"In all honesty, I do not support the partnership because I think that when we start to move away from [Yale's] core offering in New Haven, we do nothing more than franchise our name and commercialize the product," Nicky Nole, a 2006 Yale graduate in anthropology who has lived in Singapore for the past two years, says.
"I do not have any problems with acting as advisers and perhaps sending staff on a regular basis to interact with the local universities, but why is there the need to invest money, staff and additional resources when the true Yale experience can only come from the Yale environment in its entirety, not simply a name associated with a degree form somewhere else?" Nole, a Chicago native working as a strategic planner with a global advertising firm, adds.
"I do not know how much Yale stands to make on the offer, but what it does stand to lose is the financial support and interest of future students who seek Yale as a place to grow themselves," Nole adds. "If anything, look to offer the Yale experience to more people in the region by giving them the chance to study within our borders."
"I do not think that the Yale-NUS project is trying to replace the Yale New Haven experience, and I don't think it's a fair comparison," Erin Frey, who moved to Singapore in June 2008 within weeks of graduating from Yale, suggests. "If the partnership proves successful and achieves its various objectives, it could be great for students interested in getting a liberal arts education in Asia."
Forget the missionary position
None of the Yalies contacted expressed concern about Singapore's lack of freedom hindering a liberal arts education, and none saw Yale-NUS as a mission to light the lamp of freedom in darkened Singapore.
"The argument of Yale changing Singapore's culture is one that I've heard raised more to defend Singapore from charges of academic censorship than to praise the deal," Yale Daily News editor Vivian Yee, who lived in Singapore for two years as a youngster attending American expatriate schools, reports. "That is, nobody is marketing the deal as a way for Yale to make reforms, but if a detractor argues that Singapore will quickly clamp down on any academic freedom at Yale-NUS, supporters are sure to point out that the country has grown more forgiving of academic criticism.
"I will say that there's a sense among the supporters that Singapore (and Asia in general) are lacking in American-style, free-thinking, creative, analytical, critical education, and that Yale-NUS could be the thing that introduces reforms or at least an alternative to the traditional Singaporean model of education," Yee, who graduates next June, adds.
"We would definitely be riding a high horse if we considered this missionary work," Nole said. "Singapore is strong, successful and intelligent because of its own doing and acceptance of ideas that have come from abroad. If anything Yale's impact would continue to act as a global force that would ingrain within the culture and allow Singaporeans to become even more well-versed in the dealings of the world. Perhaps this ability to adapt and change while still remaining true to one's core belief system is the way Singapore could change Yale."
No special deals
Yale accepted the norm for higher education in Singapore: academic freedom within classrooms and across dining tables - not even on the campus overall, where Singapore's usual restrictions on outdoor speech and assembly will apply - and in academic journals. In his letter to alumni announcing the deal, Yale president Richard Levin noted that a joint Yale-NUS faculty committee would "help bridge cultures and address differences in approaches and practices."
While accepting empty gestures on academic freedom, Yale chose to make a stand on foreign student aid. Traditionally, Singapore provides financial aid to both domestic and foreign students in exchange for working in Singapore after graduation. As reported by the Yale Daily News, Yale won concessions for foreign students to have the option of repaying their aid by working for a Singapore company overseas or reimbursing the tuition subsidy as a loan.
It's difficult to understand why that issue mattered to Yale, but little about this project makes sense from the Ivy League school's perspective. Yale's decision not to take money from the new college seems odd at best. A Yale alumnus with inside knowledge of overseas university operations in Singapore noted that rather than the millions Yale might realize as a licensing or royalty fee for the joint venture, instead it will only get handfuls of research grants that mid-level faculty can scrap over. That may seem ridiculous, but it fits with the nickel and dime nature of academic life.
Brand building Yale cites raising its profile in Asia as a main reason for the Singapore venture. Even though Yale has a relationship with China that dates to the 19th century, the insider says, "Yale is not as well known in Southeast Asia - MIT, Stanford, Harvard and Oxbridge have a better base in this region. The NUS tie-up will be good publicity for Yale and will provide a channel for the recruitment of graduate students."
The image gap is largely because Yale didn't have a business school until the 1970s and that school didn't award MBA degrees until just a few years ago. Opening a Singapore - or Hong Kong - branch of Yale's School of Management (SOM) would address the name recognition issue, as well as giving SOM a significant US talking point.
Moreover, Singapore isn't an ideal partner to improve Yale's profile across Asia. Singapore has a sterling reputation with many Westerners, but most Asians see it differently. For them, Singapore's where the region's dirty money, including from drug-dealing Myanmar, finds a happy home with no questions asked and where the government practices a brand of hypocrisy that Asia's other autocrats admire.
Yale officials have done themselves and the school no favors by planting wet kisses on their new partners. It was hard not to cringe as Yale's president Levin gushed at the April 11 formal launch in Singapore, "[T]his is a momentous day for Yale because we believe that we ourselves, on our home campus, will benefit greatly from the innovations that will be introduced at Yale-NUS College...I am confident that there will be curricular, extracurricular, and residential life innovations that will instruct, inspire, and improve Yale's programs in New Haven."
With Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the son of founding father Lee Kuan Yew, looking on, Yale would have gained more regional credibility if Levin had expressed a measure of deserved skepticism about Singapore's pretensions of openness.
Of course, Singapore doesn't have a monopoly on pretensions. Yale and Yalies may like to think of the university as a bastion of free thinking. In truth, with its long history of Wall Streeters and three of the last four US presidents among its graduates, Yale is a bastion of the establishment that should get along just fine in Singapore.
Muhammad Cohen
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd
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