The word campus derives directly from the Latin word campus, which is normally used to mean a field. Princeton University was the first to apply this Latin word to the architecture of higher education, using it in 1774 to refer to the large field that separated the university from the town of Princeton. As universities in the United States developed, the style and settings of campuses across the country diversified into countless different interpretations of this classic form.

NYU, established in 1831, has never really had a campus of the likes of Princeton with a picturesque green field surrounded by brick or stone buildings. Washington Square is not really analogous, being as much a part of the city of New York as it is part of NYU. This lack of any identifiable campus follows the style of many urban European universities, which are an amalgamation of buildings, sometimes spread across an entire city.

Unlike NYU New York, NYU Abu Dhabi occupies what is incontrovertibly a campus. Most prominently we have our green high-line, a 21st century reinterpretation of Princeton’s field where students can relax and find momentary solace between academic requirements, co-curricular activities and social engagements.

There is, however, an alternative translation of campus: more properly, the word could mean an expanse surrounded. As liberal academia is being increasingly criticized for coddling the American mind — whatever that might be — we might return to this idea of the campus as a separation from the rest of the world, and a shelter from some of the daily vicissitudes of life.

This suggestion brings with it a host of other complications, many of which are summarized neatly in the Town and Gown distinction. With Bloom Properties slowly but surely rising to the south of the campus, should we start to ask what definition of campus we prefer, and what degree of shelter we should provide?

This week’s issue of The Gazelle starts to ask some of these questions. What does it mean to be sheltered, or to seek shelter? In the absence of a shelter, what do we do? These issues have been thrown into stark relief by the recent announcement of the closing of Central European University. Others have sought shelter in constant movement by bicycling across Canada and the United States and some have found shelter here, at NYUAD, in the midst of confronting ideas.

As our little campus is buffeted by the winds of an increasingly hostile global discourse, maybe the current meanings of the word are no longer appropriate. Could we instead suggest an alternative? I’ll start: how about an open field?