Building the First Global Network University

Building the First Global Network University

Description

I am delighted to write in honour of Bert van der Zwaan, whose seminal book Higher Education in 2040 - A Global Approach has influenced an entire generation of leaders in higher education. This essay provides just one example of how New York University has embraced Rector van der Zwaan’s concepts of global higher education. In 2006, leadership teams in Abu Dhabi and New York University set ambitious goals as they conceptualized the partnership that created NYU Abu Dhabi. They hoped to attract academic leaders and students who were as outstanding as those at the world’s finest universities. A decade later, even those expectations would prove modest compared to what has happened. From the beginning, NYU Abu Dhabi was envisioned as a research university, with all that implies, into which a liberal arts college would be fully integrated. Beginning in 2007, three years before the first freshman would arrive, the team set out to recruit faculty members. Some would circulate periodically from among existing faculty at NYU New York. Others would be selected by the departments or units in New York specifically to be in Abu Dhabi most of the time. Together, they would develop the liberal arts curriculum of the new campus. That same year, some of NYU’s lead faculty began research projects in Abu Dhabi that operated jointly with work being conducted in New York. And faculty members began to call leading experts from around the globe to conferences in Abu Dhabi—several dozen each year—that spanned the disciplines. The initial team leader was one of New York’s leading deans, who moved to Abu Dhabi with her husband and young children. The successful president of one of America’s leading liberal arts colleges left that college to become the inaugural vice chancellor of NYU Abu Dhabi. A leader of a major initiative in genomics in New York moved with his family to Abu Dhabi, co-locating his lab, to be the campus provost, even as a new genomics building and faculty hiring initiative had begun in New York. And so on, from admissions to public safety to student life to technology, many of the very best faculty and staff joined the project with enthusiasm. Those who chose to join NYUAD had different motivations. Some of NYU’s leading faculty were drawn by the mission and the opportunity to build a curriculum, such as the innovative science curriculum that was unencumbered by the obstacles associated with reforming an existing structure. Others were attracted by research interests, as was the case with a Middle Eastern Studies professor whose hope, now realized, was to organize definitive translations of major Arabic language works, or the linguistic neuroscientist who was interested in the languages of the region. By September 2010, when the first undergraduates arrived, there was already a well-established culture of advanced academic research, while faculty teams committed to teaching and mentoring the incoming class had implemented the foundations of the new curriculum. Not surprisingly, the groundbreaking undergraduate opportunity in Abu Dhabi appealed to a high-talent group of students. The admissions team sought a cohort of students—literally from around the globe—who were ‘clearly admissible, on the traditional norms, to ANY college or university in the world’. But, from the start, the admissions team understood that finding students who met this traditional standard alone would not be enough. Each admitted student had to manifest a ‘cosmopolitan gene’ that revealed a commitment to creating a global community that relished diversity. The NYU Abu Dhabi admissions process occurs in two stages. The first stage is similar to the standard processes at most top schools: an assessment of a file of academic achievements and standardized tests. In this first stage, the team assesses the candidate on traditional criteria and makes a judgment call about the applicant’s commitment to ecumenical values. From this assessment, a set of ‘finalists’ (about five per cent of all applicants) is created; these finalists are then brought to Abu Dhabi for a two-day Candidates’ Weekend—the second stage—consisting of interviews, classes, written exercises, and other tests. After this latter assessment, where the staff evaluates not only intellectual talent but also the commitment to the values of the enterprise, a decision is made whether to offer admissions. About half of the students who come to the Candidates’ Weekend receive offers.

Source Publication

Places of Engagement: Reflections on Higher Education in 2040 - A Global Approach

Source Editors/Authors

Armand Heijnen, Rob Van der Vaart

Publication Date

2018

Building the First Global Network University

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