Education in the Desert

I thought it would be nice to take a break from the rental market rants and talk about higher education in Abu Dhabi since, well, it's something I'm going to jump into feet first in a few short weeks.

NYU seems to be doing the same thing, just on a slightly grander scale, per yesterday's edition of The National:

"Make No Little Plans"

There are a number of universities in the UAE already, but there aren't really any branches of American universities there.  The unfortunate demise of George Mason University's Ras al Khaimah campus earlier this year is a complete mystery to me -- most articles have some vague reference "the economic downturn" or "budget and control issues" being at fault.  I can't even figure out what their target student population was.

So now, NYU is embarking on an even bigger campus project in Abu Dhabi.  From my perspective, there are three interesting points to consider:

1. This will be (as far as I know) the first higher education institution in Abu Dhabi to focus on a liberal arts curriculum.
   
2. The campus will be something of "a legal bubble" in terms of internet access and social/academic freedom.
   
3. The admissions standards will be "highly selective."
   

Let's discuss these one by one.

First of all, what's going on with NYUAD's core curriculum description?

• Pathways of World Literature
• Structures of Thought and Society
• Art, Technology, and Invention
• Ideas and Methods of Science

I don't know about you, but this reminds me of a great little story called "The Emperor's New Clothes."  Why can't they just say that the core curriculum is the same old tried and true "literature/social science/fine arts/science" set that everyone KNOWS it is.  Sigh.

But whatever NYUAD wants to call it, the very idea of a liberal arts focus is stirring up some debate in the ether -- particularly with respect to how it will appeal to potential Emirati students.  (There are also a few ESL teacher types on Dave's ESL Cafe who seem to have fun bashing the liberal arts in general - ah well.  Some of them were probably my students back when I taught the one and only postgraduate education course that I ever will teach.)

I actually like the liberal arts.  And I certainly don't think it's useless, as will be confirmed after five minutes of conversation with any graduate of the superb institution St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.  The question is whether students in Abu Dhabi are ready for this type of academic venture.  Remember, we're talking about a city that has ONE public library in the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation.  A quick look through their online catalog tells me that the following are available:

A few books by Steven Pinker

Melville's Moby Dick

Various Isaac Asimov

Various Noam Chomsky

Various Mark Twain

Cervantes' Don Quixote

and some Tolstoy

as well as tons of other stuff.

Looks good so far, right?  Well, I ventured a bit further into the literary corners of my mind and searched for some books that I didn't think would be there:

anything by Chaim Potok

anything by Henry Miller

Lady Chatterly's Lover

E.M. Forster's Maurice

anything by Vladimir Nabokov

anything by Ray Bradbury

Atlas Shrugged, or anything by Ayn Rand

the bible

And guess what - they weren't there.

There's a reason these books aren't in the Cultural Foundation's library catalogue, and I'll bet you can figure it out, so I don't need to go into details here.  The metaquestion is more interesting:

How is a (true) liberal arts curriculum compatible with cultural restraints?

Maybe NYU will have the answer to that, which brings me to the next interesting thing about NYUAD:  the legal bubble.

According to this NYU News article of April 2009, "many of the emirate's more controversial laws and regulations will be lifted" on its Abu Dhabi campus.  Like access to blocked internet sites, including the famously popular Skype.com, which I'll address in another post.  Or homosexuality.  Or academic freedom.  So there's a bit of a contradiction here:  those American students who decide to attend NYUAD won't really be immersing themselves in local culture, and those local students may find themselves in a cultural bubble that defies their own customs.  This is gonna be interesting to watch.

Finally, the "highly selective" admissions standards beg the question as to what the target student population is, and whether Emirati students will constitute a significant part of it.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm not assuming that the average college-bound Emirati can't handle it, but this recent article in The National states that

"...only 13 per cent of applicants to federal universities scored enough in their English exams to bypass remedial courses."

THIRTEEN per cent.

I really AM pulling for NYU's success out there, but like I said, this is gonna be interesting to watch.