As a testament of their commitment to the liberal arts tradition in their new satellite campus, NYU has named Alfred H. Bloom, former president of Swarthmore, the head of its new Abu Dhabi campus.
This is interesting because I am pretty sure the Swarthmore version of a liberal arts tradition looks totally different than the NYU version. Which brand are they really trying to duplicate? I take issue with the way that “liberal arts education” is used at many major American universities, including my own alma mater Northwestern, so I’m curious to see whether NYU Abu Dhabi will prove any more traditional in its approach to delivering a liberal arts education than NYU New York is. (Which, based on my admittedly imprecise research, is ‘not very traditional’). This exporting of campuses seems to give American universities an oppportunity to re-brand themselves in a foreign market as much as it allows for cultural exchange.
The NYT explains this decision thus:
By naming Mr. Bloom, who has been the president of Swarthmore College since 1991, N.Y.U. officials said they hoped to signal their commitment to creating a traditional liberal arts school in a part of the world where academic freedom is a relatively new concept.
I think that this sentence says it all. Is Swarthmore any more academically free than, say, UCLA? It would be tough to design a compelling argument that either institution is more free, but if you were really set on doing so you could say that research universities are MORE academically free than small liberal arts institutions because, well, they produce more new material. Why is it more difficult to have academic freedom in “a traditional liberal arts school” (which, with respect to undergraduate curricula, is sufficiently nebulous as to be, in my opinion, practically meaningless anyway) than in a less traditional liberal arts school, of which NYU is a great example? But “liberal arts” and “academic freedom” have been rolled into one tight little package of “American” and, necessarily, “not Middle Eastern”.
NYU seems to be capitalizing not just on its own brand but on the brand of the American university and the American education system. Is this a good or bad sign for the Emiratis and other Arabs who will be educated and who will do research and teach there?
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
