<p>If you want a NY state college similar to that of a private mid-level school, you probably will be happiest with Geneseo. It is a beautiful campus with dedicated faculty members who are reasonably happy and where priority is given to college students. It is a very upbeat campus. It makes me cringe when people unfamiliar with the schools mention Binghamton as a public IVY based on things they have read. I'd say they are about 20 years behind reality. There was a time when top students went to Harpur if they could get in. Not true any more. </p>
<p>If you want a cheap efficient school that gives 4 credits for 3 hours of class and that moves students along quickly and efficiently and where most student's primary concern is grades, Binghamton will give you that. It has good stats that way. It is inexpensive for the average student who, due to average performance in high school or coming from a wealthy family or both, won't benefit from the fact that nearly all the better and competitive private schools provide enough aid (grants not loans) to make their college affordable for all accepted. Need blind acceptance and the promise of support by these better schools has swept the SUNY system of the top students. Some top students with money to support out of state tuition also opt for flagship campuses in states with a decent university system.</p>
<p>Superiority of university systems with flagships campuses has swept SUNY of the good students who can afford out of state tuition. For top students, the choices are obvious. SUNY has nothing to compete with universities like UC Berkeley, UCLA, UVa, Michigan at Ann Arbor, UNC-Chapel Hill, William and Mary, Georgia Tech, UC Davis, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Wisconsin at Madison, UC Irvine, Penn State, Urbana-Champaign, Texas at Austin, Washington, Gainesville, Ohio State. On lists of the best schools, Binghamton fares very poorly even though it does better than other SUNYs. If you spend a few hours on Binghamton's campus and a few on at least one other campus listed above, this will come as no surprise to you. Binghamton is a full decade behind. The building they are doing will put them squarely into the running as a decent school of the 1990s. Upgrades in technology could help the school be similar to what those other schools had in the year 2000. Some individual faculty members have grant funding to keep their own labs closer to acceptable levels but most students don't benefit at all from them.</p>
<p>The previous president, Deflower, focused on athletics and grants and ignored almost everything else. It is hard for a school to recover from 20 years of neglect and corruption. Faculty members were actually dissuaded from spending any time on teaching and on undergraduates. A running joke was that untenured faculty who won teaching awards should have already packed by the time the certificate is printed because their time at the school would be short. Low level administrators and faculty members with large grants could do almost anything without fear of consequences. And I mean anything. Officials presumably in positions to ensure the integrity of the university had a similar mentality of protecting the university at any cost. Those experiencing or witnessing wrong doing by those in key positions would be punished further by reporting it. Read the "Kaye Report" by googling it. The conduct described in the report was going on in across all aspects of the university even though the report only discusses what was happening in athletics. The sad part is how people like the Affirmative Action Officer played a role in wrong doing rather than ensuring the integrity of the school. Once you read the Kaye Report, imagine similar things happening in other departments where powerful grant toting faculty can get anything they want in a similar way. Google "hazing" and "Binghamton". Hazing can happen anywhere. It would be hard to find a university so invested in denying, covering, hiding and lying about the activities as you see at Binghamton. </p>
<p>The mess made by Deflower and her cronies could be cleaned up by the new administration. After 20 years of disgraceful conduct, it might take a lot of time to clean it up. She left to places unknown and is (and should be) in hiding and in disgrace. Until there is clear evidence showing change, my opinion remains that the "best way to see Binghamton is through the rear view mirror".</p>