Students may have been hearing that a pivotal meeting took place between the NYU Shanghai leadership and members of the Shanghai Municipal Educational Commission (SMEC) as well as the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE). Following the meeting, rumors began to circulate about its purpose: Was the local government here to tell NYU Shanghai what they could or could not say? Were they coming to threaten NYU Shanghai with censorship—or worse: Cancellation? TL;DR: No. So, what were government officials doing at our school? Professor Clay Shirky helped shed some light on the nature of the meeting. “Every American university,” Shirky said, “goes through the same process.” Every five years, a university in the U.S. or in China must go through an accreditation process, meant to determine the quality of the school’s education. In the two countries, the exact details of the process differ, but some core elements remain the same. For instance: The accreditation is not pass-fail. If a school comes up short in some area, suggestions for improvement are made. But for a school to face shut-down during the accreditation process in either country is extremely rare. Then again, a school like NYU Shanghai is more than extremely rare. After all, excluding embassies, NYU Shanghai is the only place in Shanghai to offer freedom of speech, freedom of discussion, and freedom from uncensored materials. Even now, entering the school’s fourth year, it can be hard to forget that a wrong phrase, uttered innocently enough within the classroom walls of 1555世纪大道, could mean a jail sentence if said too loudly just meters from the door. It’s not hard to imagine, then, that our school could become somehow too successful, and perhaps be viewed as a threat by someone with power. The thought of being abruptly deported, with an unfinished degree, from a University that never produced a single graduate, must surely have made at least a few students feel jittery over the years.So, was there ever a chance that China would decide to modify their agreement, or even shut NYU Shanghai down? Given their authoritative brand of control, they technically could, couldn’t they?“Maybe, tomorrow,” said Shirky, “the Government decides to shut down Fudan University. Or ICBC. Don’t forget, that they could technically do that.” “Actually,” said John Robertson, “A big advantage of dealing with authoritarian regimes is that they tend to honor their contracts.” Because the controls are tighter in a government like China’s, said Robertson, there is less room for outside interests to get involved in governmental affairs. The government is free to carry out the plans they set, without lobbyists or voters swaying their stances over time--and so, if the government decides they want a school like NYU Shanghai to be established in the first place, we can rest assured that they know what they’re getting--and, more importantly, that they mean to keep their word. The same holds true for the university itself--there are no donors, and no political posturings that could presumably affect what is taught within NYU Shanghai. “In fact,” said Robertson, “NYU Shanghai probably enjoys more academic freedom than any university in the States, for that reason.” But perhaps it’s worth asking, then: Why would the government want a school like NYU Shanghai to exist in China in the first place? Deng Xiaoping had a famous saying: “Black cat, white cat—if it catches mice, it’s a good cat.” Despite his critics, his philosophy proved effective, and so understandably, China has continued to look for new areas in which to apply it. Education has the potential to be one such avenue: If allowing a more liberal, uncensored, decentralized approach to teaching could make Chinese Universities more effective, then why not adapt? This is the Chinese Government’s particular fascination with NYU Shanghai—as a petri dish, to study, observe, and (if it thrives), replicate. So, in addition to renewing NYU Shanghai’s accreditation for another five-year period, there was another, much more clear reason for the SMEC/MOE meeting: The Government, like any good scientist, wanted to check on its experiment. And, according to an acquired memo sent out among NYU Shanghai administration members following the meeting, things could not have gone better: “[The Committee] described NYU Shanghai as a new, effective model of sino-foreign joint education, one that has taken the first steps towards being a truly world-class university, using international best practices of teaching and research, bringing high quality faculty and students to Shanghai from around the world, playing a special role as a convener of elite talent, etc., etc.” It would seem, rather than rubbing the censors the wrong way, NYU Shanghai’s little university experiment has found an enthusiastic group of onlookers in the corridors of power, both in Shanghai and Beijing. It would also seem that the rumors of NYU Shanghai’s close brush with shutdown stem from nowhere in particular—except, perhaps, in the sort of residual jitters that some might have felt since the first days at NYU Shanghai. So, the bigger question remains: How did this rumor begin in the first place? This article was written by Michael Margaritoff. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Shanghai