Nanyang Technological University

Nanyang Technological University
Established: 1955
Type: Autonomous
Endowment: S$914 million[1]
Chancellor: President S R Nathan
President: Dr Su Guaning
Faculty: 1,100
Staff: 3,739
Students: 28,949
Undergraduates: 20,206
Postgraduates: 8,743
Location: Nanyang Avenue, Singapore
Campus: 2 km²
Colors:      University Red
     School Blue
Affiliations: ASAIHL, AUN
Website: www.ntu.edu.sg
Nanyang Technological University
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese: 南洋理工大學
Simplified Chinese: 南洋理工大学
Malay name
Malay: Universiti Teknologi Nanyang
Tamil name
Tamil: நன்யாங் தொழில்நுட்ப பல்கலைக்கழகம்

Nanyang Technological University (Abbreviation: NTU) is a major research university in Singapore. The university's main 200-hectare garden campus, known as the Yunnan Garden campus, is in the south-western part of the island. It houses Singapore's largest on-campus residence infrastructure including 16 halls of residence for undergraduates and a graduate hall. NTU will be the Olympic Village for the first-ever Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Its mission is to nurture creative and entrepreneurial leaders through a broad education in diverse disciplines.

Contents

History

NTU has a distinguished lineage with roots that date back to 1955, when Nanyang University (Nantah), the first Chinese-language university outside China, was set up with donations from people of all walks of life from Singapore and the region. The idea of establishing such a university was first mooted by Mr Tan Lark Sye and he himself donated a hefty $5 million towards its establishment. The lush university grounds - the Yunnan Garden campus - was donated by the Hokkien Association.

In 1980, Nanyang University merged with the University of Singapore to form the National University of Singapore. Nanyang Technological Institute (NTI) was established on the same campus in 1981 with government funding to educate practice-oriented engineers for the burgeoning Singapore economy. Three schools of Engineering were formed and NTI was named "one of the best engineering institutions in the world" by the Commonwealth Engineering council in 1985. NTI admitted its first batch of 582 engineering students in July 1982. As the Institute developed, courses other than engineering were offered over the years -- Accounting (1987), Business, Computer Engineering (1989), Material Engineering, Arts with Diploma in Education and Science with Diploma in Education (1991).

In 1991, NTI was reconstituted and became Nanyang Technological University with the absorption of the National Institute of Education, the only tertiary institute for teachers in Singapore. The alumni rolls of the former Nanyang University were transferred to NTU in 1996.

In 2005, NTU celebrated her golden jubilee. The 50th Anniversary celebrations marked the unification of the three chapters of NTU's rich heritage - Nanyang University, Nanyang Technological Institute and the National Institute of Education.

NTU also opened three new schools in 2005, namely the School of Art, Design and Media - Singapore's first professional art school offering degree courses in art, design and interactive digital media; the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, which offers programmes in Chinese, Economics, English, Psychology and Sociology; and the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), with the Divisions of Mathematical Sciences (MAS), Physics & Applied Physics (PAP), and Chemistry & Biological Chemistry (CBC), offering direct Honours programs and graduate degrees leading to the PhD in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

In April 2006, NTU was corporatised as an autonomous university. With this autonomy, NTU is able to enhance its education and research, taking it to greater heights on the world stage.

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, named in memory of one of the founding fathers of Singapore, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, was inaugurated in January 2007. An important component of this autonomous school is the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, long recognised as a world authority on terrorism.

In April 2007, Professor Bertil Andersson assumed office as NTU's Provost. He was handpicked from a worldwide field of 650 top academics, bringing to NTU an extensive set of experience and accomplishments in academe and research. Since January 2004, Professor Andersson has been the Chief Executive of the European Science Foundation (ESF). In early 2005, he was elected Vice-President of European Research Advisory Board (EURAB). Professor Andersson is now a Trustee of the Nobel Foundation.

NTU's second campus in Singapore, NTU@one-north and the NTU Alumni Clubhouse was officially opened by the President S.R Nathan in May 2007. The presence of NTU in the heart of the Biopolis and Fusionopolis R&D hubs is strategic. It enables the university to establish itself as a member of the one-north research community and to unleash its potential as the main science and technology university in Singapore. The one-north city campus also serves as a home for all of NTU's alumni, and facilitates continuing education through programmes offered by the Centre for Continuing Education and Confucius Institute. At the opening, NTU President Dr Su Guaning announced that a graduate school is being planned at one-north. The graduate school will home in on bio-engineering research and boost NTU's collaboration with the area's research institutions.

Campus

Lee Wee Nam Library
Administrative Building
Chinese Heritage Centre, formerly the administrative building of Nanyang University

The Yunnan Garden Campus, well-known for its lush landscape and undulating terrain, is located in the south-western part of Singapore, some 25 km from the city-centre. The original part of the campus was built in 1986 and the campus buildings are laid out on a master plan drawn up by architect Kenzo Tange.

The campus is well-equipped with modern facilities for teaching and research. Members of the university community study and work in state-of-the-art and well-equipped laboratories, lecture theaters and tutorial rooms. The new School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences building houses laboratories that are designed along those at Oxford University and will be the best-equipped and most modern of laboratories among Singapore universities. Another iconic building is the School of Art, Design and Media. The grassy-sloped roofs mimic the rolling hills of the garden campus.

The campus boasts a high-tech e-learning infrastructure riding on top of an extensive wired and wireless network setup. Seminars and lectures are supported by facilities that allow multi-media presentations, video-conferencing and simultaneous communication between different lecture theatres and venues.

Staff and students can choose to live in comfortable quarters and residential halls within the NTU Campus, and have access to a wide range of leisure and recreational facilities. Students are able to choose from single or double-sharing rooms, though there have been proposals of triple room sharing in time to come.

In late 2000, NTU's National Institute of Education shifted into its new, state-of-the-art, $400 million campus at the NTU grounds.

Colleges, Schools and Institutes

NTU has four colleges, comprising 12 schools. The College of Engineering, with six schools focused on technology innovation, enjoys wide renown and currently ranks fourth in the world in engineering publications. The College of Science is at the forefront of Singapore's life sciences and science initiatives, while the Nanyang Business School (College of Business) offers one of the world's top 100 MBA programmes. The College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences boasts Singapore's first professional art school, the Humanities and Social Science School, and the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, one of the best communication and information schools in Asia. The School is named after the late Dr Wee Kim Wee, a former President of Singapore who was a highly-respected journalist and diplomat.

College of Engineering

College of Engineering website

College of Science

Nanyang Business School

College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences

Autonomous Entities

Institutes and Centres

Research Institutes and Centres

NTU hosts numerous research institute and centers that were built for advancing science and technology, transmitting knowledge as well as conserving values and cultures.

NTU has in place multi-country programmes and initiatives with established institutions worldwide. Some examples of key partners include MIT, Stanford University, Cornell University, Caltech, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University; world-class universities in Asia such as Beijing University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Waseda, IIT of India; and top European universities like Cambridge University, Imperial College, HSR (University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of St Gallen, University of Technology of Compiegne and University of Technology of Troyes.

Research Centres within Schools

Interdisciplinary Research Clusters

Other Institutes and Centers

Joint Centres with External Organizations

Rankings

Year 2008

THES-QS World University Rankings: 77 (overall); 26 (Engineering & IT)

Year 2007

THES-QS World University Rankings: 69 (overall); 25 (Engineering & IT)

Year 2006

THES-QS World University Rankings: 61 (overall); 15 (Engineering & IT)

Internet Learning on Campus

The University is at the forefront of education and learning through the World Wide Web. The University is connected to the Internet and all the facilities and resources available over the Internet are accessible by anyone on the campus network. The large campus network, which links together all computing systems on the campus, is managed by the University's Centre for IT Services (CITS).

To supplement the fixed-line campus network, NTU implemented a campus-wide wireless network by the end of 2000. This high-speed wireless network, capable of a transfer rate of up to 11 megabits per second, enables NTU staff and students equipped with mobile devices such as notebooks, PCs and PDAs to access all networked services from practically anywhere on the campus without the need of a hardwired network connection.

Currently, NTU also provides e-learning services via edveNTUre. This is an advanced learning eco-system purchased from BlackBoard in which academic staff and students use appropriate technology for purposeful teaching and learning. Besides providing a repository of lecture recordings, lecture notes in PDF / powerpoint slides, it also facilitates learning activities for collaboration, discussion, assessment and project work. During term time, the usage typically by the community of staff and students exceeds nine-million page views weekly (July 2007).

Alumni

Arts and media

Politics and government

Business

Sports

Building and construction

Alumni Events

A Class Anniversary Reunion Celebration for the classes of 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2003 was held on August 23, 2008. The organising committee was chaired by Mr Walter Lee, Senior Vice-President of Exploit Technologies.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Annual Report 2007". Nanyang Technological University (15 August 2007).

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