In a campus-wide e-mail Friday, NYU president John Sexton and provost David McLaughlin announced that China's Ministry of Education approved the university's proposal to open a degree-granting campus in Shanghai. If completed, NYU Shanghai would give the university a total of three degree-granting campuses, two of which would be overseas.
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In the e-mail, Sexton and McLaughlin called the approval an "important step towards creating a campus," but noted that there were still many issues that need to be resolved. Notably, the budget has yet to be finalized.
In an interview with WSN, McLaughlin said the budget will not be finalized until NYU and its Chinese partners reach an operational agreement outlining the various logistical elements involved in building the campus. McLaughlin hopes that such an agreement will be reached in the coming months.
Until then, the university's plan for the new campus is based on a financial model in which the district of Pudong would pay for the construction of the campus and student tuition would cover the cost of operating the institution. The government of Shanghai will bear the remaining costs.
had with its Chinese partners], it leads us to be very optimistic about [NYU Shanghai's] likelihood," he said. "It's just a step along the way, but very important nonetheless."
For its base in Shanghai, NYU would employ what is called a vertical campus. The school's facilities — classrooms, dormitories and common areas — would be housed in a tower.
McLaughlin speculated that NYU would also move its study abroad program, NYU in Shanghai, to the vertical campus. The Liberal Studies Program's new first-year program in Shanghai, similar to the already existing ones in London, Paris and Florence, may also be housed in the Pudong campus.
In the 2011-12 academic year, NYU plans to begin an executive education program, which will not grant degrees. A degree-granting, professional Masters program would begin in the 2012-13 academic year, and in the fall of 2013, NYU hopes to welcome its first undergraduate class to NYU Shanghai.
In November, the university told WSN that the undergraduate program at NYU Shanghai could ultimately have as many as 2,400 students, but today's announcement said the school now only expects 1,600 students.
"We used to think we'd go as high as 2,400 undergraduates, but we believe that 1,600 is the right size," McLaughlin said, "because that's the size of the elite liberal arts colleges in the States."
McLaughlin also said NYU Shanghai would not just be a school for Chinese students.
"I've been told that people are reading the letter we sent as if it says or indicates or implies that NYU Shanghai will be composed of only Chinese nationals, and that is not the case," he said. "The undergraduate population will have a majority of Chinese nationals, but it will have a large number of students from all over Asia and the rest of the world, including the United States."
This perception is partly a result of a portion of the e-mail which read, "The students will mostly be drawn from China (where we will choose students from among the top secondary school graduates), but we anticipate that it will draw talented students and faculty from throughout the world."
McLaughlin said that students studying abroad from New York or Abu Dhabi, as well as LSP's first-year program, would add to the international contingent of the school.
Last week's announcement came after years of speculation and is the university's first public statement on the campus, outside of several interviews with WSN last semester.
The addition of a second degree-granting campus outside of New York is key to NYU's plan to become a "global network university," administrators have said. With this goal, NYU wants to leave its "in and of the city" motto behind to become "in and of the world." A global network, by McLaughlin's definition, is an agglomeration of study abroad sites, professional programs in other countries (such as the Tisch film production program in Singapore) and international research sites, anchored by three or four degree-granting campuses. NYU already has many sites at other campuses and earlier this year, it welcomed its first freshman class to NYU Abu Dhabi, the school's first degree-granting campus outside of New York.
While they have no concrete plans, the university has said the administration has discussed a third international degree-granting campus in Europe.
