Flagship Campus

[ATL_DANE]

I've heard a hundred times on this board that SUNY doesn't have a flagship campus. Well maybe that's going to end if the governor has anything to do with it. The governor's speech today clearly outlined the need for SUNY to catch up to other state universities. We're laggin' bad (my opinion). He specifically mentioned New York's lack of a University of Michigan Ann Arbor or CAL Berkley type of campus... e.g. a "flagship". It's critical that Albany get picked as the one or two campuses that are going to be promoted to flagship status. You can't make all 64 campuses into a Michigan or Georgia Tech as they'll discover. Gettin' tapped as a flagship would be great for our school on all fronts, including athletics. Recruiting would be a lot easier if we have the academics and campus infrastructure of a flagship school. Side note, notice thay both happen to be BCS schools? Have you ever been to those campuses... gorgeous! Sounds like a great potential opportunity for UA... I hope our administration can make the case for us...

 

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...egion-apnewyork

[UA_MA_2000]

I've heard a hundred times on this board that SUNY doesn't have a flagship campus. Well maybe that's going to end if the governor has anything to do with it. The governor's speech today clearly outlined the need for SUNY to catch up to other state universities. We're laggin' bad (my opinion). He specifically mentioned New York's lack of a University of Michigan Ann Arbor or CAL Berkley type of campus... e.g. a "flagship". It's critical that Albany get picked as the one or two campuses that are going to be promoted to flagship status. You can't make all 64 campuses into a Michigan or Georgia Tech as they'll discover. Gettin' tapped as a flagship would be great for our school on all fronts, including athletics. Recruiting would be a lot easier if we have the academics and campus infrastructure of a flagship school. Side note, notice thay both happen to be BCS schools? Have you ever been to those campuses... gorgeous! Sounds like a great potential opportunity for UA... I hope our administration can make the case for us...

 

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...egion-apnewyork

 

Perhaps we could start by getting UAlbany custom license plates. If it were me, I'd prefer the UAlbany logo (with purple and gold colors) or the minerva logo and/or school seal.

 

The other 3 University Centers have them: http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/col.htm

[GODANESGO]

I've heard the SUNY BOT will address the issue of officially establishing SUNY Geneseo as the system's premier institution of honors studies during their upcoming meeting this week. While this certainly isn't like making the college a flagship, it is a step that would recognize one school at a state-level, something SUNY hasn't recently been apt to do.

 

While there might be some homerism in it, I would have to believe (if there were to be some serious action towards creating a SUNY flagship) that Albany and Buffalo would be at the top of the four university centers. Binghamton and Stony Brook certainly have strong academics with DI athletic programs, but I see them as more of niche type schools, at least as compared to UAlbany and UB.

 

UB is the largest of the schools with a law school, med school, etc and is pretty well recognized. Albany's in the state capital (although there are a number of flagships that aren't in their state capital), has good name recognition and has received quite a bit of attention/investment from the state with the recent nanotech initiatives.

 

Either way, I can't imagine a declaration coming anytime soon, as all four university center will ceratinly lobby hard should the Governor/SUNY look towards establishing a flagship campus.

[UA_MA_2000]

GODANESGO, excellent points. I agree with your view that it would probably be either Buffalo or UAlbany. But having obtained degrees from both institutions, I am HORRIBLY biased. Unfortunately, I just don't know enough about Bingo or the home of the Seawolves (what is a seawolf anyway?) to add much objective thought to the discussion of our conference rivals becoming the "flagship" school (I sure hope not).

 

I do note in passing, however, that Buffalo has the largest student body and, I believe, the only SUNY law school. [CUNY isn't SUNY and their law school doesn't even amount to a Yankees' victory at this point and shouldn't even be in a discussion of law with their dismal bar-pass rate.] Strangely, the four university centers do not host a SUNY medical school, so that's not relevant. But whether relevant variables include (i) student body population and/or (ii) the fact that a "professional school" (i.e., law/medicine) is associated with a campus is anyone's guess. It seems like being in the state's capital has also got to account for something.

 

As far as attention from sports go, the attention from our athletic program has certainly helped, though I note that Buffalo is the only program that has gone to what was formerly called Division I-A football. With the exception of a few/several states (i.e., UMASS, Montana, Delaware, etc.), the flagship schools (especially in a large state like New York) have football programs that are what was formerly called Division I-A.

 

One other thing that hopefully won't be considered but that might hurt us is simply the fact that our undergraduate program is ranked lower than the other 3 University Centers (Bingo in the 80s; S.B. in the 90s; and Buffalo around #120), which are each in the top two tiers for national universities. I think our graduate programs are comprehensive and very strong (Criminal Justice and Nanotechnology, to just name two that have been, or are, ranked #1 in the nation), so hopefully that would carry much more weight.

[Clickclack]

TU Story!