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Yale In China

By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - For nearly three years professors from Yale University and the National University of Singapore have been putting together an undergraduate course of study for the new Yale-NUS College. There have been debates, however, about whether Yale should work in Singapore given the state's human rights record.

While students in Asian universities are immediately tracked into majors, students will spend the first two years doing research and taking broad interdisciplinary courses, team taught in seminars by
professors from different disciplines.

The Chronicle of Higher Education in describing the curriculum gives an example of a contemporary issues course on HIV, already part of the Singapore program, which will examine public-policy responses to AIDs.

Courses will be structured with the intent to marry Eastern and Western academic, cultural and philosophic traditions. There will be no academic departments and staff will be a group of scholars complementing one another.

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