Sam Harmon

Perhaps I'm missing something. How is new apartment development within exisiting university boundries and within easy walking/biking distance of where these people will work/study contributing to sprawl? Now if they were housing their MBA students at Polaris, forcing them to make an I71 commute everyday, your point might have some validity.

:drunk: That's absurd. I think Case is doing a great job and is a wonderful asset to Cleveland and Ohio, but Case has never, ever been considered a peer of Cal Tech or MIT. Hell, they weren't even elected into the AAU until 1969. Case has a lot of great things to trumpet. It doesn't need to resort to comically absurd boosterism.

As someone who grew up in Reno, and has no objections to gambling on moral or religious grounds, I can say with near certainty that gambling is in NO WAY a serious long term solution for Columbus' downtown. No matter how shiny and "upscale" the casinos developers promise it to be, mark my words that, within three years, it will be a depressing, low-class dive. I've been to "the boats" outside of Chicago, and was shocked at how depressing and low-rent they were. They made downtown Reno look like fracking Monte Carlo. Vegas is the only city in the country that's been able to do upscale casino gambling with any measure of success. Just look at the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to Atlantic City's casinos a quarter century later. My honest feelings are that gambling should have never been allowed to move beyond Nevada. If you can't afford to go to Vegas for a weekend, you have absolutely no right (particularly if you have kids) to be gambling in the first place. Columbus' downtown has its problems, but there are several significant positives, including the Arena District, North Market, the gentrified neighborhoods south, east and north of the CBD and--of most recent importance--the 10 year tax abatement on downtown condos. Put a casino in downtown, and it will destroy all of that in a decade.

Just what the upscale residents of German Village and the downtown condos want (or need) something that will attract every drunken redneck from a 100 mile radius to hang out in downtown Columbus wasting their paychecks every weekend. Build a casino in downtown Columbus and you can kiss German Village property values goodbye and start taking over/under bets on how high the CBD crime rate will spike and how far down the office occupancy rate will plummet. What I would like to see is a nice mix of office, residential and retail--in the framework of some interesting architecture. As far as retail goes you're never going to lure the suburbanites back downtown to shop. It's just not going to happen. What downtown does need is a good mix of retail that has a catalyst effect on downtown living (i.e. makes it more attractive and easier). Things like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Best Buy, Home Depot a Crate & Barrel. In other words, a retail mix that serves downtown residents in the manner that the Clybourn shopping corridor in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood serves the Lincoln Park, Gold Coast, Bucktown neighborhoods.

I might add that, if we're comparing the ability of various state universities to stem Ohio's brain-drain, attracting Ph.D students from around the world is certainly doing a greater service to the taxpayers of Ohio than attracting upper middle-class, white undergrads from the Chicago suburbs who come only because they were rejected by U of I or Wisconsin and who most likely move right back to Chicago after graduation.

I wouldn't go that far. In fact, I've discussed the shortcomings and damaged reputation that Ohio State faced in the 60s-70s many times. It's just that some, out of blind loyalty to their chosen institution, would choose to ignore certain facts about Ohio State including the historical reasons behind its founding, its legally designated flagship status prior to the Rhodes administration, the considerable quality gap between it and the other Ohio public universities today, and the flagship role it's logically and historically positioned to play in the current restructuring of Ohio higher education. To answer an earlier question, I have degrees from Ohio State and Chicago.

no, definitely not. osu is HUGE in attracting foreign students. I will add that Miami has a huge percentage (over a third) of out-of-state undergraduates. How much of this was planned and how much was a simply a reaction and reallocation of recruiting resources as they fell behind Ohio State for top Ohioans, I don't know. BTW, I don't consider it "hating" to discuss any Ohio university objectively (strengths, weaknesses and challenges) in a way that strays from the sunny, admissions brochure talking points.

Great news, and they chose downtown instead of an office park on the outerbelt. Outstanding news for Columbus.

I agree but do see W&M's reputation as quite a bit higher than Miami's. UC-Santa Cruz is another similar institution. Miami has always had this Svengali-like ability to convince Ohioans that it is really much better and of a higher national stature than it actually is viewed outside the state. Having the state's flagship forcibly dumbed down on the undergraduate level in the sixties and seventies certainly helped in this perception. Personally, I'm not sure what role Miami of Ohio will play in the future of Ohio higher education. They're not a serious research/graduate university, but on the other hand, they're nowhere close to being the "selective public liberal arts college" that they profess to be. They won't accept a role as a lesser selective undergrad college a'la Bowling Green or Kent State but can no longer compete with Ohio State for the top Ohio high school graduates. Quite frankly, they really seem to have boxed themselves into a very diminished role. With nearby UC's apparent emergence as the state's secondary comprehensive, research university, and now tightening up its undergraduate admissions profile, I don't foresee happy days ahead for the popped collar crowd in Oxford.

C'mon, when a university that has such an oversized, puffed-up view of itself can only manage a fundraising campaign less than half that of the school that it looks down upon (UC) and then falls far short of that goal, I think that's perfectly good fodder for criticism. To listen to the Miami of Ohio community (alumni and administration) talk, one would think that they'd be raising funds on a par with Michigan or Northwestern...or dare I say it, Ohio State. I've always found the gaping chasm between how Miamians view their university and how the rest of the world views it to be rather unique in higher education.

Sorry, ink. Miami of Ohio was allowed to have its brief moment of glory in the 1960s and 1970s only because your former president Millett as the first chair of the board of regents protected Miami and allowed it to backdoor into selective admissions through not building enough dorm space for the baby boomers while he and Governor Rhodes were at the same time forcing an open admissions policy on the state's only Association of American Universities member school. This brief moment in the sun culminated in the Public Ivy book that only Miami still talks about a quarter century later, but the writing for Miami's subsequent demise was already on the wall. Rhodes and Millett were gone, and Ohio State quickly went to work reestablishing the university hierarchy that had existed prior to 1962. The rest is history as they say.

Don't get too full of yourselves too quick, UC. Just to put things in perspective, my alma mater is about to kick off a 2.5 billion dollar university wide campaign that is in addition to a current half billion dollar medical center campaign. :wave: But good luck and congrats on all the progress so far! :clap:

Actually the 30+ ACT number for my school is 27%. ;)

I will add that the 400 million dollar donation to UC is not considered an endowed donation in the common use of the word. It was a gift of software and equipment, and I'm not sure over how many years it will be given. It most definitely was not a cash donation that funds something in perpetuity--like scholarships, research funds or professorships. That being said, it was still a very nice snag on UC's part.

The official kickoff may have been in April 2005, but these campaigns always have a "soft period" leading up to that kickoff. Note how UC has already raised 275 million towards their goal prior to the kickoff. It has taken Miami all seven years to raise that 290 million. 2006 was their best fundraising year ever and raised 51 million. 2005 was their second best year ever and raised 28 million. By Miami of Ohio's own account, they've only raised 79 million in all of 05 and 06. http://www.forloveandhonor.org/cgi-any/newspages.dll/pages?bid=&nfid=&record=86&htmlfile=newspages3_Campaign.htm I consider any fundraising campaign that falls almost 20% short of its goal to have fallen flat on its face.