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NYU President’s Dual Ambitions
Andrew Hamilton seeks to address students’ financial issues while maintaining the school’s global view
By MIKE VILENSKY / Wall Street Journal
Updated May 20, 2016 8:24 p.m. ET
New York University’s president Andrew Hamilton had been on the job for four months when he faced his first student uprising.
For about 33 hours, undergraduates calling for the school to divest its holdings in fossil-fuel companies crammed into an elevator that leads to his office. They eventually struck a deal with administrators and later met with Mr. Hamilton himself.
“Nothing has really changed since he’s been here,” said Olivia Rich, one of the student protesters, “but we’re willing to give him a chance.”
A Briton who previously served as the University of Oxford’s vice chancellor, Mr. Hamilton in January succeeded John Sexton , NYU’s president for 14 years. Mr. Sexton led the school during a period in which it expanded both locally and overseas, drawing criticism at times. Area residents sued to stop its plans, students protested its rising costs, and some faculty members in 2013 issued a no-confidence vote against him.
Mr. Sexton defended his tenure Friday, saying he boosted financial aid and helped right the school’s finances. He praised Mr. Hamilton’s work to date.
“His accent is different from mine,” said the Brooklyn-raised Mr. Sexton, “but he sees higher education similarly.”
Mr. Hamilton, 63 years old, has sought to ease faculty relations and cut costs for students without abandoning his predecessor’s vision of the school as a selective university with a global footprint.
“I view his time here as being remarkably powerful,” Mr. Hamilton said of Mr. Sexton, during an interview in his spacious office on the top floor of NYU’s Bobst Library.
The challenges Mr. Sexton faced, Mr. Hamilton said, “are not uncommon in higher education for a president who stays a long time.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Hamilton said he sees his arrival at NYU as “a real feeling of turning the page.” He described his first months as a whirlwind of meetings with students, faculty members and officials such as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.
He has been struck by “the scale” of NYU, he said, and called affordability and diversity among the issues he has heard come up most often.
At a meet-and-greet with the faculty of NYU’s education school, one of the first questions came from Mark Crispin Miller, a professor who was a critic of Mr. Sexton and among a group of faculty suing to stop the school’s expansion plan.
Mr. Miller asked Mr. Hamilton what he proposed to do about “executive bureaucracy,” referring to upper administrative positions, and the school’s growing real-estate portfolio, saying they were drivers of costs. Mr. Hamilton defended the administration and the school’s real-estate but said he would look further into it.
NYU declined to say how much Mr. Hamilton earned but said it was competitive with similar positions. Mr. Sexton’s annual salary was over $1 million.
Mr. Hamilton has worked to lighten NYU students’ financial burden, freezing room and board rates for a year, adding low-cost student-housing units and raising student workers’ minimum wage to $15 an hour, before it was signed into law.
He said he is considering more ideas, including cutting some undergraduate degree programs to three years and allowing more flexibility in accepting course credits from outside the school. He appointed Ellen Schall, senior presidential fellow, to solicit further suggestions from students and instructors. On a website for submissions, the ideas range from eliminating off-campus graduation ceremonies to housing more people per room in residence halls.
“It’s an anxiety we should take seriously,” Mr. Hamilton said of NYU’s costs.
He also has defended its price tag, saying it isn’t radically costlier than similar schools and citing the financial pressure of operating a private university in Manhattan. NYU has more students who receive Pell Grants, designated for low-income undergraduates, than Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia combined, he said.
Peter Tufano, dean of Oxford’s business school, said Mr. Hamilton was an effective fundraiser who kept the school competitive with places that have larger endowments.
Students have expressed optimism about Mr. Hamilton but said the cost-cutting efforts so far aren’t making much of a dent in their bills. Many of them pay more than $65,000 a year in tuition, housing and other expenses.
“He seems like he kind of gets it,” said Tyler Bray, a 21-year-old senior, “but at the same time we had a 2% overall increase in total costs.”
An NYU spokesman said that increase was the school’s lowest in 20 years.
Sociology professor Andrew Ross was a critic of Mr. Sexton who drew attention last year when he was barred from NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus after criticizing labor practices there.
He said it is still too early to assess Mr. Hamilton but that “he’s certainly talking differently. He’s a listener.”
Andrew Hamilton seeks to address students’ financial issues while maintaining the school’s global view
By MIKE VILENSKY / Wall Street Journal
Updated May 20, 2016 8:24 p.m. ET
New York University’s president Andrew Hamilton had been on the job for four months when he faced his first student uprising.
For about 33 hours, undergraduates calling for the school to divest its holdings in fossil-fuel companies crammed into an elevator that leads to his office. They eventually struck a deal with administrators and later met with Mr. Hamilton himself.
“Nothing has really changed since he’s been here,” said Olivia Rich, one of the student protesters, “but we’re willing to give him a chance.”
A Briton who previously served as the University of Oxford’s vice chancellor, Mr. Hamilton in January succeeded John Sexton , NYU’s president for 14 years. Mr. Sexton led the school during a period in which it expanded both locally and overseas, drawing criticism at times. Area residents sued to stop its plans, students protested its rising costs, and some faculty members in 2013 issued a no-confidence vote against him.
Mr. Sexton defended his tenure Friday, saying he boosted financial aid and helped right the school’s finances. He praised Mr. Hamilton’s work to date.
“His accent is different from mine,” said the Brooklyn-raised Mr. Sexton, “but he sees higher education similarly.”
Mr. Hamilton, 63 years old, has sought to ease faculty relations and cut costs for students without abandoning his predecessor’s vision of the school as a selective university with a global footprint.
“I view his time here as being remarkably powerful,” Mr. Hamilton said of Mr. Sexton, during an interview in his spacious office on the top floor of NYU’s Bobst Library.
The challenges Mr. Sexton faced, Mr. Hamilton said, “are not uncommon in higher education for a president who stays a long time.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Hamilton said he sees his arrival at NYU as “a real feeling of turning the page.” He described his first months as a whirlwind of meetings with students, faculty members and officials such as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.
He has been struck by “the scale” of NYU, he said, and called affordability and diversity among the issues he has heard come up most often.
At a meet-and-greet with the faculty of NYU’s education school, one of the first questions came from Mark Crispin Miller, a professor who was a critic of Mr. Sexton and among a group of faculty suing to stop the school’s expansion plan.
Mr. Miller asked Mr. Hamilton what he proposed to do about “executive bureaucracy,” referring to upper administrative positions, and the school’s growing real-estate portfolio, saying they were drivers of costs. Mr. Hamilton defended the administration and the school’s real-estate but said he would look further into it.
NYU declined to say how much Mr. Hamilton earned but said it was competitive with similar positions. Mr. Sexton’s annual salary was over $1 million.
Mr. Hamilton has worked to lighten NYU students’ financial burden, freezing room and board rates for a year, adding low-cost student-housing units and raising student workers’ minimum wage to $15 an hour, before it was signed into law.
He said he is considering more ideas, including cutting some undergraduate degree programs to three years and allowing more flexibility in accepting course credits from outside the school. He appointed Ellen Schall, senior presidential fellow, to solicit further suggestions from students and instructors. On a website for submissions, the ideas range from eliminating off-campus graduation ceremonies to housing more people per room in residence halls.
“It’s an anxiety we should take seriously,” Mr. Hamilton said of NYU’s costs.
He also has defended its price tag, saying it isn’t radically costlier than similar schools and citing the financial pressure of operating a private university in Manhattan. NYU has more students who receive Pell Grants, designated for low-income undergraduates, than Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia combined, he said.
Peter Tufano, dean of Oxford’s business school, said Mr. Hamilton was an effective fundraiser who kept the school competitive with places that have larger endowments.
Students have expressed optimism about Mr. Hamilton but said the cost-cutting efforts so far aren’t making much of a dent in their bills. Many of them pay more than $65,000 a year in tuition, housing and other expenses.
“He seems like he kind of gets it,” said Tyler Bray, a 21-year-old senior, “but at the same time we had a 2% overall increase in total costs.”
An NYU spokesman said that increase was the school’s lowest in 20 years.
Sociology professor Andrew Ross was a critic of Mr. Sexton who drew attention last year when he was barred from NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus after criticizing labor practices there.
He said it is still too early to assess Mr. Hamilton but that “he’s certainly talking differently. He’s a listener.”
