by Jane C. Timm

Editor’s note: Jane C. Timm was an editor of The Prague Wanderer in Spring 2010, during which time she also visited Abu Dhabi and researched this Washington Square News story.

NYU Abu Dhabi — the university’s satellite campus in the United Arab Emirates — held its first classes this morning. After years of preparation, negotiation and controversy, NYUAD is open for business.

NYU President John Sexton is a driving force behind NYUAD. He speaks about the satellite campus with charisma and an almost religious sense of urgency. For him, it is more than a pet project.

Sexton’s hands-on involvement in the tiny program is considerable. He flies to the Emirates regularly to teach a class for local Emirati students. He will teach the same seminar to NYUAD freshman, too, beginning in October. He says he writes 15 to 20 e-mails to students a day — many of them NYUAD applicants and incoming freshmen.

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