The faculty of the Department of Art History wishes to register its opposition to the proposed NYU 2031 development plan. Even beyond our concerns about the negative impact the proposed expansion will have on the faculty and graduate student tenants of Washington Square Village and Silver Towers (accounting for 40% of the faculty population), we have broader reasons for opposing the expansion:

We are gravely concerned that the disruption in this area generated by the proposed NYU 2031 expansion plan and its 19 years of construction will have serious adverse effects not only on the health and quality of life of our present faculty but also on the recruitment of outstanding new faculty.

In these uncertain economic times, an expansion of this scale and cost endangers not only the intellectual but also the fiscal health of the University and will dramatically drive up tuition costs. The consequences of these rising costs will put our students -- already among the most indebted in the nation -- at even greater financial risk.

We believe that the current plan, in its overwhelming scale, would result in a betrayal of our role as good neighbors, sensitive to the character and needs of Greenwich Village, the historic neighborhood that has for so long sustained us.

It is the faculty and student body that have always been, and will continue to be, at the heart of our Department.s and the University's academic mission. Therefore, we firmly reject the NYU 2031 Plan.