Only three years young but with a mission to create a new paradigm in higher education, NYU Abu Dhabi is setting itself up for a difficult few years ahead with regard to finding its unique identity as an institution and communicating this identity to itself and the community.

Questions surrounding what it means to be global and how this idea can be created in a U.S.-style institution have yet to be answered. This question is especially important when foundational messages about the institution are confused or contradicted by other statements. The confusion undoubtedly permeates through a curriculum that is still finding its feet and reaches students and faculty who are unsure of what they are a part of. No doubt, some of this confusion is unavoidable and part of being a new university. Ambition is not a bad thing, but as long as we continue to ignore or perpetuate these inconsistencies, our education and experience here at NYUAD will be all the poorer for it.

NYUAD has unashamedly aimed to be something wholly new. By taking the U.S. college environment, moving it to the Middle East and sending admissions officers to every populated continent with the goal of finding and attracting the best students in the world, NYUAD was doing something that had never been done before on the scale to which it aspired. Yes, there have been study away sites, exchange programs and universities with global reach, but none combined this with the lofty ambitions of creating the World’s Honors College that is proudly emblazoned across promotional material. But where do these often-touted statements collide?

Although it has been questioned before, the term honors college is the first contradiction that one encounters. In many countries, a bachelor’s degree with honors denotes a specific year set aside for further study in the program and is equivalent to a master’s degree. Thus, the student can go straight into a doctoral program. Elsewhere, honors may be used to describe a program parallel to a bachelor’s degree, which is for academically advanced students, or a recognition of a student’s exceptional academic ability. Neither of these programs particularly apply to NYUAD, which, although academically rigorous, does not have any separate streams. Additionally, students graduate with the same arts degree as one would receive from NYU New York.

With this problem left unresolved, we could turn to how much of a U.S. institution we are. A liberal arts program, although derived historically from ancient Greek theories of education, has become a prominently U.S.-American undergraduate program. It is clear that this feature is something that is at the core of our educational experience. Vice Chancellor Al Bloom came straight from Swarthmore, another liberal arts college. But if we are going to become a truly global institution, does it make sense to have our academic program centered around a form of education that is unique to the United States? Yes, this style allows for broad academic enquiry, but at the same time, it holds us to a conception of pedagogy that is tied to a U.S. American view of what’s important in this world.

What does this somewhat confused academic structure mean for our curriculum?

The area that most embodies such confusion is the core. The core is designed to allow students to “probe basic questions about the meaning of life and our place in the world.” With a review currently underway, it is true that the core is not perfect. However, confusion about the program goes to the extent that in one class discussion on academic changes, a student noted that one teacher was unaware the course was a core at all. The core is also created with the philosophy that students will need to develop a global understanding which cannot be contained within one disciplinary area. This ties in somewhat with the encouragement for students to take courses outside of their areas of study, supported by the first-year transcript policy. However, the structure of the core also ensures that any in-depth knowledge of the variety of academic modes of thought is lost in the attempt to be too broad and to cater to those from outside of the discipline. Hence, the core falls foul of trying to be all things, to all people, the jack of all trades, master of none.

Although this is only just a brief overview of some of the contradictions present, it cannot be stressed enough that the words with which we describe ourselves and develop an identity have a meaning beyond their potential for marketability. Additionally, while specific areas of NYUAD may not be reaching their full potential, it is important that these areas be treated as part of a whole and be recognized for both their symptomatic and causal nature as an expression of where the ideas and rhetoric of NYUAD do not match up with the reality.