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Introduction to TAU
LEARNING WITHOUT LIMITS Located in Israel's cultural, financial and industrial heartland, Tel Aviv University is the largest university in Israel and the biggest Jewish university in the world. It is a major center of teaching and research, comprising nine faculties, 106 departments, and 90 research institutes. Its origins go back to 1956, when three small education units - The Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, an Institute of Natural Sciences, and an Institute of Jewish Studies - joined together to form the University of Tel Aviv. At first attached to the Tel Aviv municipality, the University was granted autonomy in 1963, and its campus in the residential section of Ramat Aviv was established the same year. Tel Aviv University offers an extensive range of study programs in the arts and sciences, within its Faculties of Engineering, Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine, Humanities, Law, Social Sciences, Arts and Management. The original 170-acre campus has been expanded to include an additional 50-acre tract, now being developed. The University also maintains academic supervision over the Center for Technological Design in Holon, the New Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, and the Tel Aviv Engineering College.
In addition to its basic functions of research and teaching, Tel Aviv University contributes its expertise to the welfare of society at large; plays a part in all aspects of national life; and addresses regional and international issues. Faculty members serve in the Knesset and the Cabinet, in government agencies, and in professional organizations and public bodies. Students are encouraged to tutor disadvantaged children, volunteer services to the elderly, and aid the community through a broad range of social involvement programs, such as TAU's wide-scale Price-Brodie Initiative in Jaffa. Tel Aviv University is a leader in absorbing the scientists and students who arrived in massive numbers from the former Soviet Union.
Middle Eastern history, strategic studies, and the search for peace are central concerns for Tel Aviv University researchers. The Institute for Diplomacy and Regional Cooperation, founded by the Peres Center for Peace, the Armand Hammer Fund for Economic Cooperation in the Middle East, the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African History, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Morris E. Curiel Center for International Studies are respected sources of information for government and private institutions, the press and the public. University scholars are putting their expertise to work for the peace process, participating in Israel's delegations to the peace talks, and in joint projects with colleagues from neighboring countries.
Tel Aviv University's Chaim Rosenberg School for Jewish Studies conducts research in the Bible, Talmud, Hebrew language and literature, Jewish philosophy and the history of the Jewish people. There are research centers for the Jewish media, Diaspora studies, Zionist history, and anti-Semitism research, and courses in Jewish Law. The Wiener Library, one of the world's largest collections on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, offers an extensive store of research materials.
Tel Aviv University has strong links with Jewish communities abroad, offering programs of Jewish studies to teachers and students from the United States, France, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. TAU is also involved in Jewish special education, research and teaching worldwide. The Lowy School for Overseas Students gives young people from other nations the opportunity to study at Tel Aviv University for a year, a semester or a summer. The program is in English, includes a wide choice of courses, and also offers the opportunity to live and study on kibbutz. Other study opportunities for students from abroad are a Master's Program in Middle Eastern Studies; a Master's Program in Biblical Archaeology, a Summer Law Program co-sponsored by Temple University Law School and the TAU Buchmann Faculty of Law; the Sackler School of Medicine New York State/American Program, a four-year MD program taught in English; the Medical Electives Program; the Wharton-Recanati-INSEAD-York Project in Management, the International Executive MBA Program of the Faculty of Management together with the Kellogg School, Northwestern University; the International MBA Program; and the High-Tech Management School. |
