April 23, 2008
Dear Neighbors, Friends, and Fellow Members of the NYU Community,
Nine months ago, we began a new and different conversation with you about NYU's future growth. Too often in the past, the University had disappointed with its opaque development decisions. With the start of the planning process known as "NYU Plans 2031," we committed to a new course - an open, attentive, and interactive process that, while acknowledging NYU's need to grow, would ultimately yield a planning framework that would be comprehensible, far more predictable, and guided by agreed-upon principles.
Today we have achieved an important milestone - the presentation of the final recommendations of our outside planning team, led by the firm SMWM. Their recommendations - displayed around you in Hemmerdinger Hall - have been informed to a very great extent by all of you who have spent time in our open houses, attended meetings at NYU, or participated in meetings with local groups. On behalf of the NYU community, I offer you my deep appreciation, not only for your time but for the seriousness with which you engaged in this dialogue.
Along with our appreciation, though, I ask for your continued involvement tonight and over the coming months, for we still have much work to do. In the months ahead, the University will conduct in-depth assessments of the financial feasibility, phasing options, and implications of our consultants' recommendations, and we want to continue to have a dialogue with you through the summer and beyond. In the fall, we expect to make preliminary decisions about NYU's preferred strategy for physical growth as we plan for our future.
We live in an age when New York is a world capital, a beacon, and a magnet. This stature arises from the peerless energy, creativity, and vibrancy of its people and its institutions. However, if NYU's own transformation offers any lessons, it is that one should avoid the tendency to believe that what is true today is necessarily fixed forever. Our city's continued leadership as one of the world's great "idea capitals" is not assured. To sustain that position, we especially need strong, vibrant research universities to draw in talented people to educate and be educated, to conduct cutting edge research, to teach in the City's schools, work in its nonprofits and businesses, and to fill the world with ideas that can improve health, bring peace, and enhance prosperity.
An indispensable element in achieving this academic vibrancy and strength is physical space: to create laboratories, to hold classes, to house scholars and artists and students who will answer our call to come to New York to make contributions to our city's intellectual, cultural, and educational life. At NYU in particular, we are committed to sustaining the drive that has changed and improved our University so dramatically over the last 15 - 20 years.
Everyone who lives and works in New York understands the preciousness of space. Though it is imperative for NYU to sustain its academic growth, it is also imperative to do so in a way that recognizes we are part of a wonderful neighborhood. I am grateful for your help in enabling us to better understand the delicate balance between NYU's needs and those of our neighbors.
Sincerely,
John Sexton