NYU Abu Dhabi gets green light

Officials said Friday they had reached agreement to launch an Abu Dhabi branch of New York University.

A formal announcement was made by Martin Lipton, chair of NYU’s board of trustees, John Sexton, president of NYU and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, according to news agency WAM.

The campus, the first of its kind to be established abroad by a major US research university, is set to receive students by 2010.

Mariet Westermann was named as Vice Chancellor to lead the effort from NYU’s Washington Square Campus, WAM reported.

The campus will include classroom, library and information technology facilities, laboratories, academic buildings, dormitories, faculty and residential housing, student services and athletic and performance facilities. Site selection and campus planning are currently underway.

Land, funding and financing for development, construction, equipment, maintenance and operation will be provided by the Abu Dhabi government.

According to Sexton, "This is an extraordinarily exciting and challenging opportunity. NYU was established 175 years ago as a university and it will always remain firmly anchored in Washington Square, but as a foundation, not a limitation. It is in NYU's institutional nature to be open to change and to see and grasp opportunities others would not".

“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” he added.

Classes will be conducted in English and will be co-educational. Undergraduate courses and majors will be comparable to a typical US university of the same size with appropriate graduate programmes also on offer. Students will be offered opportunities to spend a semester on the Washington Square Campus.

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READERS' COMMENTS

NYU Globalization of Education
Posted by Prof Philbert, Toronto, Canada on Sunday 14 October 2007 at 06:00 UAE time

It is a great strategic move to open a campus at Abu Dhabi - the capital of UAE and link with mainstream education from Washington Square. All the best to the new Vice Chancellor and her team at NYU.

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