua story. I plan to stay on as dean for the rest of my term and until a new dean is in place in 2024, but have decided not to seek another 5-year term.

Just a few factors that make me feel confident in the health of our school include:

• Sustained innovation: Even for a school built on the premise of relevance, with innovation in our DNA, we have embarked on a period of unprecedented innovation. We launched new programs and reinvented existing ones – consistently staying ahead of our peers. We introduced programs to harness the power of big data; brought the Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) designation, and its accompanying visa benefits, to the business school industry; and rethought teaching technology to simultaneously emphasize accessibility and human connectivity. The market has welcomed these innovations, allowing us to create a virtuous cycle of investment in student, faculty, staff, and program excellence.
• Student quality—inbound: We continue to attract talented students from all over the world who represent the diversity of the global workforce. Across our programs we are roughly at gender parity. On a relative basis we can look to our Daytime MBA students to see how we stack up against competition. Given our ability to successfully differentiate Fuqua, we have become increasingly attractive as an MBA destination. In fact, we are now among the five most selective business schools in this country. Importantly, this increased selectivity does not mean we have become exclusive in the wrong ways. Rather, we have achieved inclusive excellence. Of the elite business schools, we are the most diverse, with women making up 48% of the Class of 2024, students drawn from 55 countries, and 25% of our U.S. students identifying as underrepresented minorities. At the same time, our entering class GMAT range rose by 10 points year over year to a record high. No disrespect to our past graduates, but every year our students get better and better. 
• Student quality—outbound: This past year saw record employment performance across our programs with big jumps in pay for our MQM and Daytime MBA students. While the official data have not yet been released for the MQM graduates, results for our Daytime graduates show both record-high job acceptance rates and salaries. We continue to partner with many top-tier employers and attract new employers each year. All of this points to the strength of our graduates, across all of our programs, in the marketplace and the immediate value our alumni bring to their companies. In addition to being a top-five destination for students, we are a top-five destination from the perspective of employment markets.
• Faculty quality: We welcomed more than half a dozen new faculty members in marketing, strategy, accounting, and finance, including Mike Krzyzewski—Coach K—who recently retired from Duke as the all-time winningest coach in Division I men's college basketball. Coach K will continue to inform how we teach leadership through his work with our Fuqua/Coach K Center for Leadership and Ethics (COLE). Our new faculty join an existing group that leads business schools across the globe on a per capita basis in publishing their research findings in the elite journals. Moreover, given the number of rising stars on our faculty, we are on track to be in a position of sustained intellectual leadership for years to come.
• Integration with Big Duke: Over the summer, the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative (I&E) transitioned to its new home at Fuqua. This transition has already paid dividends for Fuqua students with new courses and career support for those choosing to enter the world of start-ups. We think the transition will also greatly benefit the entire University, bringing together more robust networks of students from across campus with an interest in entrepreneurship. The change also provides a mechanism to support Fuqua faculty teaching in the undergraduate I&E Certificate program, something that’s both exciting for our faculty and great for the undergraduate students. 
• Great facilities: If you haven’t seen the latest addition to the Fuqua campus, please visit and stay at the JB Duke, which is a beautiful four-diamond property that serves our Global Executive and Weekend Executive MBA students, along with our non-degree executive education participants. It felt a bit lonely during the height of COVID, but is now back to being a bustling destination supporting events at Fuqua and on the Duke campus.
• Alumni engagement and support: Our alumni and broader community continue to fuel Fuqua in amazing ways. Last year, close to 2,000 alumni gave back to the school through volunteer efforts – from recruiting prospective students to bringing together the alumni community and everything in between. Alumni have also stepped up financial contributions dramatically, leading us to record levels of unrestricted Annual Fund support and endowed gifts for scholarships, faculty, and programs. There is still much to do to be competitive with our peers, but your generosity is inspiring and critical to advancing our mission. 

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the role each of you has played in these successes and more.

I am thankful beyond measure for the privilege of serving Team Fuqua for so many years. While my tenure may be ending in 2024, you can rest assured that we will not take our foot off the gas during this transition. After all, we are Team Fuqua, which means we will continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards of excellence as we constantly aspire to relevance and seek to improve the world through our ideas and our graduates.

Best wishes,

Bill 

Bill Boulding
Dean and J.B. Fuqua Professor of Business Administration
Duke's Fuqua School of Business

Dear Fuqua community,

As we enter into the season of thanks and reflection, I want to take a moment to tell you how profoundly thankful I am for this institution and for each of you.

Fuqua is in a tremendous position of strength, due to the innumerable contributions of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. When the pandemic hit, we had a goal not just to survive, but to come out on the other side better than we were pre-COVID. 

In every way, the Fuqua School is stronger today than at any time in our now 50-year history. Because of this strength, now is the time for someone else to write the next chapter of the Fuqua story. I plan to stay on as dean for the rest of my term and until a new dean is in place in 2024, but have decided not to seek another 5-year term.

Just a few factors that make me feel confident in the health of our school include:

• Sustained innovation: Even for a school built on the premise of relevance, with innovation in our DNA, we have embarked on a period of unprecedented innovation. We launched new programs and reinvented existing ones – consistently staying ahead of our peers. We introduced programs to harness the power of big data; brought the Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) designation, and its accompanying visa benefits, to the business school industry; and rethought teaching technology to simultaneously emphasize accessibility and human connectivity. The market has welcomed these innovations, allowing us to create a virtuous cycle of investment in student, faculty, staff, and program excellence.
• Student quality—inbound: We continue to attract talented students from all over the world who represent the diversity of the global workforce. Across our programs we are roughly at gender parity. On a relative basis we can look to our Daytime MBA students to see how we stack up against competition. Given our ability to successfully differentiate Fuqua, we have become increasingly attractive as an MBA destination. In fact, we are now among the five most selective business schools in this country. Importantly, this increased selectivity does not mean we have become exclusive in the wrong ways. Rather, we have achieved inclusive excellence. Of the elite business schools, we are the most diverse, with women making up 48% of the Class of 2024, students drawn from 55 countries, and 25% of our U.S. students identifying as underrepresented minorities. At the same time, our entering class GMAT range rose by 10 points year over year to a record high. No disrespect to our past graduates, but every year our students get better and better. 
• Student quality—outbound: This past year saw record employment performance across our programs with big jumps in pay for our MQM and Daytime MBA students. While the official data have not yet been released for the MQM graduates, results for our Daytime graduates show both record-high job acceptance rates and salaries. We continue to partner with many top-tier employers and attract new employers each year. All of this points to the strength of our graduates, across all of our programs, in the marketplace and the immediate value our alumni bring to their companies. In addition to being a top-five destination for students, we are a top-five destination from the perspective of employment markets.
• Faculty quality: We welcomed more than half a dozen new faculty members in marketing, strategy, accounting, and finance, including Mike Krzyzewski—Coach K—who recently retired from Duke as the all-time winningest coach in Division I men's college basketball. Coach K will continue to inform how we teach leadership through his work with our Fuqua/Coach K Center for Leadership and Ethics (COLE). Our new faculty join an existing group that leads business schools across the globe on a per capita basis in publishing their research findings in the elite journals. Moreover, given the number of rising stars on our faculty, we are on track to be in a position of sustained intellectual leadership for years to come.
• Integration with Big Duke: Over the summer, the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative (I&E) transitioned to its new home at Fuqua. This transition has already paid dividends for Fuqua students with new courses and career support for those choosing to enter the world of start-ups. We think the transition will also greatly benefit the entire University, bringing together more robust networks of students from across campus with an interest in entrepreneurship. The change also provides a mechanism to support Fuqua faculty teaching in the undergraduate I&E Certificate program, something that’s both exciting for our faculty and great for the undergraduate students. 
• Great facilities: If you haven’t seen the latest addition to the Fuqua campus, please visit and stay at the JB Duke, which is a beautiful four-diamond property that serves our Global Executive and Weekend Executive MBA students, along with our non-degree executive education participants. It felt a bit lonely during the height of COVID, but is now back to being a bustling destination supporting events at Fuqua and on the Duke campus.
• Alumni engagement and support: Our alumni and broader community continue to fuel Fuqua in amazing ways. Last year, close to 2,000 alumni gave back to the school through volunteer efforts – from recruiting prospective students to bringing together the alumni community and everything in between. Alumni have also stepped up financial contributions dramatically, leading us to record levels of unrestricted Annual Fund support and endowed gifts for scholarships, faculty, and programs. There is still much to do to be competitive with our peers, but your generosity is inspiring and critical to advancing our mission. 

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the role each of you has played in these successes and more.

I am thankful beyond measure for the privilege of serving Team Fuqua for so many years. While my tenure may be ending in 2024, you can rest assured that we will not take our foot off the gas during this transition. After all, we are Team Fuqua, which means we will continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards of excellence as we constantly aspire to relevance and seek to improve the world through our ideas and our graduates.

Best wishes,

Bill 

Bill Boulding
Dean and J.B. Fuqua Professor of Business Administration
Duke's Fuqua School of Business