NUS law school to move back to Kent Ridge campus in 2025

SINGAPORE: Come August 2025, the National University Singapore’s (NUS) law school will return to its Kent Ridge campus for the new academic year. 

The NUS Faculty of Law (NUS Law), which is currently located at the university’s campus in Bukit Timah, will move into the Yale-NUS College premises, located in University Town.

This will take place after the final batch of Yale-NUS College students graduate in May 2025, said NUS in a news release on Monday (May 27).

"This marks a significant step by the University to further integrate its distinctive law degree programmes into its comprehensive and interdisciplinary undergraduate education, infuse the teaching and learning of law more extensively into its broader suite of interdisciplinary academic offerings, and bring law students more closely into the fold of the main campus," said NUS.

NUS Law currently comprises about 1,000 undergraduates, 250 postgraduate students and 160 full-time faculty and staff.

When NUS’ predecessor institution - the then University of Malaya - admitted its first cohort of law students in 1957, they pursued their studies at the Bukit Timah campus.

A year after NUS was established in 1980, the faculty moved with NUS to the Kent Ridge campus, where it remained for the next 25 years.

The faculty then moved back to Bukit Timah in 2006 when the site was returned to NUS.

"We are excited to welcome the NUS Law community back to Kent Ridge,” said NUS president professor Tan Eng Chye.

“I am looking forward to having the NUS Law family back on the main campus where they had spent 25 years from 1981 to 2006," he added.

"CLOSER COMMUNITY BONDING"

NUS said the decision to return NUS Law to Kent Ridge was made after careful consideration and planning, and aims to enrich the educational experience of all students.

"NUS Law students will benefit from opportunities to enhance their interdisciplinary learning with easier access to a wide selection of courses - such as non-law elective courses and non-law minors - offered by other colleges, faculties and schools at Kent Ridge, and interact with the 50,000-strong student population from diverse disciplines and backgrounds," said NUS.

"They will also be able to fully immerse in the vibrant student life, extensive residential options and out-of-classroom experiences at Kent Ridge. This will bring about stronger collegiality, closer community bonding, and the flourishing of every student in personal growth and development."

NUS added that the integration of law faculty and staff into the main campus will also foster a "more vibrant academic environment, encouraging collaborations in teaching, research and administration".

The NUS Centre for International Law - a university-level research centre - will also move together with NUS Law from Bukit Timah to the Kent Ridge campus.

YALE-NUS PREMISES

Yale-NUS College will close in 2025, with its last cohort graduating in May that year.

Established in 2011 as a collaboration between Connecticut-based Yale University and NUS, it was Singapore’s first liberal arts college.

But in 2021, in a move met by surprise and confusion by alumni and students, NUS announced it was ceasing its collaboration with Yale University, and that Yale-NUS and the University Scholars Programme (USP) will be merged into a single new college - later named NUS College.

When NUS Law moves into the Yale-NUS College premises, it will be neighbours with NUS College, with both faculties co-locating in the same premises, NUS said.

It added that it "will ensure plans are in place for NUS Law to have a smooth transition in the move to its new premises".

The NUS College Dean’s Office, in a message seen by CNA, assured students and staff members that NUS Law’s move will not cause any disruption to the plans for NUS College, as the Yale-NUS facility is "significantly larger than NUS College alone could ever use".

"We look forward to the opportunities this new development will create for our students, faculty, and the wider NUS community," said Professor Andrew Simester, dean of NUS Law. 

"With law increasingly interwoven across multidisciplinary domains such as healthcare, AI and sustainability, our law students will find it much easier to read non-law electives or explore a non-law minor to complement their law degree," he added.

When asked by CNA about what would happen to the Bukit Timah campus, NUS said it is exploring plans to repurpose and reallocate the space according to its needs, and will study the different options carefully.