UBBulls

Please trust that I am not flaming Albany nor trying to bait anyone, just offering input. I would not have if I'd known it would incite mentioning the old flagship debate that no longer exists within SUNY nor with Cuomo. I simply wondered just how it could be seen it as an ongoing issue. Otherwise I was staying true to the thread. All should be ticked at the constraints all have delt with as SUNY Centers. As pointed out in prior posts, the differences between the Centers came about due to our varied histories and political capital/leadership.

You make some valid points. I do take issue that CNSE shouldn't be included.

 

Brookhaven as a part of Stony Brook is not a fair comparison. We're talking about the "College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering". This is actually a college within UAlbany such as Business or Computing. It should definately be counted. Brookhaven is not a college within Stony Brook. It's just an affiliation.

I never pointed out that CNSE shouldn't be included. It should and is correctly in AU's total. What is in question is Albany's "affiliated institutions sponsored funds expenditures" that is quoted by some, inaccurately, as being an addition to the $330.54M figure. UB and SBU treat those as outside the official university total.

I do think the other criteria you throw in such as undergrad performance are not the primary drivers to AAU.

If you look up the AAU memebership policy undergrad ed. is included as a 2nd tier indicator. True, not as high-up the list as research, but it is a piece of the analysis.

To your 2nd post, I'm not sure where you saw any anti-Albany argument behind my post. It was only statements on AAU and a correction regarding research funds. As a former UA student I don't attack Albany unless it's needed to defend where I transferred, UB, when it is trashed. You'd be surprised how I would (and have on message boards) personally push for and would welcome SBU to the MAC, and Albany eventually to the AAU and the MAC.

Nor do I see where UB and SBU are or ever, directly "tried/trying to circle the wagons" or "[threw]/[is] throwing up roadblocks". Neither said "We don't want Albany to be a flagship too". Then SUNY2020 passed and all benefited. How are they holding the others back now? As many other posters have said, it is up to Albany leadership to deal with the lack of attributes such as endowment funds, a lack of key professional schools due to overlap with private institutions, poor town-gown relations, and fewer advocates among local reps compared to UB and SBU.

The endowment number was being used in the calculation and thus dragging down our standing.

Endowment matters in the "Top Research U" rankings but isn't among the measures of the AAU membership policy. Stony Brook was admitted when its endowment was even lesser than today's modest figures. A significant endowment obviously doesn't hurt, but Albany seems to lag in AAU measures such as faculty memberships and productivity, doctoral ed., and 'breadth and quality' of grad/research programs. Undergrad ed. is slightly 'below' typical AAU levels but should be easily bolstered by SUNY2020. The unfair hurtle that all face is the very real, subjective overall analysis of all attributes, where the members ask the question "Does this U. 'feel' like an institution synonymous with excellence on the level of AAU members?".

I was doing some searching one weekend on research universities to see where UA stands. My assumption is this is the big factor to getting into AAU. I kepthearing we produce about $400M in research grants per year. This is way ahead our SUNY Center peers. The SUNY NY2020 presentation also shows this number and puts us just south of Virgina Tech. We're actually ahead of a number AAU research universities including former AAU member Nebraska.

The research expendature figures in the chart on page 7 of the UA's SUNY2020 proposal are off. Albany's figures are total expendatures while those listed for Buffalo fall in line with only federal expendatures. As shown in the Top Research U's report our university total was $338M in 2010 (and over $360M today). The $400M+ figure some quote for Albany comes about when they include other funding:

In FY12 UAlbany external sponsored fund expenditures decreased by 2% for a total of $330.54 million. The UAlbany campus spent $106.885 million of external sponsored funds and CNSE spent a total of $223.6 million in sponsored funds. Our affiliated UAlbany faculty in the Department of Health (HRI) spent $97.0 million of sponsored funds....Thus in aggregate the total UAlbany and affiliated institutions sponsored funds expenditures for the past fiscal year of $427.5 million indicate a robust and well-funded environment of research, training, and public service --- http://www.albany.edu/research/assets/fallaccent12.pdf

So if Buffalo did the same with the research done by our affliated medical staff at institutions among the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus, or SBU with Brookhaven and others, we'd each have a much larger figure as well.

Campus police are directly responsible for the safety of students ON CAMPUS, City of Albany is responsible for this and other areas in the City. What would you have UA do? You make it seems like UA leadership is just chillaxing saying...screw it, not our problem. When in fact they've sent NUMEROUS e-mail to students (I know, I'm a student) regarding off campus safety, they have meetings and bulletin postings around campus etc. Short of Pres. Philip strapping on an uzi I fail to see how the University is complicit in any of this.

SUNY police are able to overlap and work with municipal forces. They can only legally cover adjacent streets to campuses on their own, but can engage in all the joint patrols and investigations as they please. All it takes is a deal: UB/Buffalo joint measures. UAlbany and St Rose have one as well, but does it have the teeth, based on this incident so near to Campus? Albany OSC

UB has programs for town/gown relations like most other schools, but also a Home Loan Guaranty Program for employees "to purchase homes as a means of stabilizing University Heights and other neighborhoods around UB’s South Campus." UAlbany could develop the same program, as madDOG is asserting.

But, it's true, cities will call for even more than what a school is doing when something goes wrong:Buffalo News story

Common Council Member Bonnie E. Russell, who represents the University District, said the arrests are a prime example of why UB police should take a more active role in patrolling the Heights, which is adjacent to the South Campus.

"University at Buffalo police need to revisit their contract to have more patrol details in the Heights, especially on the side streets," Russell said. "The Buffalo police are doing a fantastic job, but they can't do it alone." At present, UB police conduct limited patrols on city streets near the South Campus.

Cornell has 4 statutory schools which take up a major portion of the Cornell Campus holdings and 7000+ of Cornell's total enrollment. Thus why the Ivy's deride it as SUNY-Ithaca.

You don't see much crowing about Cornell because of what those statutory units offer: entry to an Ivy League education for public-level tuition. My sister earned her BS in the Ag school, took some very challenging courses, and came out with less debt than the typical Ivy Leaguer. It's funded so well and produces great grads that it seems no one complains about the private-school control. We could guess if striping Land-Grant status would be great for the SUNY Centers, but it would likely lead to little change. SUNY would just let the 4 schools run themselves, never attaching them to one or more Centers. They already do that with the non-Center doctoral institutions.

A member of UB's Council asked about the option of UB going private at a meeting during the UB2020 bill brew-haha. It didn't go anywhere among other council-members.

State funding will be a hastle. UB has had plans for a ~$25M fieldhouse (practice field, indoor regulation track, 1000 seats, lockers, meeting rooms, weight/cardio-training facilities) for a few years now and gave up on any state help. We call it the preppy "Athletics, Recreation and Wellness Center" and got local school districts pushing for it, for their own benefit. Nada. All private funding, which takes a while.

I can't see why JMU and the Hens would be included with the WAC rumors. The MAC engaged in talks with both examining the potention for at least 1 to get the league to 14 but both had leadership say they were staying CAA. Unless they merely want to be in a WAC where they could have more control over setting their own exit fees IF they ever get CUSA2.0 invites, the MAC would clearly be the wiser move just on the stabilty of tv and bowl deals alone:

Bowls:

-The WAC has only 1 tie-in for 2012 with the Boice Bowl, no deal past that and no secondary tie-ins.

-The MAC’s three primary bowl agreements are with the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, GoDaddy.com Bowl, and Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. The MAC has secured secondary agreements through the 2013 football season with the BBVA Compass Bowl, Gildan New Mexico Bowl, Beef O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl, TicketCity Bowl and Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. The MAC’s No. 4 selection could play in any of the following games through 2013 – Birmingham, New Mexico or St. Petersburg, and Dallas in 2012 (vs. the Big Ten or Big 12).

TV:

-The Western Athletic Conference announced today that a minimum of 13 football games will be televised on multiple ESPN platforms this fall.

-The MAC announced an updated version of its 2012 football schedule and already 56 games are slated for either a national or regional television network. With more games to be selected by national and regional outlets throughout the summer and early in the 2012 football calendar, the MAC will surpass last year's record number of televised games.

I think this best explains it. And the only reason SBU has made any steps is because LaValle funneled every cent he could into the university. Although SUNY has never much cared on making NY nationally competitive on the athletics side of things. Buffalo has been a joke at the top level.

MAC East Co-Champs in '07, outright East and MAC champs in '08 beating a ranked Ball St team, finally putting players in the NFL and getting even-term scheduling deals with AQ programs. There are a few MAC squads and other non-AQ schools who haven't sniffed similar conference success as we have since we returned to the top level. But it didn't happen sooner for us because of what was mentioned, leadership. Moving up when we were not financially prepared, 2 average AD's and 2 bad FBS HC's. Enter a new president, hiring a talented AD in Warde Manuel who hires a motivating coach in Gill and they both show it is not impossible to compete at Buffalo.

You gotta give Fiore credit as well, as much of a blowhard as he is. He walked in step with past and current SBU leaders with a vision that they should be competing at the level of their AAU peers as best they can while taking the proper FCS baby-steps that UB stepped over too quickly a decade earlier. SUNY Central may not care about funding athletics at each SUNY unit, but they don't hold the units back, either. If you have the pols and private funds on your side any Unit, even the D-3 schools, can assend however they like.

Assembly Higher Ed Chair Glick op-ed piece opposes differential tuition

 

SUNY, CUNY systems at risk

Makes you just shake your head at how someone like her who is in the middle of the budget mess has no clue. She, like the few other SUNY reform opponents like the UUP, just say the solution is to fund SUNY. My gosh, why hasn't anyone thought of that!

I doubt she's been to see the scale of the 'Appalachia' that Spitzer saw when he ventured outside Manhattan and the Capital building. I also doubt she engages often with the full, bi-partisan WNY delegation who felt they have to pen yet another bill for UB2020 for 2011 and wrote Cuomo urging him to do more than advocate for SUNY (specifically UB) reform, but include it in his budget proposal. I expect SB will have their own bill too, then SUNY will craft one system-wide, just like last year.

More on this topic just came out in the last few hours:

Wall Street Journal Story

WNY's freshmen Senators Grisanti, Gallivan, and Kennedy have all stated they will withhold their votes for any final spending bill that does not include SUNY reforms.

 

How'd that work out for Mr. Stachowski?

 

The Assembly will still be the important decision maker here. Loss of the veto-proof majority doesn't change the issue much..as that can't force the Assembly to pass something..only plays a role if the Governor doesn't want something that the Assembly (majority) wants..not vice versa.

Stach was notoriously weak throughout his long tenure against Downstate Democrats. He was set to assume a key chairmanship that could have bolstered his power but he passed, making many question his ambitions. The UB2020 issue was his last stand and he folded to the pressure from his comrades. He got blitzed in the media, local officials, and UB for insisting there was a 'framework'. Constituents were so fed up he lost in the Democratic primary, and again in the race for his seat running as 3rd candidate (He finished 3rd). The new Sens are strongly on the side of WNY and not the State Democratic machine as Stach was. They saw where that got him.

The first issue is not forcing the Assembly to pass it. The first hurdle is, Silver has never allowed it to come to vote. That's the mystery. Silver knew Patterson was a lame duck and didn't feel he needed to listen to him, Sen Sampson, and Zimpher, even though he made an oral promise to work on the issue to them. Now we'll see what a GOP Senate with a pro-SUNY reform Gov with a mandate from the electorate can do against Silver.

The big question is whether there are any changes in the Assembly. Anyone know?

The GOP gained 8 seats, with one seat being haggled over. I believe if the GOP wins it they will have 51 seats, meaning the Democrats lose their super-majority to over-ride a Cuomo veto. That would just put more power in Cuomo's hands. Silver can still control the vote like last year but he will have less clout. His conference shrinks, meaning his claims that a vote is not in the "interest of his conference" holds less weight. If they try to pass a spending bill without Flex perhaps Cuomo could veto it outright and force them to take up the issue (among many battles that could happen, i.e prop. tax cap, overall spending). Or WNY's Sen. delegates will sit on their budget vote and force Silver to put it up for a vote, or else they won't be paid, just like members had to bitch about last year.

Senators Grisanti and Maziarz from WNY, both SUNY Flex advocates, are also on the committee. Jim Seward is there as well and I know he thinks a lot of Zimpher's SUNY Strategic Plan. Expect things to be different this year. WNY's freshmen Senators Grisanti, Gallivan, and Kennedy have all stated they will withhold their votes for any final spending bill that does not include SUNY reforms.