<p>Since this is the College Search and Selection forum, I thought I'd search and select a future SUNY flagship university. Why? The SUNY system needs to enhance its prestige and create a public university for the very best NYS students. Maybe other states need to do the same, but a state the size of NY should have a flagship public university.</p>
<p>Assumptions:
Start from scratch: the existing SUNY centers have too much bad architecture and stigma.
Far from existing SUNY centers
Far from major private universities like Cornell, Syracuse, U Rochester, RPI
Far from New York City
Designed by a good architect, not the New York State Department of Public Works
No cinderblocks, concrete, rusting metal</p>
<p>Location:
2000 acres or more...room for growth</p>
<h1>1 Jamestown area on the eastern end of Chatauqua Lake</h1>
<h1>2 Watertown-Alexandria Bay area near the Thousand Islands/Lake Ontario</h1>
<h1>3 Along Canandaigua Lake near Canadaigua or Naples</h1>
<h1>4 Along Keuka Lake near Penn Yan or Watkins Glen</h1>
<h1>5 Along Lake Champlain, maybe re-make SUNY Plattsburg</h1>
<h1>6 Maybe re-make SUNY Oneonta</h1>
<h1>7 Maybe somewhere in Adirondack State Park (if it wouldn't detract)</h1>
<p>I envision something like Berkeley. But, the rah-rah types might prefer something like U Michigan.</p>
<p>Give me your ideas. I'll put them in a letter to the Governor. Better yet, maybe the Governor will post his ideas on CC...</p>
<p>first, this is a rather superficial suggestion but it might do something. Call it something like University of New York as opposed to SUNY [instert name]</p>
<p>SUNY Albany's Architechture is pretty damn good - I like the stone-rock-only feeling, which makes me feel its unique in that its not just a bunch of stupid grass and trees and green-crap like most universities are obsessed with having now.</p>
<p>I think you might be underestimating how hard it is to start a college. Besides, what would make it more selective than any other school? Schools are selective because they get a much higher number of applicants than spots open, and the best of the best apply where a lot of other people apply.</p>
<p>Once upon a time Suny Albany had amazing profs. The kind of profs who while being heavy hitters in plate tectonics, cloud seeding, James Joyce, and the like, also fostered a Haitian family whose professor/politician father was murdered under Papa Doc, the kind of profs who would spend countless hours with students outside of class discussing glorious high minded things over beer in a Lark Street bar.(And other times your sex life) The kind of profs who invited you over for Christmas dinner and gave you money to tide you over for a few days when you gave all your cash to your tutoring student to visit someone in jail. The kind of profs who introduced you to Seamus Heaney, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Campbell. And then let you read the first drafts of novels that would become known as major pieces of literature. It was utopia for them as well as their students. No one minded the fact that the campus was one big wind tunnel and that like in some strange sci fi movie, all the people had to become denizens of the underground tunnels in certain months.(All the months with wind in them:) )</p>
<p>Lack of funding made it all go away. What SUNY needs is funding. FUNDING. Other than that I do like your ideas.</p>
<p>It is shameful how one student born into NY, and another born into California, have two completely polar experiences with regard to public education. But uh... at least we have good quality tap water.</p>
<p>No 'x% must be instate law'. Something like at least 50% should be instate would be much better.</p>
<p>I mean people on CC do complain that such laws are what's holding back UCs, Texas and UIUC!</p>
<p>I second the University of New York and more funding ideas.</p>
<p>Cross-Registering of courses with NYU, Cornell, Columbia, SUNY, whatever. But this might be hard as you want the campus to be far from NYC (I don't know how far Cornell is from NYC).</p>
<p>I do wish it were just UNY because no one understands what SUNY is outside of the northeast really
to make it more like the UCs (there is a whole ny/ca rivalry already lol)
berkeley/cal - buffalo (uny buffalo/amherst? amherst could help people not just think of snow when they hear buffalo haha)
ucla - bing (unyb)
ucd - albany (unya)
ucsd - sb (unysb)</p>
<p>then they could merge the suny colleges and the cunys in a calstate type system maybe? since they tend to attract locals more than the 4 universities
...ny state univeristy plattsburg?? ny state geneseo?</p>
<p>just a thought...</p>
<p>or we could just make NYU public and change it to UNY and make huge rivalry between UNY and UCLA</p>
<p>SUNY Buffalo actually has a plan called UB2020. This is an attempt to make it the model of a "21st century university" by the year 2020. There is going to be a massive expansion I think doubling the amount of students. I've heard they're expecting or wanting it to become a sort of Berkeley.</p>
<p>I was at the Stony Brook film festival last week. We were visited by international directors, Christopher Plummer, David Strathairn (last year) and Alan Alda (last year). Many films are premiered here. I actually heard a woman exclaim, "The grounds here are so beautiful." I thought I was in a surrealist dream. When I attended a wind tunnel would have been a step up from the mud that was everywhere.</p>
<p>However, it is actually beautiful now. I hate to be a chauvinist, but I do nominate Stony Brook for the flagship. It has world class research. Recent expansions include Stony Brook NYC, Southampton College, and the 750 acre Gyrodyne property for a business incubator. NYC city access, a railroad station practically on campus, a medical school, an engineering program, and a large downstate population are all assets. We need a downstate state law school if NY Board of Regents would fund it.</p>
<p>I think your being overly idealistic with your plans. If they built a suny flagship upstate it would still flounder primarily because of the bad weather, depressing atmosphere, and bad economy. Then you have to ask yourself what student would want to go to a school in a small town like Jamestown or Watertown. There is very little to do in those rural parts of NY. </p>
<p>I go to Suny Bing and I completely agree that the suny system needs to be revamped. I see my school as stagnating and not as good as it should be. The campus needs some work as does the overall college experience, but I think there should be other ways of doing this. </p>
<p>The suny flagship should be in close proximity to NY to attract students. If suny old westbury was actually a good school, it might be a decent location. It should have a new modern campus that can allow for students to commute and live on campus. It would foster an alumni base that primarily lives in the downstate nyc area. One of the primary problems of suny is that students dont have pride towards their school. If it was a better experience with closer ties to nyc then there might not be a stigma attached to going to a suny.</p>
<p>I think the flagship should be far from NYC and in a more small town/rural location. Students from NYC will travel to wherever it is located. The town will develop things to do around the university. Penn State is in the middle of nowhere and a nice college town developed around it.</p>
<p>It should be noted that many Upstaters feel strongly about having a university be as far from New York City as possible. They also would prefer the "state" to appear in the name so as to emphasize it's north of Westchester. </p>
<p>It's part of the irrational hatred of all things NYC by some New Yorkers.</p>
<p>If memory serves me, back in the day, there were only 4 SUNYs. They were the State University of New York at Albany, Binghampton, Buffalo and Stony Brook. All the others were Colleges of the state system called Cortland State College, Oneonta State College, etc.
This seems more like the model used in California. I never did understand why the nomenclature changed.</p>
<p>PS I second the vote for Stony Brook getting flagship distinction.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
It might be a crazy idea, but why not convert Cornell itself to this new state university? The school already has a formal relationship with the state, obviously great name recognition, and could immediately be a competitor, if not a superior, to the premier state universities of UCB, U Virginia, UCLA, U North Carolina and U Michigan. </p>
<p>Cornellians would probably hate the idea of separating from the Ivy League (or maybe staying in as a fully public university in the country's most academically elite conference-now there is a radical idea), but Cornell's size and diversity of undergraduate colleges has always made it a bit different from its Ivy League peers who love to taunt the school as a backup to everywhere else. Transforming to a fully public university could really change the debate with the Ivies and establish Cornell as perhaps the premier public university in the land. Furthermore, it actually would solve a lot of the problems that you mention with the SUNYs and answer most, if not all, of your initially stated criteria.</p>
<p>Yes Penn State is in the middle of nowhere and its a good school, but there is a big difference between PA and NY. Upstate NY is much colder and there is a better economy in the Penn State area. Upstate NY is hemorraging and they want a flagship university to help boost their economy. As a result of the environment and economy in upstate NY I don't think a 'nice college town' would flourish as it has in central PA.</p>