Duke Kunshan University (DKU) Advisory Board held its inaugural conference in Beijing on May 25, 2014. Prof. Yuan Ming was invited to be the founding member presents the meeting. The meeting was hosted by G. Richard Wagoner Jr., former Chairman and CEO of General Motors (GM) as well as the first Chairman of DKU Advisory Board, and it was attended by Richard H. Brodhead, President of Duke University, Li Xiaohong, President of Wuhan University, Academician Liu Jingnan, President of DKU, leaders of Kunshan municipal party committee and other founding members of DKU Advisory Board.

DKU formally announced the establishment of its first advisory board on January 13, 2014 with members comprised of distinguished leaders from domestic and international business communities, academic field and social public areas. The members share DKU’s philosophy and are ready to offer help, including former Chairman and CEO of GM who chairs the first session of DKU Advisory Board, Dennis M. Nally, President of PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) Global, Gao Xiqing, former Vice Chairman and General Manager of China Investment Co., Ltd, Clark T. Randt Jr., former U.S. Ambassador, and Wang Jian, Chairman of Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), etc. The DKU advisory board is a volunteer organization that provides strategic guidance and consulting service regarding DKU’s positioning, development and mission. 

During the one-day meeting, the committee members explored the orientation, development advantages and strategic mission of DKU, and it led to a consensus  concluded that the knowledge should better serve the society under the background of globalization. DKU should combine Chinese and American advanced cultures, aiming to establish a first-rate university in the world by fully applying the new model of Sino-foreign cooperative operation of schools and based on the powerful faculty, frontier curriculum planning and innovative educational concepts. Only in this way can intellectual theories be integrated with practices perfectly to cultivate talented elites possessing international strategy and global vision. The meeting’s agenda also included a discussion on topics such as DKU Global Health Program and sustainable development.