At an NYU Student Senate meeting, Vice President for Sustainability Cecil Scheib announced a campus plan to eliminate the use of “single use plastic water bottles.” The new policy will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020 and prevent the university from purchasing these bottles for sale on campus. According to an NYU news release from Feb. 14, “The new policy is expected to reduce waste by over 330,000 plastic water bottles per year.”

According to a Washington Square News article from Feb. 14 however, the ban will notably not prevent these bottles from being sold in vending machines.

This is one step in NYU’s long term sustainability plan to reduce greenhouse emissions by 30 percent in the next five years and achieve [carbon neutrality by 2040] (https://www.nyu.edu/life/sustainability/about/sustainability-advisory-group/working-groups-update.html).

On Feb. 12, Professor and U.S. American political consultant Frank Luntz teamed up with the UAE Director General of the National Media Council, His Excellency Mansour Al Mansouri, for a presentation on the status of journalism and public communication in the UAE and U.S. called Communication in the Age of Globalization: Strategies, Tactics, and Words that Work. H.E. Al Mansouri presented on the media strategy of the United Arab Emirates, describing its approach to different groups and the general themes the UAE seeks to attach to its global brand. The talk had a heavy question and answer element to it, and active audience participation.