First Satellite Campus for Tisch School of the Arts; Inaugural Class in Graduate Film Production to Begin in Singapore in Fall 2007
New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts has announced it will open its first-ever branch campus in Singapore. The Tisch School of the Arts Asia, Singapore Campus will offer an M.F.A. in film production, and classes will begin in the fall of 2007 with administrative and classroom facilities located in its own building in the city’s main business district. This is the first time NYU is offering a degree outside New York, and it is expected that the program will ultimately enroll some 250 students.
The Tisch School’s Graduate Film Division will provide its concentrated three-year course of study integrating the theory and practice of feature filmmaking at the Singapore campus. And while classes will take place in Singapore, the courses will be taught by New York faculty in residence on the Singapore campus.
“Asia has a burgeoning community of artists with a rich history of artistic expression, and Singapore is situated geographically in the middle of it all,” said Mary Schmidt Campbell, dean of the Tisch School of the Arts and associate provost for the arts at NYU. “Moreover, the island nation of Singapore, with the help of the country’s Economic Development Board; Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts; Media Development Authority; and National Arts Council, is on the road to becoming an important regional and global media center.
“The decision to open a campus in Singapore is a response to these factors, in part, and to the demand for quality film training in the region. We think we are the right school to deliver that training, and we are committed to conferring graduate degrees at the same high level of professionalism and educational quality as our programs in New York.”
NYU has a significant global presence in higher education. The University sends more students abroad for study than any other U.S. university, with a presence on three continents in addition to North America, and continues to add new Study Abroad sites. It draws in to its Greenwich Village campus one of the largest groups of foreign students and scholars in the U.S. And it has developed joint degree programs with the National University of Singapore in law and with the London School of Economics and the HEC School of Management in Paris, among other initiatives.
“NYU’s global vision of higher learning continues to progress strongly and surely with this undertaking by the Tisch School of the Arts,” said NYU President John Sexton. “And we are embracing, as in this case, bold, new ideas, opportunities, and partnerships that will make an NYU education accessible to students in other parts of the globe. By transporting the Tisch School of the Arts’ world class graduate film program to Singapore, we are able to offer an NYU degree from one of our country’s premiere film programs and create a blueprint for new global efforts by NYU.”
Lim Siong Guan, chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board, said, “We are very pleased that the Tisch School of the Arts has chosen to set up its first-ever international campus in Singapore. Tisch is a welcome addition to Singapore’s Global Schoolhouse program, which offers a diverse range of high-quality education choices to students from many parts of the world.
“Singapore now offers internationally-recognized course offerings ranging from business, wealth management, and digital animation to arts and fashion, culinary arts, luxury brand management, and hospitality. There are already 16 leading foreign universities with significant presence in Singapore under the Global Schoolhouse program. As a school of world repute, Tisch Asia is a boost to our efforts in attracting specialized institutions, where we already host the DigiPen Institute of Technology, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Tisch Asia will contribute significantly to the development of our creative industries.”
Pari Shirazi, vice dean at the Tisch School, said, “With the establishment of Tisch Asia in Singapore, we have a tremendous opportunity to reach an untapped pool of new artists in a region that is rapidly growing into a thriving marketplace for the international film and television industries. Singapore will provide our students with a global perspective as it is a central destination for business, cultural, and arts opportunities.”
The Singapore campus building, formerly a television production center, will undergo major renovations and will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and production facility. It will feature the same outstanding production resources as those at the New York campus, including film and script libraries, production and post-production centers, soundstages, scene shops, editing labs, foley studios, and screening rooms.
“In Singapore, as in New York, we expect our students will come from many cultures with varied sensibilities,” said John Tintori, chair of the Graduate Film Division. “When one adds to Singapore’s cultural diversity its architectural variety and distinctiveness, as well as the country’s extraordinary natural environment, our students will have an outstanding opportunity for making films. This vibrant coming together of disparate inspirations is the very essence of our program in New York, and can only be replicated in another environment as fertile as Singapore’s.”
The Graduate Film Production Program will offer a concentrated three-year course of study, integrating theory and practice in an effort to develop individual creative filmmaking potential. It provides detailed instruction and practical experience in the various aspects of filmmaking, including writing, directing, acting, cinematography, editing, and sound recording and mixing. The program also seeks to educate students in the workings of the industry and the demands of a career in film.
For more information about the program and admission details, please visit: filmtv.tisch.nyu.edu; or telephone 212.998.1517.
The Tisch School of the Arts, comprising the Performing Arts Institute, the Jack H. Skirball Center for New Media and Film and the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, is one of the nation’s preeminent centers for professional training, scholarship, and research in the performing and cinematic arts. It offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees and draws students from around the world. Nearly 3,000 students pursue degrees in acting, dance, design, drama, musical theatre, recorded music, performance studies, film and television, cinema studies, dramatic writing, photography, and interactive telecommunications.