For Students
Information for students
Dear Fuqua community,
As Duke University shares plans for the fall, detailed in President Price’s message below, we at Fuqua have been thinking deeply about how we continue our mission while also keeping each other safe. We would not open our campus in any capacity if we did not believe, based on medical guidance, that we can safely do so. Our team also understands we will never be able to assure a zero percent risk. However, we are confident in the policies Duke and Fuqua have developed in partnership with some of the world’s most knowledgeable health experts, which we are fortunate to have at the University.
I am writing to explain what the University guidance outlined below means for our community at Fuqua.
The most significant development for us is the policy for COVID-19 testing, governed by the University and not locally by Fuqua:
I am personally grateful the University has evolved its original testing guidance. The new policies are an important step in ensuring we are doing all we can to protect the health and safety of our community on campus.
As another mechanism to help keep each other safe, Duke’s campus and Fuqua’s facilities will have restricted access.
We will continue our plans to operate in a hybrid classroom model – meaning some students will join classes in person while others will participate virtually. For faculty in high-risk categories, courses may be fully online. The restrictions regarding limited capacity in Duke’s residence halls do not apply to our graduate students who all live off campus. As a reminder however, the campus environment will look far different than it did last fall. As previously announced, the following protocols are in place:
We feel these policies will allow us to keep one another safe, and therefore open our residential programs to students who choose to participate in person. We feel these protocols also enable us to hold longer EMBA residencies safely for those working professional students who choose to come to campus. However, any residential activities of duration shorter than a week will remain online for the near future, a decision that affects 1- and 3-day residency activities in our Weekend Executive MBA program.
Given a 48-hour turnaround to complete required Duke testing on campus before coming to class, we do not feel it is worth any students traveling to campus for these shorter program immersions, as they would be arriving on Duke’s campus only to be isolated in their rooms for most of their experience until they received test results.
We know this will be very disappointing to many of our working professional students. However, Fuqua will revisit the possibility of running these short residencies in person at whatever point the following conditions allow:
Program deans will be following up with additional relevant information for their students. As you are aware, conditions evolve rapidly and we will be constantly evaluating and reassessing our guidance and protocols. You can expect to hear from us often in coming weeks as additional policies are codified and there is additional Fuqua guidance to share.
While we will be answering many of your specific questions in coming days, if you have an urgent question please continue to email covid19questions@fuqua.duke.edu if you are a student and covid19response@fuqua.duke.edu if you are a staff or faculty member. Team members are continually monitoring both addresses and will respond back to you as soon as an answer is available.
This is a challenging time for all of us – but we must remember, it is temporary. We will get through this together. In the meantime, we must do all we can to stay healthy and protect each other’s health. It is essential that we care and look out for each other. Now – more than ever – we must commit to the decency that guides us in doing what is right for each member of Team Fuqua.
Stay well,
Bill
Information for students
Information for faculty
Information for staff
Information for admits, applicants, and prospects