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We are very pleased to report that, with the enthusiastic support of the Yale Corporation, we have reached agreement with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to create a new liberal arts college that we hope will become a model for Asia.  The arrangements and terms outlined in our September 12 memorandum to you have been reaffirmed.  In the past six months, we have benefitted from the counsel of faculty, alumni, and students, and we are grateful to many members of our community for their constructive suggestions that have helped to refine our thinking and improve the shape of our partnership with NUS.

In the nineteenth century, Yale was the architect of liberal education as it has come to be practiced in the United States.  The Yale-NUS College in Singapore provides the opportunity to adapt and modify that paradigm in collaboration with a leader of higher education in Asia and to develop a new model of residential education for the most populous region of the world.  The Yale-NUS partnership allows us to re-imagine liberal education for a new century and build a college literally “from the ground up.”  The new college will incorporate four elements that are still uncommon in the region:

(1) The curriculum will synthesize Western and Asian perspectives as part of an integrated general education program spanning the first two years before students concentrate on a major.  A substantial period devoted to general education is very unusual in Asia, where students ordinarily choose to specialize in a field of study or pursue a professional degree before they matriculate.

(2) The pedagogy will emphasize critical thinking and classroom interaction.  Most of the classes will be taught seminar-style with fewer than 18 students.

(3) Residential colleges, modeled on those here at Yale, will be devoted to creating a sense of community where living and learning are intentionally integrated.

(4) A rich array of extracurricular activities will focus especially on developing leadership skills and teamwork and encouraging community service.

We expect that the curricular and extracurricular innovations introduced in the college will spread back to our own campus.  We also believe the new college can have a profound impact on the massive investments now being made in higher education throughout Asia.

Most of the details of the new partnership were developed by faculty committees during the 2009-10 academic year.  They were explained in our September 12 memorandum and refined during the course of the fall 2010 public discussion of this initiative.

Our agreement with NUS incorporates the language protecting academic freedom that we shared earlier and affirms consistency with Yale’s policies on non-discrimination.  At the suggestion of several members of the Yale faculty, we are also creating a standing consultative committee composed equally of faculty from Yale and NUS that will help bridge cultures and address differences in approaches and practices.  It will be available to all faculty, students, staff, and administrators at the new college who may have questions about the college’s operations.

As we reported previously, half the members of the Governing Board that oversees the College will be Yale nominees.  And students will graduate from Yale-NUS College with a degree from the National University of Singapore.

The campus is being designed for a student body of 1,000, with a faculty of about 100.  The faculty will be hired by search committees comprised initially of Yale and NUS faculty.  Thereafter, candidates nominated for tenure by the faculty of the new college will require the approval of the Provosts of Yale and of NUS.  Although we expect the college to hire its own permanent faculty, we are hopeful that Yale faculty members will wish to teach a short course there or visit for a semester or a year.  We are delighted that there have already been a number of volunteers.

When we wrote to you in September, we were not yet assured of a capital budget sufficient to create a campus appropriate to our aspirations for the new college.  We are pleased to report now our thorough satisfaction with the progress made in designing the college campus, and the funding that has been made available for the college’s construction.  And, as we indicated in September, Yale will not be required to provide any financial support for the new college.

The campus will include three residential colleges of approximately 330 students each.  We are delighted with the progress that has been made in designing a facility of which Yale can be proud; we are fortunate that one of the architects retained to design Yale-NUS College is Stephen Kieran, who has been responsible for the renovation of six of our residential colleges.

Although the final architectural plans will take time to complete, the design of the residential colleges will include all of the features recommended by our faculty committee.  There will be a separate dining room for each residential college that can serve as a hub of residential life, and each college will have its own courtyard, buttery and common room.  There will be office suites and residences in each college for both the master and residential college dean (who will be called rector and vice rector).  Students will live in four- or six-person suites, and there will be freshman counselors in each college.  More faculty will live in the residential colleges than at Yale, and each college will have numerous classrooms and faculty offices.

In addition to the three residential colleges, the core campus will include space for academic and extracurricular activities.  Students and faculty will also have the benefit of access to the facilities of the main NUS campus, which is across the highway from but well-connected to the new college.

The plan is to admit a first cohort of students for the 2013-14 academic year, and a search to identify a President for the new college will begin immediately.  Meanwhile, as reported in September, Charles Bailyn, the A. Bartlett Giamatti Professor of Astronomy and Physics, will serve as the inaugural Dean of the Faculty.  Charles will lead the faculty recruitment processes, and he will go to Singapore for the first year of the college’s operation.  Faculty interested in teaching in Singapore should contact Professor Bailyn or one of us.

We are well aware that there are challenges associated with embarking on such a bold initiative, but the opportunity to help educate a new generation of global leaders and thinkers for Asia is a compelling inspiration.  Yale’s traditions have placed it at the forefront of educating capable leaders for centuries, and the collaboration with NUS offers a chance to help do so more directly in an important region of the world.

After extensive discussion and reflection, we are confident that the leadership of the National University of Singapore shares our intention to create an outstanding and innovative undergraduate program that is unparalleled in Asia.  We are excited by the prospect.  We will provide periodic reports on progress as we proceed.