Tal Ben-Shahar was once a successful psychology professor at Harvard University. His classes on positive psychology attracted audiences of more than 850 students, making it the most popular course on the campus. But the best-selling author of "Heaven Can Wait" and "Happier" left America in 2006 to return to his native Israel and teach at a little-known institution of higher education called the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, here in this seaside resort. Mr. Ben-Shahar was drawn to the university, he says, because its founders believe it "can make a difference in society, in schools, in politics, in the daily lives of people in Israel and around the world, which I think is the right spirit of academia." Established in 1994, the center began life as Israel's first private college. Today it offers serious competition to the country's seven publicly financed major universities, attracting faculty members from some of the world's top universities. The center's founder and president is Uriel Reichman, former dean of law at Tel Aviv University. One of his main aims in creating the college, he says, was to attract many of the brilliant Israeli college graduates who had gone abroad, partly to escape the limited academic career prospects in Israel. The center, whose operating budget is supported by tuition revenue, has also been successful in raising money from Israeli philanthropists. Donors have financed the building of the campus as well as the infrastructure.