Alfred Bloom, President of Swarthmore College, To Lead NYU Abu Dhabi

      NYU recently announced the appointment of Alfred H. Bloom, president of Swarthmore College, as vice chancellor of New York University Abu Dhabi. NYU Abu Dhabi will consist of a highly selective liberal arts college, distinctive graduate programs, and a world center for advanced research and scholarship—all fully integrated with each other and connected to NYU in New York. Together, NYU New York and NYU Abu Dhabi will form the backbone of a unique global network university, with faculty and students from both campuses spending “semesters away” at one or more of the numerous study abroad sites NYU maintains on five continents. NYU Abu Dhabi’s first students will arrive in fall 2010.
      Bloom has already started working on the NYU Abu Dhabi project with an advance team led by Mariët Westermann, NYU’s vice chancellor for regional campus development. While completing his term as Swarthmore’s president, he will serve as a consultant; he will assume full-time leadership of NYU Abu Dhabi no later than August 2009 and will at that point take leadership of all academic and operational matters for the campus.
      “If one were listing the ideal liberal arts college, one would think immediately of Swarthmore, rightly regarded as one of the top colleges in the U.S.,” said president John Sexton. “Much of Swarthmore’s recent success flows from the leadership of its president, Al Bloom. He has increased the quality of its academic programs, expanded financial aid, enhanced diversity, and undertaken spectacular building projects, among other achievements. When a leader as accomplished, wise, and discerning as Al Bloom takes on an appointment such as this, it is a powerful ratification of what NYU and its partners are doing in Abu Dhabi.”
      “I was drawn to this project by what makes it so extraordinary: the opportunity to develop a world class center of learning and intellectual advance from the ground up, and to create an active connection with the Washington Square campus, thereby providing the foundation for a new concept of global university,” said Bloom. “I was impressed, as well, by the depth of the partnership that exists between Abu Dhabi and NYU, by the shared commitment to an institution of remarkable quality and impact. I see the challenges, but I see even more importantly the prospect of truly advancing the role of education in promoting cooperative pursuit of knowledge, global understanding, and ultimately a world that recognizes and builds on human common ground. This is a critical next step for higher education, and NYU is the university that is positioned to take it.”
      Alfred Bloom has been president of Swarthmore College since 1991 and was previously executive vice president of Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. He was appointed as an assistant professor of psychology and linguistics at Swarthmore in 1974, and named associate provost in 1985. Bloom received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1967 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1974. He is the recipient of a Doctorate of Law, honoris causa, from the University of Richmond.