NYU to Open Campus in Abu Dhabi
Martin Lipton, chair of NYU’s Board of Trustees, President John Sexton, and His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, recently announced that they have reached an agreement to create “NYU Abu Dhabi,” a Middle Eastern campus of the University. This will be the first comprehensive liberal arts campus established abroad by a major U.S. research university. It is projected that a first class of students will enroll in 2010.
Mariët Westermann, currently director of NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, has been named a vice chancellor to lead the effort from Washington Square. The development of NYU Abu Dhabi is a major step in the evolution of NYU as a “global network university”—one with a teaching and research presence around the world through sites connected to the main campus in New York and to one another, drawing in scholars and students of talent from around the globe. NYU has one of the largest communities of international students and scholars in the U.S., and sends more students to study abroad than any other American university.
NYU Abu Dhabi will be a residential research university built with academic quality and practices consistent with the prevailing standards at NYU’s Washington Square campus, including adherence to its standards of academic freedom. The development of all the programs at the Abu Dhabi campus will be overseen by New York-based faculty and senior administrators. The campus, created using programs and standards set by NYU, will include extensive classroom, library and information technology facilities, laboratories, academic buildings, dormitories, faculty and residential housing, student services, and athletic and performance facilities.
The Abu Dhabi government has committed to provide land, funding, and financing for the development, construction, equipping, maintenance, and operation of the NYU Abu Dhabi campus. It has also made a commitment to NYU that will enhance the University’s investment in faculty and programming, both of which are important in achieving world-class educational and research opportunities at NYU, NYU Abu Dhabi, and all of its network locations.
“This is an extraordinarily exciting and challenging opportunity,” said Sexton. “NYU was established 175 years ago as a university ‘in and of the city,’ and it will always remain firmly anchored at Washington Square, but as a foundation, not a limitation. In the 21st century, NYU must also be ‘in and of the world,’ a role for which our home, New York—that most international of cities—has well prepared us, and which we will fulfill through a network of our global sites for scholarship and education. It is in NYU’s institutional nature to be open to change and to see and grasp opportunities others would not.
“This will be a great partnership, one we embrace with eagerness, but also with an understanding of the hard work to be done,” added Sexton. “We approach this moment with great intellectual excitement, but also with humility. NYU looks forward to coming to Abu Dhabi not just for the opportunity to educate young people and to embrace researchers and scholars in the region, but to be educated and changed in turn.”
Classes will be conducted in English and will be coeducational. Academic offerings will include a range of undergraduate courses and majors comparable to that found at a typical U.S. university of its size. Appropriate graduate programs will also be offered. It is expected that a portion of the faculty will be NYU faculty on rotating assignment from Washington Square. Students enrolled in NYU Abu Dhabi will also be offered opportunities to spend a semester on the Washington Square campus and a semester at one of NYU’s other global sites.
To initiate academic activities in Abu Dhabi rapidly, next year NYU will establish the “NYU Abu Dhabi Institute” to host conferences, research workshops, short courses, and seminars involving scholars and students from NYU and the Middle East. The new campus will draw students with top qualifications from around the world, particularly the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Europe. Ultimately, it is expected to have a student body upwards of 2,000. Students will be chosen based on their academic potential and qualifications as determined by NYU’s Office of Admissions, without regard to race, religion, sex, nationality, or sexual orientation.
“It is an honor to work on creating a first-rate liberal arts campus in this gateway region,” said Westermann. “This next step in the evolution of NYU’s global network will provide new opportunities for students to learn and lead, and offer our faculty new opportunities for research.”
