purplenorange

ok - so I rarely post (shame on me... or maybe good for you..!) I transferred from 'cuse to UA in the late '80s. At the time this wasn't considered a step-down - more of a lateral. My SU friends didn't think it was a major shift (I also thought of NYU - just knew SU wasn't for me...) The joke on campus was this is "SUNY Syracuse", as in 400 person lectures in freshman classes. The food was comparatively great. As an alum has it made a difference ? Not in the northeast (I've been in MA for 20+ years now...) For graduate school ? Again, UA and SU would be 'peers' in grad applications - and here, UA has, in most departments, better-known faculty (what really matters...) I managed to attend a top-10 graduate school from UA (in my field, and in general a 'top 10' school). There are some very seriously accomplished UA alums out there. While I think I've had a fabulous career, I'm amazed and humbled at some of the alums I meet. What UA sorely needs is a 'vision' of what it wants to be. What the student experience should be, and how it is different from every other school. Likewise for the alumni, and how alums are supposed to remain involved in the school. This currently doesn't exist, and I think ultimately is hurting the trajectory. Syracuse has this right - 1000%.

If the land is owned by the foundation, then SUNY Poly should be paying rents to the foundation. I would assume that would have been in place with CNSE as well... same for a lease (or Poly takes over the lease terms). If it was owned/leased by UA, then it gets messier as the state can do what they want. My guess, and this is purely a guess, is that the land was leased by the foundation and now Poly has taken over the lease terms.

"capital", not "capitol" As long as the four SUNY centers keep beating each other up, they will keep each other down. There's no chance that one will allowed to 'break out' - there are too many alumni and too much wrapped up in local state politics for that to ever happen. They will all rise nicely together and the real "competition", for state and federal dollars and for students, is from the NY privates and surrounding states. Rutgers, UConn, Mass, UVM, UNH, Ohio, Penn State, BU, Northeastern, Syracuse, Fordham, etc....

I don't think it comes down to one loss (for any team), so that's just silly. In terms of WNY "brand", those schools are probably equal to Albany, but that's beside the point. My opinion is that Buffalo doesn't like to be 'peered' with other SUNY centers (notably SBU and Albany), so they avoid it. Probably still smarting about being taken over by the state or something - although strangely they wanted to be "The" state univ. of NY. Good thing for Albany and SBU they're building a nice rivalry between the schools. Buffalo is not, any longer, in a different category -- splitting hairs.

Too bad about SBU. Good team and good program - (in spite of their smack talking)... I'm glad they didn't make the dance, but would have been good to see them make some noise. The buzzer losses are tough to take.

I wish them the best - I really do. It's a question of where we are as a program and as a university and whether this makes sense. Yes, it's good for the hometown alums of both school. Apart from that, no. So, considering, a home&home at best would make sense going forward.

I really hope we just drop this game. Siena isn't a "peer" school, and you're known by the company you keep. If we play at all, they should be paying us to play - I know they don't see it that way, which is why we should just drop it. We can schedule much better and more interesting opponents. Home and home is too generous.

I think it's great that they made the tournament -- first time I think. Well, this is #5 for us. And I think Bracketology has them at a 12 seed, with us at 14... so if that holds both will have tough first rounds.

Our endowment needs to be bigger -- too bad the Nano split didn't have some unrestricted funds to go with it. On the other hand if they buy us a law school and medical school, well, all can be forgiven. The one year return on the S&P500 was 17%. I'm not sure how it's invested, but I'm pretty confident it doesn't sit in a money market... I would encourage everyone on this board to give -- It's true that a lot of endowment income is often from "large gifts", which at Albany aren't that large -- maybe $10k. And if alumni are in the habit of giving (at least *something*), then if and when they have more income or other windfall they are likely to give more. Just my 2 cents...

Maybe I've been earning a living for too long, but I'm not going to sit through a boring basketball game for a chance at a free TV.... especially if my team loses. There are great studies on increase in hormone production (at least in males) when their home teams win or lose, even if they only sit on the couch: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9811365 There's a lot to this -- the biggest bump is if you play a team that's "close", and pull out a win. How many of us have felt that joy ! Of course the Danes could never beat the Tar Heels (who could - those kids can't even read... - only major in basketball !) But when we knock down Vermont or another great rival, well, it feels good. Like monkeys on cocaine, we come back for more. That and change the $*@&! name. I can't even SAY "You-Albany" - there's no consonant break ! Let's just be Albany University (or University of Albany) and be done with it. Nobody will confuse us with that school in Georgia any more than the Indiana University of Pennsylvania is confused with Penn, or the Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis is confused with Indiana or Purdue (what's with Indiana anyway!)

I thought "Union University" was a pretty thin admin. layer without much overlap between the institutions. From what I've read and people I've spoken to, this will be a merger / absorption / whatever you want to call it with ALS. They are doing it 'step wise' to make sure things go well, but the intent on both sides is a full, unqualified merger. At least that's what I've been hearing - take it for what it's worth (FWIW I was the first one to post about the nano split... so maybe I know something. Maybe I don't) There are really no naysayers on this -- of course some ALS alums would just love SUNY to give ALS a ton of cash and be done with it, but that's not really going to happen now. I'm much more interested and excited about downstate med - although that might be trickier since downstate is on good financial footing. But possibly path smoothed because it's within SUNY. Having a medical school would almost certainly mean AAU membership -- we're on the bubble without it. Strangely, losing Nano didn't hurt that much since the research funding was almost all from industry, which the academics (stupidly in my opinion) discount. aka not "peer reviewed". whatever... But Downstate + what we're doing in cancer, the RNA Institute, genomics, etc. is really impressive.

I don't think it's an ordered list - looks quasi-alphabetical - Albany has 2 CEOs of $100M IPO (mkt cap) companies in 2014. This is fantastic and a good list to be on.

My guess is the "merger" (aka acquisition) will happen. ALS is on a pretty bad financial path and I doubt sincerely the state will give it any money as charity. Also by becoming part of Albany the tuition will drop to a level that will attract a LOT of students - student caliber will increase overnight. I've also heard that Downstate Medical is very much "on the table" - which will be amazing. Assuming this happens, like Cornell we will have a medical school in NYC and maybe can use that campus for other programs, or blended programs. Assuming all happens (yes this is a big assumption but the momentum is REALLY there), Albany will have a top-10 public policy school, a law school in the State capital, a med. school in NYC, and a new engineering school. The business school might also benefit from this activity. AAU will definitely be coming. Someone said is elsewhere - but the "odd man out" is Binghamton.

If Albany Law School doesn't merge (whatever "affiliate" means), it has a high risk of being among the "several" NYS law schools that will close. Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Fordham are clearly not at risk. Neither is Syracuse, Hofstra, St. John's or Cardozo. We can assume CUNY and SUNY Buffalo are also not closing due to their public mission. This leaves Brooklyn Law, Touro, Albany, New York Law, and Pace. Those are all at risk - more than one will close. Pace and Brooklyn are probably safe. Between Touro, Albany, and NY Law - pick 2.

If someone wants to block this, arguments like "it's not fair to me" and "we don't need another (public) law school" will not work. Albany Law School is not viable "as is". As someone already pointed out, a merger like this will reduce the number of law schools by basically scrapping Binghamton's future one, so it doesn't add another law school to New York. No way will NYS support three public law schools. There has also been the issue of whether Albany Law School is *viable* without some drastic change. An alternative of status quo ante will not fly when first year enrollments are down 34%. And a merger alone is not enough -- however, a merger combined with an aggressive 6-year BA/JD and 4 year JD/MPA JD/MPP will be great. The combined programs with Rockefeller will attract fantastic talent to the law school and beef up its academic credentials (this is, after all, a top-10 public policy school), as well as enrollment numbers. Graduates of the program will have no problem finding good work in Washington or state-level governments, which will bolster the Law School's job placement rates. I'm sure they'll also push JD/MBA but the uptake on that isn't as clear to me. It's really a no-brainer, and will be cheaper than NY building a new law school and will assure the future of Albany Law School. I have not seen anyone suggest and alternate plan for Albany Law School that doesn't result in insolvency, and the state "owes" UAlbany for playing nice with the Nano split. This will happen, and my guess is it will happen quickly.