International scholars attending Duke Kunshan University have been largely absent from campus in China since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020.
However, on Tuesday, an organization of DKU scholars was informed that his return to China had been officially legal, according to an email received through The Chronicle sent through Marcia France, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate studies at DKU, to legal scholars.
More than a hundred foreign academics have been approved to return to this first group, according to Lydia Jin, DKU’s senior director of strategic marketing and public relations.
The students represented nine countries: the United States, Ethiopia, France, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Pakistan, Russia and Singapore. These academics had “previously expressed their willingness to return to DKU and meet all testing and quarantine requirements,” Jin wrote. in an email to The Chronicle.
Tuesday’s email defined the next steps in the plans, adding contingency plans for academics who were scheduled to spend the fall semester at Duke’s Durham campus or at DKU’s global site in Barcelona.
Students will have to accept the offer to return to China until June 10 due to authorization time constraints, according to the email. If students decide to return, they will need to withdraw from an existing exam abroad. plan in Durham or Barcelona for autumn. The email encouraged academics to return to China in the fall due to the demanding logistical situations of the visa application process.
However, the email said DKU will “require any student to withdraw” from the Durham or Barcelona programs.
The email also included requirements for students to enter China, which states that students will be required to travel on a direct flight from their home country.
It also provided country-specific data for pre-trip COVID-19 testing requirements, ranging from 2 rt-PCR nucleic acid tests within 48 hours prior to departure to one-week closed-loop quarantine periods before boarding flights to China.
Upon arrival, students will complete a “14 7” quarantine, with two weeks of centralized quarantine (3 days in Shanghai and 11 days in Kunshan or Suzhou) followed by a week of home fitness checks expected to be at DKU accommodation, according to the email.
Once quarantine measures are complete, “students are guilty of their own fitness check and will need to comply with all COVID measures and prevention,” the email reads.
To offset and quarantine expenses, academics receiving monetary aid can apply for up to $3,000, according to the email.
A follow-up email sent across France on Tuesday to all DKU university academics expressed the administration’s plans to “keep running to download permission for all remaining foreign academics” to enter China, adding new members of the 2026 elegance.
Charlie Colasurdo is the editor-in-chief of the Kunshan Report and a senior in the undergraduate program at the Duke Kunshan campus, located on the outskirts of Shanghai, China.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Share and talk about “Over a Hundred Foreign DKU Scholars Authorized to Return to China for the First Time Since the Pandemic” on social media.