Talks between NYU and American University of Paris that would have led to NYU's absorption of the French university have broken down, officials said.
The two universities mutually agreed "not to pursue the option of assimilation," AUP Board of Trustees chairman Thomas Hardy wrote in an e-mail to the AUP community late last month.
The site was one of NYU's earliest efforts at creating a degree-granting branch campus abroad, which has since become a central tenant of the university's aggressive 25-year expansion plan. As recently as last spring, officials had said the deal was close to completion. But by the fall, officials said the merger was not going as well as expected, and since then, both sides have decided to table the merger, NYU spokesman John Beckman said.
NYU is still interested in developing a European regional campus, Beckman said, though he did not say whether NYU would pursue other study abroad options in France.
The two universities signed a cooperative agreement that supports "the regular flow of ideas, research and programmatic development between faculty and departments of both institutions," Hardy wrote in the e-mail.
AUP will continue to be a study abroad option for NYU students, but Hardy wrote that it would be a "smaller flow," composed mainly of students studying in the departments of Media, Communication and Culture and Applied Psychology in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
Beckman, however, predicted that the number of NYU students studying at AUP would remain the same, saying that the cooperative agreement does not specify a certain number of students.
Next year's AUP freshman class will be the last year that is allowed to utilize the two universities' transfer agreement, which lets AUP students in the top 20 percent of their class transfer to NYU, with a similar agreement for NYU students.
GSP in Paris students will no longer take classes at AUP, according to GSP associate dean Fred Schwarzbach. Instead, GSP students will take classes at the NYU site.
However, the decisions will not overcrowd NYU Paris because, in the past, students who attend AUP are able to continue their majors in an English program, whereas students who attend NYU Paris are typically French majors who are working toward a French degree.
French department chairman Denis Holier said NYU Paris is gaining additional academic space next year, which will accommodate more students. However, the freshman class admitted to NYU in France will be smaller than previous years, said Christopher Nicolussi, director of summer and study abroad admissions.
AUP students are pleased with the decision, said AUP junior Leanne Olsen, editor-in-chief of the AUP student newspaper, The Planet.
"AUP students are really happy with this because, frankly, most of us didn't want to become a school within NYU," Olsen said. "We have reached the ultimate deal with NYU."
Jane C. Timm is university editor. E-mail her at jtimm@nyunews.com.
