Yale University exits Abu Dhabi deal

Washington Square News:

Yale University has canceled its plans to start an arts institute in Abu Dhabi because the university was unwilling to grant full Yale degrees there, something the emirate's government demanded.

The institute would have been on Saadiyat Island, where NYU's planned campus in the United Arab Emirates is being built.

But, according to the Yale Daily News, Yale President Richard Levin said that the New Haven university could not guarantee that its faculty in Abu Dhabi would be as distinguished as its professors in New Haven.

In a brief statement, Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said that Yale is not interested in creating degree-granting branch campuses.

The New York Times of April 12th has more about the breakdown of negotiations. The story first broke in the student paper, the Yale Daily News.

Abu Dhabi might well consider itself lucky. Here's one example of an art project at Yale:

Art major Aliza Shvarts ’08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

It's not for real.