Big Man on a Global Campus

Why so many Americans are crazy about scholars from Oxford? Just like may Chinese are crazy about Harvard educated scholars.

How will his success be measured ? What are the outcome indicators and how will they relate to his outputs? With third world natives streaming into the US, and particularly NYC, there will be no dearth of paying students. Probably, because they pay, they have a greater incentive than the natives to study hard and excel in what ever they are trying to accomplish. Beyond financial solvency, I hope the President will try to improve the incentives for learning so that graduates feel that they received some learning which will help them to be better humans , wives, husbands, citizens et al. Hopefully , that education will enable them to achieve better things for themselves and also contribute to society. I do hope that he will improve the educational standards of the university. Oxford graduates are smart to start of with but I don't know how much value added is provided by an Oxford undergraduate education than developing a capacity for boozing and other minor vices. I do hope he will exert himself to help NYU compete with other institutions.

I'm shocked to see how much the cost has gone up since I was a student at NYU a decade ago. The increase in the average financial aid package hasn't even kept up with the increases in tuition, room, and board. The quality of the education, the availability of student services, the size and costs of the university haven't all gone up by 50+%, so how can these increases be justified? All those famous economics professors Sexton hired must have advised the University leadership that, given the laws of supply and demand, NYU tuition can be as high as the moon and students will still compete for the privilege of incurring all that debt.

I'm glad that Hamilton knows how to raise money, it's a skill that's clearly needed. But constantly building in order to "stay relevant" is not Hamilton's most important mandate. He needs to cut costs. Students don't choose to attend NYU because they want to live at an overpriced resort with fancy amenities. They choose NYU because it's in New York City. Do the students a favor and stop building the amenities, stop incurring debt, and let the students keep the savings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/business/colleges-debt-falls-on-studen...

NYU reaches out to undergraduate centered colleges and universities through its Faculty Resources Network, bringing faculty members, especially from minority institutions to its New York campus and other sites for seminars and research opportunities, including annual symposia on major issues. This is a major contribution to undergraduate education in the United States. I participated in several of these experiences that directly affected my courses and benefitted my students. Best wishes to this new NYU administration in continuing this important work.

Interesting profile--I've always admired Sarah Lyall's writing style and her reporting from England. And, while Dr. Hamilton sounds like a very talented administrator, this piece downplays the depth and complexity of the issues that made the Sexton presidency so controversial. And it has more to do with ingrained institutional practice and the corporate-style approach to education, rather than the tenure of a particular individual. The votes of no confidence were highly unusual, due to the unpopularity of the policies of the NYU administration. Yes, the local residents (including some celebrities) were bitterly opposed to the expansion plans, but so were most of the faculty. Probably the most important issue glossed over in this article is the unsustainable level of student and university debt that fuels all the expansion at NYU. Furthermore, the issue of shared governance and the contempt for it shown by the Board of Trustees--this is an issue that is unlikely to disappear.

Gotta love a school that rejects a student on sight; I had a transcript, but the advisor at the open house night never looked at it. May it be deconstructed.

Andy Hamilton -- and his wife Jennifer -- made an absolutely fantastic team at Oxford. NYU is lucky to get them.

Andy is a class act, and definitely not in it for the money, but for the challenge of leadership.

Even private schools give their headmasters and headmistresses free apartments. NYU is one of the most complex universities in the country, and that apartment is not just a home, it's a place to raise money.

NYU has always been a factory, but its law school is excellent and produces lawyers who work for the public good; its medical school is topnotch; and for undergraduates, the ambience -- Greenwich Village -- can't be beat, no matter what its condition.

And while NYU has expanded, some of the expansion did make some areas of the Village and environs safer. I can remember going, in the 1970s, far east on St. Marks Place, to the movies, and it was desolate.

(I still can't figure out whether NYU gobbled up Louisa May Alcott's boarding house on Bleeker, though. Where's the old plaque?)

Almost six years ago my nephew, who was the Valdictorian and class president at a top upstate High school won one of the ""coveted" full tuition room and board with round trip trip travel 2-4 times per year and a stipend to NYU in Abu daube. He was told it only was valid at that campus. Evidentially, many things are remiss besides the slave labor of foreign workers. He came back after one year and NYU continued to honor the scholarship that the Crown prince was paying for. For my born in the US citizen nephew. So as not to risk the scholarship which was just doled out year to year ( and since he his the third child of a family practice doctor, they needed some scholarship help. Small town GP's in upstate barely make mid $150, enough to rule out Pell need based financial aid , even with two other brothers at private universities with $50k tuition bills too. So all I ever got was he didn't like the food. Aka the culture. These were very well traveled kids who are everything. NYU gave him the full scholarship for 4 years. He graduated with an economics degree. He is finishing up giving back by doing a two year teach for America stint in a high poverty intercity school in another city.

The middle eastern school is a joke. I garnered that my nephew was one of many students that asked to return to the us after one or two semesters. Living in the 7th century is just not what a young man who has been brought up Catholic, Episcoplian, Lutheran , between family.

I wish that the NYTimes would write something about the qualifications of faculty members at NYU vs. CUNY. If you look closely at the people doing almost all of the teaching at NYU, you'll see that most of them couldn't get hired at CUNY, at least not at a professorial rank, because they do not have terminal degrees or publication histories. NYU has associate professors in the humanities who have never published a single article and allows people with M.A. degrees to teach graduate students. The standards are ridiculously low. The same is true for the students - if their parents are likely to donate money, they're in, regardless of their academic potential. The school doesn't deserve its name, let alone to take up so much space in the city.

The salary and perks of college presidents both private and state are appalling examples of excess while students sink under mountains of debt. Nonprofit colleges while NYU gobble up tax paying real estate and push out actual humans who did have places to live and actual open speaches where now vanity projects for donors stand, many of which are big, ungly and massive wastes of $$$$$$. But never mind the egos of the top brass are stroked!

Good luck, Dr. Hamilton.
You have big shoes to fill.

Pedaling furiously just to stand still in NY life. Dr. Hamilton certainly will be challenged.
His larger challenge, and that of American education in all, is preparing students for life in an international--cell phone--world, NY writ large, without loosing a humanistic touch--STEM with heart. If he can do that in the Middle East, then a Peace Nobel for him.

Andy Hamilton is a neat person, and NYU is lucky to have him.

One can hope the new president will work to reverse NYU's terrible reputation for being stingy with financial aid. Students have a lot of other options.

I wonder whether NYU Shanghai and Abu Dhabi have true academic freedom in the two authoritarian regimes.

Fundraising skills. No wonder why I get emails to make a gift to NYU from current students with a prize and a deadline. I still worry about my student loans 10 years later.

NYU is far from alone regarding the corporatization of universities. The almighty US News ratings are what drives most activities in these institutions, where dorms are now like hotels and the push for star professors has become a bidding war.

But at $65K/year, there has to be a bubble ready to burst. I can see Stern or Tisch being worth it in certain circumstances, but state schools can teach the same principles and provide identical opportunities at a much lower cost.

Rankings and money. This is what matters in higher education these days.

Poor Dr. Hamilton, he has to eat out at Gramacy then return to his 4,000 + sq. foot apt. How about adding to his list of priorities, community relations. The relentless expansion of the NYU "campus" has decimated neighborhoods, increased cost of living in these localities, promoted drunken, destructive behaviors in the Village and LES and dislocated life long residents. How about shifting the global perspective back to the neighborhood it shares with common New Yorkers who left campus life years ago.

Many new unneeded buildings named after famous dead people will be erected with more student loan debt on the hook to pay for their upkeep. The world renowned chaired professors will get by teaching one class a year leaving the bulk of the teaching to per diem adjunct professors who moonlight as waiters to make ends meet. Starry eyed future hedge fund managers will continue to flock to NYU. Andrew Hamilton's tenure as President will be deemed a success for his imparting liberal values while drawing a multi-million salary.

In noting Mr Hamilton's grooming as a senior academic administrator while at Yale, the author of this article would have done well to explore the influence on him of the troublingly Sextonian Richad Levin, rather than interviewing Levin's successor Peter Salovey.

Good article, Ms. Lyall, but if there's a hawk nest, there has to be two occupants. They have been mating, and most likely will return. Dr. Hamilton, can we count on you to restore the "hawk cam"? Cheers!

Welcome to NYC, Dr. Hamilton.

Your hawk tenant will soon be spending much more time on your ledge until late May and he will have a family there too. You should know we miss seeing them on the web cam.

3 generations of our family have gone to nyu; tisch, stern, cas & medical. i/we find the association to anything related to a group of people that oppress women, homosexuals and members of religions other than their own vile. nyu, please use your wealth to help students in need rather than grow and bolster campuses in places where many of your students are patently unwelcome.

But the bigger question is - how big will his low-interest loan for a Hamptons house be, and how much will he raise tuition to pay for it? So is an anecdotal, but representative summation of the Sexton tenure.