New York Universities Renew Engineering Ties In Bid To Boost Student Numbers and Research
Three years after breaking off merger talks, Manhattan-based New York University and Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, have agreed to give marriage a second chance. The planned link, set for a vote as early as October by the schools’ respective boards, would create an engineering, technology and research hub in New York. Officials say it would attract a larger and more global array of students into the science and engineering field.
NYU disbanded its Bronx-based engineering school and other facilities in the early 1970s as a cost-cutting move.At the time, the university, as well as the surrounding metropolis, was in serious financial straits. “The way to solve the crisis was to sell that campus and use the resources to stabilize ourselves,” says NYU Provost David McLaughlin. Most of the school’s engineering faculty ended up in Brooklyn, at Polytechnic.