This has never happened before. Every thing that Rice cares about has never been challenged by UT. This is Texas. A large history of Texas made UT and Rice. They've never really competed. This plan is not competitive. UT would be foolish to compete with the Rice Board of Governors vs cooperating with them. It would be unnecessary lack of cooperation in Rice's back yard, literally. UT has a butt-load of money, but Rice does, too. And you won't build something in the Houston Med Center across the street from Rice (where it was founded), unless you bring their money to the table, too. Historically, Rice doesn't care about a Med School. But, Rice's move to buyout Baylor seems to have changed that. If UT attempts to buy out Baylor, they will have to outbid Rice or become partners. bottomline: this still sounds like a play to who gets to buy The Baylor School of Medicine.
Right, and maybe I was reading too much into what I've read recently, but I don't necessarily see it as a zero sum thing. There are several instances of disparate institutions banding together for research purposes. Boston, the Big 10, California, why not Texas?
Location, location, location. This U is a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Red Line. A small extension from the U could be built to accommodate. It's closer to Sugar Land and there is a lot of undeveloped and shoddy land to the south. Just saying.
Most Research is a lot of BS. It is a lot like the real world where profs are writing proposals to get research money and not necessarily because they really believe in it. DOD, DOE, even companies sponsor research not because it has any real point, but just because they have to spend the money somewhere. One of my profs was trying to recruit me to do some research on low power wireless networking. There was nothing novel about what he was doing. It is something I could hack up over the weekend, but he somehow convinced the DOD to give him money. There is some ground breaking research, but Academia is a rat race.If you aren't bringing money you are getting fired. Profs who know how to navigate the system do OK.
UH dropped the ball by creating satellite campuses in the first place, instead of forcing suburbanites to live and/or commute into the city for an inexpensive accredited education in the largest job market in the South and Southwest. Their enrollment and alumni base would probably be more comparable to UT and A&M.
I'd imagine that throughout history there's been some unintentionally revolutionary discoveries from the type of research that you're describing.
I am sure there is. There is a lot of research being done. My only point is is Academia is just like the real world. There is a lot of politics and trying to get money not necessarily furthering knowledge.
You can't buy 300 acres if it's not crappy. It would already be developed to a higher and better use. This site does have access to transportation and is large enough to control it's own image. It's a blank canvass for the Land Planners.
UH already has the largest ratio for student to infrastructure budget in the state, and a land mass problem on top of that to boot. The satellite campuses are not only necessary, but a good thing.
Doesn't UT already have a school here? McOmbs business school Houston. Is it any good? Or Rice better?
Why aren't all these self-made billionaire oil-types building their own universities? Carnegie did it. Vanderbilt did it. Rockefeller did it. Hell, even Jerry Falwell did it. Houston billionaires be some stingy mofos.
UT-Houston already has a medical school here, along with dedicated affiliated hospitals (Herman, MD Anderson, LBJ) Baylor has a huge hospital affiliation as well with Methodist, Ben Taub, Texas Childrens. With the shortage of medical school/residency spots as is, I doubt they're going to contract or merge them at any point.
It was a different time when Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller did that. Closest thing we have is William Marsh Rice which I think was founded around the same time as those other ones. The same question could be asked of those Silicon Valley guys but I don't think they believe in college.
Carnegie and Vanderbilt did it at a time when the middle class and building codes didn't really exist, they could house crappy facilities and barely pay the staff without any lawsuits or strikes. Falwell's college will probably always have some curricular deficiencies because of their ideological constraints. A better option would be to have their companies invest heavily in aptitude testing and just recruit and train the really smart kids before they have loan debt or know what a signing bonus or stock options are. A better fantasy would be to start some white hat private equity firm that acquires for-profit colleges and payday lenders for the sole purpose of liquidating them.
