Over the next five years, according to Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), Ariel University is going to double in size, with as many as a dozen new buildings that will be added for new research and teaching facilities. Also on the horizon: a new medical school, named after billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam.
The Council for Higher Education in Israel has recently approved Bennett’s $113 million plan, which is expected to further increase the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria – currently about 15,000 students attend Ariel. The university’s overall annual budget is about $75 million. The campus will be given an additional 11.61 acres of land, bringing its total area to just under 26 acres.
Ariel University was founded in 1982 as a regional college of Bar-Ilan University. In 2012, the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria voted to grant the institution full university status. The student body includes secular and Orthodox Jews, Arabs, Druze, and Circassian Israelis, as well as 600 Arab students who reside in the Palestinian Authority.
With a $20 million donation from the Adelsons, Ariel will become home to Israel’s sixth medical school.
The Ariel plan still requires approval from the full Council for Higher Education, but it has already been approved by the Health Ministry. Next, the expansion plan must be approved by the Judea and Samaria Council for Higher Education.
The medical school is set up for 70 new students with an undergraduate pre-med degree each year, and will offer a four-year program, like Tel Aviv University. The dean will be Prof. Shai Ashkenazi, the former chairman of the Israel Medical Association’s scientific council, and has been working as senior physician at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, Petah Tikva.