As seen in the Washington Square News.
NYU and American University are considering collaborating on their Paris study abroad programs, NYU officials said.
Discussions between the two institutions are intended to offer better academic opportunities for students at both schools, administrators said.
“These discussions are still very preliminary, but have focused primarily on how existing programs at both schools might be enhanced through greater cooperation,” said Yaw Nyarko, NYU’s vice provost for globalization and cultural affairs.
The informal meetings between administrators from NYU in Paris and American University in Paris have fueled speculation that the schools may jointly purchase a discrete Paris property.
“AUP does have an opportunity to build a new facility for its own use in Paris,” Nyarko said. “NYU’s access to and use of these buildings have been part of the overall conversation.”
Students worry that the consolidation of abroad programs on one site may run counter to cultural immersion.
“In the Paris program, there is a very big emphasis on getting out and experiencing Paris and French culture,” said CAS junior Joseph Terranella, who spent last semester in Paris. “[With a larger program] the spirit of community and camaraderie will be lost. It will become more like transplanted American soil.”
Other students are optimistic that combining or linking the universities’ programs could be beneficial to students.
“It’s always enriching and interesting to meet people from other schools and learn what it’s like for them,” said CAS junior Vicki Yufit, who is currently at the NYU in Paris site. “Since at NYU you might be in a social bubble already, it makes you break out and make new friendships that could last forever.”
A potential location for the proposed facilities is a 33,000-square-meter portion of Seguin Island, an island in the southwestern Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, NYU-in-Paris officials said.
The property, situated next to space reserved for a new National Cancer Institute, has been open for six months after a bid from French billionaire businessman François Pinault’s Foundation for Contemporary Art fell through.
If the island property is chosen, it will have to be approved by Boulogne mayor Jean-Pierre Fourcade and the Hautes-de-Seine, a 24-person council headed by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
“It is too early to speculate on what shape, if any, an agreement between the two schools might take,” Nyarko said.
The current NYU in Paris site is in the city’s 16th arrondissement and serves about 100 undergraduate and 20 graduate students.
Students speculated that overcrowding at the current site was a possible reason for moving. This semester, NYU in Paris is hosting its largest enrollment of students ever.
“When I was there, there was a constant space crunch,” Terranella said. “NYU certainly does need the extra space.”
Students who have studied at the Paris site had mixed reactions to possible changes to their small campus and intimate program.
“NYU in Paris would lose its quaintness,” said Catherine Sweeney, a CAS junior currently in Paris. “It’s nice coming here for a semester and knowing most of the kids and the staff.”
The current site allows students to take classes at the NYU campus with other French students through the University of Paris system. Constructing a facility that caters almost exclusively to American students may not contribute to French-American relations, students said.
“Part of the experience of study abroad is immersion in the culture and NYU’s own private island doesn’t say ‘immersion,’ it says ‘high-class,’” said CAS junior Janet Lebeda, who studied at NYU in Paris last semester.
Other students agreed that a city location is important to the NYU in Paris program and moving to a less central island could compromise the experience.
“I don’t think living in the suburbs is the same as living in the city,” Sweeney said. “You’d be in the middle of nowhere, the commute would be difficult and being a complete American school, you’d be even more segregated.”
— Additional reporting by Ivan Pereira, contributing writer