By Albert Amateau
New York University’s affiliation with Polytechnic University, the Brooklyn engineering school, became official July 1 following the final approval on June 24 by the New York State Education Department of Education Board of Regents.
The Brooklyn school will be renamed the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, but for a few years will operate as a separate entity run by its own board of directors until it gradually integrates with N.Y.U.’s other schools.
The Board of Regents’ approval of the amendment to Polytechnic’s charter to allow the merger came after a four-month delay provoked by Polytechnic’s Alumni Association’s objections and demand for an investigation.
A report issued in May by State Senator Kenneth LaValle of Long Island dismissed most of the Polytechnic Alumni Association’s objections but criticized Polytechnic’s board of trustees for using three-year-old real estate appraisals in negotiations and excluding dissenting trustees from the board’s merger committees. The report also criticized Polytechnic President Jerry Hultin for not telling trustees about merger negotiations until six months after they began.
“This is a great day for N.Y.U., for Poly and for New York,” said N.Y.U. Provost David McLaughlin on June 24 following the affiliation’s approval. “It reconnects N.Y.U. to an engineering research and education capacity that we have not had for over three decades, and for Poly it connects a venerable school of engineering and technology to a national research university.”
In 1973, N.Y.U. sold its University Heights campus in the Bronx, where the university’s School of Engineering was located. Most of the engineering faculty at the time transferred to Polytechnic University.
