Nanyang Technological University

Nanyang Technological University 南洋理工大学 Universiti Teknologi Nanyang நன்யாங் தொழில்நுட்ப பல்கலைக்கழகம்
Address
50 Nanyang Ave,
Singapore 639798
Singapore
Information
Type	Public research university
Established	1 April 1992
Website	www.ntu.edu.sg

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. It was started in 1981 as Nanyang Technological Institute and became a university in 1992. It is officially regarded as a continuation of the former Nanyang University (NU).

History

In 1981, Nanyang Technological Institute (NTI) was started as a school to train students to become engineers. It occupied the site of the former Nanyang University in Jurong West, which was closed in 1978 due to falling enrolment. In 1992, NTI was merged with the National Institute of Education and renamed Nanyang Technological University.

In 1996, the alumni rolls of Nanyang University, which contain the names of all NU students who graduated, were transferred to NTU. Between 1978 and that time, the rolls had been stored at the National University of Singapore.

NTU has since acquired the Chinese abbreviation of its predecessor, Nantah (南大). In 2001, there were plans to rename NTU to "Nanyang University", but these plans were aborted. The university's administration explained that NTU still lacked diversity in its non-engineering academic disciplines, which made it unsuitable to be renamed.

Incident

2019 freshman orientation camp controversy

A video was reportedly upload onto Instagram on 9 August 2019, showing a student can be seen leading a group of youths to perform lewd gestures, such as pointing at their crotch, thrusting and gyrating their hips at different parts of the cheer. According to some attendee, the camp had racist and overtly sexual cheers and games, including racist cheer using Chinese words to parody the speech patterns of Indian people.

NTU later issued a statement urging complainant to write to the Associate Provost (Student Life) or make a report via the NTU Mobile app for the university to pursue the matter further.

Associate Professor plagarism scandal

In July 2023, Associate Professor Qu Jingyi was accussed for plagarised a former student's final-year project in his research paper. The assertions were first made on online forum Reddit by someone claiming to be an NTU student who noticed stark similarities between Associate Professor Qu Jingyi’s 2018 research paper titled Escape As A Mode Of Existence: On Ruan Ji’s Escapism Complex and Wang Yueming’s 2014 project titled Escapism In The Literary Works Of Ruan Ji. Professor Qu’s 2018 paper is written in English, while Wang’s is in Chinese. Professor Qu's paper was accessible on Academia.edu has since been taken down.

Singapore newspaper, The Straits Times, reportedly found that more than 50% of Professor Qu’s paper looked like a direct translation of Wang’s 2014 paper, with no attribution to the latter. These sections include analyses of poems and inferences made on related research papers.

Later on 11 October 2023, an NTU spokesman told The Straits Times that Associate Professor Qu Jingyi is no longer employer by NTU with effect from 11 October 2023. Whether Prof Qu was dismissed or had resigned is unrevealed.

Student manipulated schoolmates into drinking alcohol

In September 2023, a female student filed a complaint to university that a male student manipulated her to drink alcohol until she passed out in his dormitory room. A male undergraduate was reportedly in the running to become the university’s Students’ Union president at the time.

NTU responded to news media that the complaint did not allege any form of sexual misconduct, and no evidence of sexual misconduct were found as well.

Colleges and schools

As of 2007, NTU has the following colleges and schools.

1. College of Engineering
   • School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
   • School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
   • School of Computer Engineering
   • School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
   • School of Materials Science and Engineering
   • School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
2. College of Science
   • School of Biological Sciences
   • School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
3. College of Business, more commonly known as Nanyang Business School
4. College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences
   • School of Art, Design and Media
   • School of Humanities and Social Sciences
   • Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information

Two other schools, the National Institute of Education and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, are run autonomously.

Facilities

NTU has two campuses, the Yunnan Gardens campus (which was the site of Nanyang University) and a newer campus in Buona Vista which was opened in 2007.

In the Yunnan Garden campus, the academic-use facilities are concentrated in two complexes, the North Spine and the South Spine, which are linked to each other. The main complex buildings house common facilities such as tutorial rooms and lecture theatres; wings that branch out perpendicular to these buildings house the individual colleges and schools. The complexes were designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei.

Two-thirds of the student population choose to stay in the 16 Halls of Residence scattered around the Yunnan Gardens campus. The halls have rooms for one or two students each and are equipped with comforts such as washing machines, televisions, and Internet access. In 2005, there was a controversy when hostel rates were raised. The furore even reached the ears of a opposition political party leader, who suggested that students hold demonstrations to protest the increase. However, his suggestion was ignored by students and despite their complaints, the university administration continued with the rate increase, but by a lesser amount than initially announced.

The Buona Vista campus houses academic facilities as well as the alumni clubhouse.

References

• History of NTU
• Colleges of NTU