As we prepare to welcome the Class of 2015 to NYIT’s fifth historic year in Nanjing, I want to thank you for being a part of NYIT’s undergraduate campus in China. This month, more than 300 new NYIT-Nanjing students will join our global university network of 14,000 students and 3,600 faculty and staff around the world.

 

When I meet our students, I like to tell them that our name—New York Institute of Technology—is an extraordinary calling card on the global landscape. They quickly discover it for themselves.

 

I came to China a few weeks ago as the United States delegate to a forum of college presidents held in Shenzhen.  I spoke to more than 160 leaders in higher education worldwide about how universities are ideal incubators of collaboration and ingenuity. I urged them to help me create international “idea centers” in partnership with business and government. I emphasized that students need to be citizens of the world to meet the challenges of the global market.

 

I spoke with confidence because I’ve seen it happen at NYIT, a truly global university.

 

My speech, “Globalism and Higher Education: Modeling the 21st Century,” received widespread coverage from nearly 50 media outlets around the world, including Global People, China Radio International , Xinhua News Agency and Shenzhen Daily in China, The Philippine Star in the Philippines, and New York’s China Press. I am honored that NYIT’s increased efforts to define itself as a leader in global higher education resonate so strongly with an international audience.

 

Incidentally, more than 300 Chinese graduate and undergraduate students are experiencing the best of our campuses in New York this year. Last month, more than 50 students representing seven prestigious Project 211 universities joined us in Manhattan and Old Westbury to complete graduate degrees in international business and architecture. And an additional 52 Chinese graduate students at NYIT in New York are members of the NYIT-Nanjing Class of 2011.

 

We also welcome our twelfth cohort of M.B.A students at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics this year.

 

As we begin this new academic year, I look forward to the innovative ways that we, the NYIT community, will work to solve the world’s major challenges with a robust exchange of knowledge and ideas.

 

Thank you for being a part of NYIT.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Edward Guiliano, Ph.D.