Via Wikimedia Commons

In Jan. 6 NYU President John Sexton and New York University Provost David McLaughlin announced that, as of Jan. 1, the once-Polytechnic University became the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering.

In July 2008, after the approval of NYU’s Board of Regents, Polytechnic University became affiliated to NYU as the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. According to NYU-Poly’s website, the relationship between the two institutions dates back to 1973. At the time when NYU sold its Heights Campus in Bronx and its School of Engineering merged with the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, which later became Polytechnic University.  Since 2004, NYU and Polytechnic University have been discussing the merger that became official on Jan. 2, 2014.

Since the merging process started in 2008, NYU-Poly has had increasing access to NYU services and facilities.  For the the first time ever, applicants to the 2013-2014 academic year, must apply to NYU-Poly. Current students may begin to enroll in up to two courses in NYU schools per semester.  As of summer 2014, students will begin to register for all their classes through Albert.

In his letter to the NYU Community on Jan. 6, President Sexton stated that the new School of Engineering will “strengthen our existing science programs at many of our other schools and institutes, including the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Medical School, the Dental and Nursing Schools, the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) the Global Institute of Public Health, and our degree-granting campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.”

The comeback of the discipline on the Square has already started to enhance NYU Abu Dhabi’s engineering division. Faculty at NYUAD will continue to collaborate with faculty at NYU-Poly in the civil, chemical and biological, computer, electrical and mechanical engineering departments. Recently, NYUAD assistant professor of Computer Engineering Ozgur Sinanoglu participated in a team that was awarded the Best Student Paper at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Computer and Communications Security last December.

NYUAD junior Noor AlGharibeh took classes at NYU-Poly last fall while studying away in New York.  When asked about how well the NYUAD engineering program fit with classes at NYU-Poly, she stated:

“I feel NYUAD’s [engineering] curriculum equips its students with enough tools to navigate through NYU-Poly classes.  Workload and topics were very manageable.”

Others like NYUAD senior Brian Ndirangu agreed with her opinion.

“Taking General Engineering in Abu Dhabi prepared me for taking classes specific to Chemical Engineering, even though it is not offered as a specialization at NYUAD.” Brian commented.

However, AlGharibeh also drew attention to how some policy changes imposed by the merger might have affected NYUAD students. She explained that “we expected some classes to be offered but, because of the policy changes, they became unavailable.  We had to speak to the Dean here to make sure they were offered back in Abu Dhabi when we returned.” Nonetheless, she highlighted that this may be part of the NYU assimilation process and that students might not face this issue in the future.

In spite of the general optimism surrounding the merger, administrators at NYU will have to face some challenges if the new school is to become a success. NYUAD senior Nour Shabaka, who took classes at NYU-Poly during the 2012-2013 academic year said:

“There is lack of integration between NYU and Poly students because of the location of the campus.  Poly students do not spend much time at Washington Square unless they take some classes there.”

AlGharibeh complimented this: