By Albert Amateau
A few months after New York University admitted the first freshman class to its branch campus in Abu Dhabi, the university is exploring a new overseas branch: N.Y.U. Shanghai.
The school, in the Pudong district of the city, would be the Greenwich Village university’s third overseas degree-granting campus if the city of Shanghai subsidizes the operating costs and the district of Pudong pays for land and construction costs. N.Y.U. administrators are exploring whether the university has its own funding for design and educational resources, according to David McLaughlin, N.Y.U. provost.
If finally approved, N.Y.U. Shanghai could admit its first class as early as the fall of 2013 for as many as 3,400 undergraduate and graduate students, most of them Chinese in the beginning.
“No N.Y.U New York tuition dollars will go into it,” McLaughlin told Washington Square News, the undergraduate newspaper published at the Washington Square campus.
All courses would be taught in English but at the end of four years all students would have to be fluent in English and Mandarin, according to the Washington Square News article.
The article also quotes N.Y.U. faculty members who are concerned about academic and intellectual freedom in campuses like Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.
“These are not fully open societies. Although many people see great opportunity, there’s also concern,” Professor Floyd Hammack told Washington Square News.
McLaughlin, however, said that the campus would operate under full academic freedom.
“That’s in the agreement with our partners,” he said.
