Many professors from Yale University are up in arms over the university’s decision to go ahead with a joint collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to establish the Yale-NUS college in Fine Arts.
On Thursday night, some 200 faculty members pass a resolution in Yale expressing concern over Singapore’s “lack of respect for civil and political rights”.
It also urged the Yale-NUS college to “uphold civil liberty and political freedom on campus and in the broader society” and “respect, protect and further principles of non-discrimination for all”.
In an interview with the New York Times, Mimi Yiengpruksawan, an art history professor said:
“I was stunned by the announcement that we’d hooked up with this university…My first question was, ‘Who’s “we” — and why are “we” involved in developing a campus paid for by a national government that is not the United States?’ ”
Another professor in computer science Michael Fischer urged Yale to pull back from the collaboration:
“I ask that the Yale name be removed from the new college, that the Yale administration make clear to all that Yale’s role in Yale-N.U.S. is only as consultants and that the Yale collegium has no control, responsibility or affiliation with Yale N.U.S.”
Despite the controversy, one PAP blog in NUS masquerading as an ‘independent’ student daily – The Kent Ridge Common has openly supported the collaboration and publicly condemned the Yale professors as ‘trading in stereotypes’.
