East Coast Ramblings of a West Coast Girl

I am not making a fancy play on words involving "E" and "Miracle" to mean something like it's a digital/internetical (yes, I made that word up) miracle.

Recently NYU has sealed the deal to make an overseas campus in Abu Dhabi, the very wealthy (the richest city-state in the world) and modernizing capital of the United Arab Emirates. This campus would be, in a sense, our sister university in Abu Dhabi, providing the university with all of the liberal arts majors that exist here in New York, being a full-fledged undergraduate campus with all the trimmings. With this expansion, our President Sexton hopes that the student body will grow, with an additional 4,000 students added to the university.

I've mentioned before that NYU is big on "globalization". We have Study Abroad sites all over the world: Paris, Florence, Prague, Singapore, London, and those are just to name a few. It's great, I think, because we've become a university that encourages its students to step outside of the United States and really learn about life outside of Wal-Marts and big automobiles. Studying abroad really helps you fine-tune your cultural understanding of places overseas and helps hone your own interpretations of the community you came from, which is always something encouraged.

You may not be aware of this, but not only has Abu Dhabi bought the NYU's diploma-giving powers, but they also have a performing arts center, a Guggenheim art museum, and also, their own Louvre. The Louvre plans on sending 300 pieces of art to Abu Dhabi which will stay for 20 years in exchange for a hefty check of 1 billion euros. This will all start in 2012, with the Guggenheim project finishing in 2018, and the first class of NYU Abu Dhabi to begin class in 2010.

It seems to be like a good and innovative idea: create great relations, expand the university to show how bad-ass we can be, and all the while get some more money (scratch that: a lot more) to help the Washington Square campus out. The thing is that these Abu Dhabi students will be getting a real NYU diploma without even having to set foot in New York City (which is one of NYU's claims to fame). But, what will the NYU diploma really be worth after this expansion?

I do love NYU very, very much. It has provided me with a great education, great professors, but like many other people, I do think that we're going to be spread too thinly. With some professors going overseas to teach, and many strategically planning the courses for Abu Dhabi while in New York, what's to become of New York University in, well, New York? Despite all the good of NYU, there are still so many tiny glitches that we can still tweak here at home.

There are some housing issues that can be addressed, tuition issues (definitely), and even issues with our gym that can't even provide us with proper tennis courts (who plays on a roof, or on a gym floor?). Think of the students! Sure, you'll give us a hug, but will you make it possible for us to have more places on campus to just hang out quietly? Another library, maybe? Or maybe you can improve your bus system for those of us who live too far from campus (despite living in your dorms), or give us a subway pass if you won't fix the buses. I'll even take a card to get into New York's museums for free.

I like that NYU is working on competing with the Ivy League schools in the country, and that competitive edge is really doing something good, I think. It's nice: you're trying to make us one of the top ten greatest universities by 2020. Excellent.

As we discussed in one of my classes last semester, NYU is really not just an educational institution, but it is like a corporation. We are advertising to people, we are trying to pull more people into our sphere of influence. Could we be the new McDonald's super-giant?

However, you still have insecurities about the taboo-level of some of our very liberal classes that are traveling overseas, and other topics that I don't really want to discuss right now. You still have a few unhappy students that are mingling around Washington Square. We adore NYU, which is why we come (and stay) here.

Just don't skip over some actions you could take to improve our institution while you're creating a new campus abroad.

(http://nymag.com/news/features/46000/)