The faculty of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies wishes to register its opposition to the proposed NYU 2031 plan for expansions on the "superblocks" between West 3rd and Houston Streets, even in the only slightly modified version recently announced, for the following reasons:

• The disruption caused by many years of construction in and around Washington Square Village and Silver Towers will have serious adverse effects on faculty quality of life, and thus on the retention and recruitment of high-quality faculty, which is at the heart of our academic mission.
• Greenwich Village neighborhood groups and Community Board 2 have rejected the plan, which is likely to cause grave long-term damage to the character and livability of the neighborhood, by exacerbating crowding, traffic, parking and other problems and by significantly diminishing public green space in this residential area. All of us have a stake in the viability of the neighborhood, and we also believe that our non-NYU neighbors' concerns must be taken seriously
• There has been no serious consultation with NYU faculty regarding the rationale for the plan, its design, or the health and environmental consequences of the many years of construction that it will entail.
• At a time of fiscal and economic uncertainty, there has been no transparency about how this huge expansion project will be paid for. This raises concerns that its costs will ultimately be covered in ways that would undermine the long-term stability and standing of NYU, including sacrificing other university priorities, raising student tuition (and therefore student indebtedness), further increasing student enrollment and/or employing more adjunct rather than full-time faculty.
• More broadly, the NYU 2031 plan would seem to be yet another manifestation of the administration's embrace of expansion for expansion's sake, a policy that risks underming NYU's hard-won academic quality and prestige, and weakening its attractiveness to prospective students and faculty.