Undergraduate Education

The Office of Undergraduate Education focuses on undergraduate teaching, learning, and academic mentoring. Areas that fall within Undergraduate Education include the Core Curriculum, John Sexton and Lisa Goldberg Academic Resource Center, Center for Writing, Hilary Ballon Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Registrar, Academic Policies, and the Office of Student Research.

Providing enrichment resources for students at all stages of their academic development, the Office of Undergraduate Education leads initiatives that support and improve undergraduate teaching and learning, engages students with faculty, and administers academic misconduct policies and procedures. The Office plays a critical part in advancing the NYUAD Academic Strategy to ensure a transformative global education experience for all undergraduate students, and support a rigorous, global liberal arts curriculum for NYUAD.

Leading the Office of Undergraduate Education, Vice Provost Erich Dietrich provides strategic vision and leadership for NYUAD’s outstanding global undergraduate academic experience, including curricular diversity and innovative pedagogical practices, the Core Curriculum, academic advising, undergraduate academic policies, maintaining a climate of academic integrity, academic writing, interdisciplinary and cross-divisional curricula, multi-divisional programs, and undergraduate student research. Additionally, his office provides enrichment resources for students at all stages of academic development and leads initiatives that support and improve undergraduate teaching and learning.

Erich joined NYUAD in September 2023 from NYU New York where he was Professor of Higher Education and International Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Erich formerly held the positions of Associate Dean for Global and Academic Affairs at NYU Steinhardt and Assistant Vice President of NYU Global Programs from 2014-2019. Erich was also the Academic Director of the NYU Abu Dhabi Summer Academy and Sheikh Mohammed Scholars Program from 2019-2023 and continues to teach the Sheikh Mohammed Scholars.

With a focus on fairness and access in higher education, Erich’s research examines race, affirmative action, and national identity in 21st century Brazil and the Global South, supported by grants from CAPES Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Growing from this research, he teaches an annual NYUAD J-term course, "What is Fair in University Admissions?"

Erich is a three-time Fulbright award recipient. He was a Visiting Expert on capacity building in international higher education in Greece, sponsored by the Fulbright Foundation, the US Embassy, and the Greek Ministry of Education; received a Fulbright International Education Administrator Award to India in 2016, and in 2024 served as a Fulbright Specialist in Ethiopia where he developed higher education internationalization policies for the Ethiopian Ministry of Education. 

In 2022, he was honored with NYU Steinhardt’s Teaching Excellence Award. Beyond NYU, he is a former Board Member of AIEA, the senior leadership association in international higher education; serves as an Ambassador for the Living Values Project of the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory; and now sits on the Board of Directors of ISEP Study Abroad.

Erich earned his PhD in History of Education from NYU, his MA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his BA, magna cum laude, from Carleton College.  

Key People