NYU Is Eyeing a Campus in Paris, France

The American University in Paris, in light of its recent partnership with New York University, is building a new campus on a small isle west of Paris — securing last week the permits to construct an academic center and dormitory on Seguin Island, in the Seine River.

In an interview with The New York Sun, the president of the American University, Gerardo della Paolera, said he hoped that in the years to come the institution would be absorbed into the NYU system while "maintaining its character and name." Mr. della Paolera said such an arrangement would help raise the profile and the research capacity of his Paris-based university, where 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled.

Nearly 90% of those students hail from countries other than France.

For now, the universities have a year-old reciprocity agreement that allows its students to attend and earn degrees at either school. Mr. della Paolera, a University of Chicago-trained economist, said the location of its new campus — an island home to a Renault automobile factory for most of the 20th century — is symbolic of that alliance. "It's on the Seine, which finishes in the Atlantic Ocean," he said. "On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is New York."

The planned campus, comprising two modern glass buildings designed by French architect Jean-Paul Viguier, is slated to open in September 2010.

According to a project manager with the American University in Paris, Alexandra Candia, one of those buildings will house classrooms lecture halls, laboratories, faculty offices and a cafeteria, and the other will house a 300-bed student dormitory. Upon the completion of the new structures, American University in Paris plans to vacate its current location in central Paris, and sell off the two buildings it owns there, Ms. Candia said.

The multimillion-dollar construction costs are likely to be shouldered jointly by the institutions, and NYU trustees have already approved the use of $12 million for the project, a university official said.

A history professor at NYU who is that school's liaison to the American University in Paris partnership, Katherine Fleming, said any attempt to bring the Paris-based school under its auspices would be a long, collaborative process involving the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, an accrediting organization.

Mr. della Paolera approached the president of NYU, John Sexton, about two years ago to discuss a partnership that would enable the university to keep pace with the "curricular changes within the American academy," Ms. Fleming said.

She added that the partnership is also proving to be a boon for NYU — given the overseas university's diverse enrollment. "It's a genuinely international institution," she said. "You sit down in a classroom, and there are students from 20 countries. That has huge cultural and educational benefits in and of itself."

At the American University of Paris, students come from about 100 countries, statistics provided by that university show. Nearly 40% of students there are from America.

NYU students wishing to study in the French capital have two options. They can enroll in the American University, where courses in economics, art history, and a wide range of other subjects, are taught in English. Or they can opt for the 38-year-old "NYU in Paris" program, in which classes focus on French language and culture.

Ms. Fleming said the institution remains committed to "NYU in Paris," which is run by the university's Center for French Civilization and Culture.

Seguin Island is located near the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, and the universities are looking into providing water taxi service for students, faculty, and staff members, NYU officials said.

On May 21, representatives from the American University in Paris and NYU met with representatives of France's urban planning authority to finalize the Seguin Island land deal.