New Campus of Tel Aviv University Opened; Shazar Attends Ceremony

The new campus of Tel Aviv University was opened here today in ceremonies attended by President Shazar, Mayor Mordechai Namir and other Israeli officials.

The first six buildings on the new campus, which is north of the city proper, will be completed this year, and an additional 15 buildings will be finished within three years. Among the facilities planned for the new campus are a water research department, a faculty for business and finance, and courses on production, management, marketing, advertising, packaging and all other fields connected with exports. The new campus also will provide evening sessions for working people.

Dr. George Wise, president of Tel Aviv University, in discussing the future of the institution, said: “If Israel wants to maintain a Western standard of its scientific manpower factor, it should have additional higher education institutions.” He added that Tel Aviv, with a population of nearly 800,000, “should have such an institution of its own to enable middle and lower strata families to give their children a higher education. Tel Aviv University will answer both challenges.”

He noted that, while the United States has two-and-a-half percent of its population attending higher education institutions, and Britain has more than one percent, Israel has less than one percent in such schools. He noted that there were 180,000 Arab students now attending such institutions in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Dr. Wise, who is leaving for the United States next week on a fund-raising campaign, hailed American universities for their aid to Tel Aviv university, both in providing academic staff and in giving advice. He mentioned the University of California in Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology, Chicago University, Harvard and Columbia Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.