(June 7, 2012) MOSCOW: New York University and the government of Russia have reached an agreement on a merger that will revolutionize both higher education and superpower governance.
Under the plan, every 18 year old Russian citizen will automatically be matriculated as a freshman at NYU. To accommodate the substantial increase in the student body, ten 50-square mile campuses will be built at locations across Siberia. Furthermore, to encourage the new student population to spend at least one semester at the New York site, all of Manhattan south of 59th Street will be turned into student dormitories.
The plan was announced at a joint press conference held by Presidents John Sexton of NYU and Vladimir Putin of Russia. President Sexton said, "NYU and Russia have so much to offer one another. In the global conversation of the coming Knowledge Century --- the Age of the Cosmopolitan --- we will need to move past the traditional divisions between academia and thuggish corrupt autocracies and take advantage of the natural synergies between these two great institutions. Our faculty is very excited about the opportunities for teaching in Yakutsk and Nordvik --- new arteries within the circulatory system for the Global Network University --- particularly those very very few who have raised concerns about the construction projects in Greenwich Village."
President Putin will serve as Assistant Vice Provost to the Global Network University, together with Chelsea Clinton. Correspondingly, senior members of the NYU administration will join the Board of Trustees of Gazprom.