<p>Wow, applejack–you’re identifying “teachable moments” for me, calling me “prickish” among various other choice insults, and then calling <em>me</em> the condescending one? The irony is delicious, and you, sir, are a piece of work.</p>
<p>Stanford, initially quite interested despite deep reservations about the deal among various constituents, lost interest in the end and removed itself from consideration. Cornell, always extremely interested in the deal, with near unanimous support among its constituents and by far the most to gain, stayed in. There’s no debate here, and nothing to cause wounded feelings to any person without a peculiar agenda. Peace out, folks.</p>
<p>Wow, these Cornell supporters really flew off the handle.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, not at all. There are a great many things that I’m highly critical of Stanford for. But for the criteria we’re discussing, there isn’t much to criticize.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Silicon Wadi” is dwarfed by Silicon Valley. SV has something like 5x the VC funding. And if Bloomberg were actively “courting” the Technion, then he was very actively courting Stanford.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course he was obligated to make it a contest. For anything of this sort (e.g. sanitation contracts), cities always call for proposals and pick the best one. That’s how it works. The EDC would never just hand over such a prize. It’s been well-known from the beginning that Stanford was at the front. If you look at the call for proposals, it’s as though they were addressing Stanford directly (which news sources pointed out a lot). For the main criteria, Stanford was far ahead of the others: an endowment over $1 billion (where Stanford has $10 billion more than the nearest competitor), fundraising prowess (Stanford’s led the pack for many years now), experience in spinning out technology, etc.</p>
<p>That you’re disputing this is surprising to me. The EDC’s desire to bring Stanford in has been relatively uncontroversial from the announcement of the contest.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s hard to say, since “quality of education” depends on the person. Stanford has a critical mass of top engineering professors (e.g. 4-5x as many NAE members as Cornell), who do have an effect on a student’s education. For my interests, for example, Stanford was the best place and offered me opportunities the others you list definitely couldn’t have.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. You simply said that Stanford has never run a satellite campus (it’s ambiguous if your standard - Cornell’s Weill - was restrictive). It has, although I never claimed its satellite facilities were as large as Cornell’s.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think you know the politics and difficulty of building at Stanford, which has a pretty terrible relationship with Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, and San Mateo County. Stanford is constantly waging wars with them. It’s constantly in the courts so that it can build, e.g. it had to sue Menlo Park so that it could build on its own land; it’s had a lawsuit going against San Mateo for not letting it make two hiking trails that were part of its general use permit requirements; it’s taken years of nasty negotiations just to convince Palo Alto to let it rebuild the hospital. Palo Alto severely limits campus building and has boldly stated that the city will do anything in its power to block Stanford from building on more of its land. Its own land.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>IMO Cornell is a hometown university. After all, throughout this, it’s been touting its strong presence in NYC through its various satellite facilities and its alumni.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And how do you know this when every school is keeping most details of their proposals under wraps?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My pride is not hurt in the slightest. It just doesn’t make sense though that Stanford would drop out because it thought it’d lose, especially after spending millions to develop the proposal and negotiating with Bloomberg and the EDC for months. It seems far more likely that, in negotiations, Stanford didn’t like the additional restrictions they were putting on the table and decided to walk away.</p>
<p>I like Cornell a lot, for the record, but I agree with zenkoan that more was at stake here for Cornell. I think anyone could see that. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How do you know that the proposal was superior and had a “far greater capacity to succeed”? Stanford planned to spend more money, and that’s about all anyone knows.</p>
<p>DarkIce,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>FWIW Cornell was the first to hire well-known PR representatives, establish a website, produce videos wherein the president basically begs for it, etc. Cornell’s desperation was clear from the get-go.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>True, but zenkoan said “need.” You’re making a statement about “need/want.” Of course Stanford would want it. But it certainly didn’t need it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The partnership was more like “icing on the cake.” As was noted in news stories when the partnership was announced, it was mainly a way for Stanford to start and cement the project, with classes held in CCNY space, before Bloomberg leaves office. It would also help to quell the fears that the EDC had over bringing in an outsider to the city. (The EDC never made a partnership a criterion, but encouraged consortia for financial reasons.)</p>
<p>It would be great if Stanford could come to the east coast. It’s NYC’ s big loss! Aftere all, no other university can do a better job than Stanford in breeding new technologies and converting them into comercials. </p>
<p>Cornell is a good university. But it hasn’t done much in new technologies. Perhaps with Technion’s help, Cornell will achieve more for the east coast. Good luck to Cornell and Technion.</p>
<p>It may seem that way, but I don’t really care emotionally. I simply seek the truth and work to identify it no matter the suject. Some posters tried to rewrite history to save their perception of inherent superiority and they were called out on it. </p>
<p>To answer you questions, I know that Cornell’s proposal was deemed superior because those involved in the negotiations specifically said so. They said Cornell had emerged as the frontrunner long before. </p>
<p>I know Stanford dropped out at the last minute to keep from losing because those involved in the negotiations specificially said they did.</p>
<p>Zenkoan made some very insulting statements (and then tried to climb to the high ground when a taste of his own medicine was delivered back to him) and has now proven he has no evidence to support his claims.</p>
<p>So be it. I just wanted to stick around long enough to ensure it was clear his claims and patronizing attitude were wrong. That has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt by an analysis of his claims and the statements made by those closest to the negotiations.</p>
<p>Many officials involved in the selection process say Cornell was able to secure the citys blessing and resources because the Ithaca university wanted it more and worked harder to secure it than its competition. Stanford wanted it only if made sense to Stanford, Crains New York Business cited one close observer as saying. Cornell wanted it at any price.</p>
<p>Stanford was widely perceived as the frontrunner in the competition for much of the summer and fall. The California university has a significantly larger endowment than Cornell, and traditionally raises more money in private giving. It also had a clearer track record of developing companies in a confined geographic space. When New York City officials were planning the campus, they studied Stanford and Silicon Valley – along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Technion – as models for what they hoped to emulate. And Stanfords application was even celebrated by the governor in March. "Were particularly pleased that Stanford – which has a top-flight engineering school – is considering the idea, Bloomberg said. On October 11, when the college announced a partnership with the City College of New York, it seemed a virtual lock.</p>
<p>But much was going on behind the scenes. Cornell was rallying support from all corners of the university, particularly the universitys 50,000 alumni in New York City. The university filed an online petition backing its bid with more than 21,000 signatures. While Stanford saw some dissension among faculty members and students, both Cornells undergraduate and graduate student governments rallied behind the proposal. It was also developing significant financial support.</p>
<p>The university hired high-powered public relations and lobbying teams, and administrators met with local groups like chambers of commerce in the city’s different boroughs to drum up support.</p>
<p>Cornell officials also found that, while the companies emerging from the university’s ideas and from Cornell researchers, students, and alumni were more geographically dispersed than were those of places like Stanford and MIT, their overall numbers rivaled any institution.</p>
<p>The universitys partnership with Technion, which has a track record similar to Stanfords, increased the heft of the universitys proposal when it was announced on Oct. 18. Going into the negotiation phase in November, many said it was a tossup as to which university would win, and some gave the edge to the Cornell/Technion team.</p>
<p>On Friday, Stanford abruptly dropped out of the competition, saying negotiations with the city had broken down on Thursday, clearing the way for Cornells selection. A few hours later Cornell announced a $350 million anonymous gift to support development of the new campus, reiterating its ability to successfully raise and finance the project. (Late Monday, The New York Times identified the donor of the gift as Atlantic Philanthropies, whose founder is a Cornell alumnus. Atlantic largely shifted its philanthropic activities away from higher education about a decade ago.)</p>
<p>applejack, you don’t “know” any of these things. Some anonymous source gives his/her opinion on why Stanford dropped out, and that’s all you have from a news article. It seems equally likely that the many reports of Stanford’s dropping out as a result of frustrations with the negotiations are true. None of us were involved, so none of us can say definitively which is true.</p>
<p>But I do think that given the strength of the proposal (esp. since it was $2.5 billion), along with Stanford’s track record, it’s more likely that Stanford would drop out as a result of disagreements with the EDC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That hasn’t been shown at all; zenkoan has been even-handed, calm, and very polite given all the ad hominems of yours and others’. You interpret any statement not explicitly praising Cornell as an attack on Cornell. Your and others’ defensiveness is the only thing that’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Cornell was desperate and Stanford wanted it less. “Cornell wanted it more and worked harder to secure it than its competition. ‘Stanford wanted it only if made sense to Stanford.’” (Reading between the lines: Stanford didn’t like the negotiations.)</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford was long seen as the top applicant. “Stanford was widely perceived as the frontrunner in the competition for much of the summer and fall.”
“Scuttlebutt has Stanford as the frontrunner” (again, uncontroversial)
[Will</a> Stanford Take the F Train to Silicon Island? Tensions Rise as Deadline for Tech Campus Approaches | Betabeat — News, gossip and intel from Silicon Alley 2.0.](<a href=“Business News & Current Events | Observer”>Business News & Current Events | Observer)</p></li>
<li><p>Bloomberg had wanted Stanford from the beginning: “We’re particularly pleased that Stanford – which has a top-flight engineering school – is considering the idea.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I see others have posted links to detailed coverage from Inside Higher Ed, Crains, etc. (There’s similar coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, but the link will only open for subscribers.) One hopes that some other posters here will now understand that when I pointed out that Cornell wanted this deal at any price, and Stanford did not, I was stating the facts, free of any pejorative intent. It is what it is, and it makes perfect sense for Cornell to want this kind of deal way more.</p>
<p>Incidentally, when I say that I am an informed member of the Stanford community, I mean just that. The reason I have understood the actual status of this process is that I happen to have relationships at Stanford that afford me access to certain information; I also take the time to locate publicly-available documents that shed light on the facts. I’m very discreet by nature and would never jeopardize these relationships, but I’m careful to keep my identity confidential so that I can share information, to the extent appropriate, with this forum. I participate in no other forums on this website because I have no interest whatsoever in intercollegiate bickering.</p>
<p>I hope people at Cornell can celebrate the consummation of their deal despite Stanford’s loss of interest in pursuing it, and that it makes them feel proud of their university and, by extension, of themselves. Happy Holidays.</p>
<p>Cornell Dean of Computing and Information Science: “While this all turned in to a competition — at least to some people — every school that’s participated is great. It’s about finding the right match, not about which is better. I have a lot of really good friends at Stanford. And they may also end up here some day.”</p>
<p>haha, he’s subtly implying that Cornell didn’t think of the call for proposals as a competition. Every single university saw it as a competition.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course it’s not about that; Cornell is obviously not better than Stanford.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Was that his indication that Cornell intends to try to poach engineering faculty from Stanford? Or just a suggestion that Stanford might find a way to build a NYC campus eventually?</p>
<p>lol at the Stanford kids trying to reassure themselves of their “intelligence” after losing to Cornell in the tech competition. NYC and the rest of the world do not buy into the US News rankings, which is one of the few rankings publication that rates many of Cornell’s Ivy + peers as “better.” Get over it, you were out-shined this time by a worthy peer. </p>
<p>This isn’t a knock against SU per se, just a dose of reality . . . in head to head match ups outside of the likes of US News, Cornell more than holds it own against peer institutions. SU’s excuses = pathetic and are the equivalent to a troubled employee quitting his job rather than being fired. I mean, seriously, do you really believe that SU just “changed its mind” about expanding into NYC? Read the newspapers. All of the sources from the mayor’s office who were engaged with the competition say Stanford’s proposal was far short of Cornell’s. Listening to Bloomberg at the press conference yesterday confirms that, out of all of the submissions (yes, this includes Stanford’s), Cornell’s was clearly the best. I expect more from SU students, really. Learn how to lose gracefully.</p>
<p>Where has anyone - either Cornell- or Stanford-affiliated - indicated anything akin to that? I don’t see it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Cornell is a worthy peer, but it didn’t outshine Stanford in this case. The evidence to support it is weak.</p>
<p>And believe me, students have long gotten over it, as they didn’t care for the campus in the first place. It’s these Cornell fanboys who have come onto this forum and fanned the flames with a childish neener-neener smugness (met with raised eyebrows). Really, you’re all college-aged. Start acting like it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s extremely possible, considering that Stanford and the EDC had been fighting for months to come up with a deal they both like. As the deadline approached, it was a “this is our final offer, take it or leave it” choice for Stanford, and it chose to leave it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What news sources are you reading? Links please? Every article I’ve read about emphasizes that a) both proposals are excellent and so it was difficult to say who’d be the winner, or b) Stanford’s was so intricate it would most definitely win. It’s also hard to see how Stanford’s could have fallen “far short” of Cornell’s - Stanford planned to spend $2.5 billion, versus Cornell’s $2 billion.</p>
<p>Reading this thread alone and looking at some of the comments, which I can only assume belong to SU students, shows an attempt to reassure by trashing, or at least trying to downplay, Cornell’s win. It was these comments, which are by no means necessarily representative of the entire SU student body or general thought at SU, that I am addressing.</p>
<p>And Cornell by most accounts certainly outshone SU here. First and foremost, Cornell won the bid, SU did not. Note, this was a bid that SU spent millions of dollars on and had a team in place in NYC as late as the day the university announced it was withdrawing. </p>
<p>Second, sources from inside the NYC Mayor’s office are confirming to major news outlets that SU withdrew, in part, because they knew they could not match Cornell’s offer. That these sources are anonymous for publishing purposes does not take away from their credibility. Indeed, major news outlets have regular contacts within various government bodies (the NYC Mayor’s office being no exception) who are well known and trusted by their reporting journalists. If these were simply some random people speaking, the news outlets would not have published the comments. The comments come from credible sources. And SU’s official statement does not necessarily go against this. When you think about it, officially losing a prestigious national contest would not be in the SU’s “best interests.” Withdrawing may indeed help the institution save face. </p>
<p>Third, take a look at Bloomberg’s press conference from yesterday where he noted that Cornell’s proposal was by far the best, which leads to a natural conclusion that if SU remained in the race they still would have lost. Again, this is nothing to knock SU for. I’m just going off of what is available to us. (yes, there are one or two articles that claim SU was the front runner, but these are even less substantiated than anything being argued here and do not even claim to cite sources from inside the one institution with any firm knowledge on the matter . . . the mayor’s office). </p>
<p>Fourth, take a look at the two campus’ proposals and everything (at least what was made public) that was offered and tell me that SU had the better proposal. Any honest response to this would show that Cornell had a better proposal than SU. </p>
<p>This is what we have to go off of. Its the best we have in situations like these, and I think its pretty compelling. But to those who think that this evidence does not strongly support that Cornell outshone SU here, the evidence supporting the other arguments is by far weaker. </p>
<p>And, in all honesty, even if (for conversation sake) Cornell did not outshine SU on paper, they ultimately did in the court of public opinion, thanks in large part to news accounts about what went down. </p>
<p>Now I haven’t read all of the comments from this thread, but to the extent that Cornell students/alumni/“fanboys” are misbehaving, I say the same thing to them that I said about some of the SU posters. </p>
<p>As for sources, here is the main one: “When Stanford withdrew from the competition, several people familiar with the negotiations said the university preferred to quit than lose. Stanford officials saw the “writing on the wall,” said one person familiar with the negotiations.”
-<a href=“Cornell Wins Campus Bid - WSJ”>Cornell Wins Campus Bid - WSJ;
<p>There are a few other reputable sources stating the same thing, but I can’t seem to find right now. But the most important source is Mayor Bloomberg’s on the record statements at the press conference yesterday about Cornell’s proposal being the by far superior submission out of all of the submissions. Stanford planned to spend $2.5 billion, but this was mostly for building materials. As Bloomberg noted, Cornell’s plan called for the most professors, students, and earliest start date, among many other factors.</p>
<p>I suggest everyone tone down a bit. Who knows, one day you may end up working for someone from the other school. Or marrying someone. Or even studying or working at the other school. What goes around comes around. Live and let live.</p>
<p>By most accounts, it didn’t. It was simply more willing to deal with the restrictions that the EDC set during negotiations. Excepting this, most accounts showed that Cornell did not in any way outshine Stanford. In fact, most of the media reports discussed how Cornell could possibly best Stanford, if it could.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>An anonymous source offers an opinion and suddenly it’s fact? Stanford did match Cornell’s offer, above and beyond (spending 25% more than Cornell proposed). In terms of square footage, timeline of progress, etc. Cornell and Stanford were virtually identical.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s what I don’t understand. If Stanford “officially” lost it, rather than withdrew, what consequences would result? What effect could this small project (and yes, it’s a small project in the grand scheme of university development) have on Stanford as a whole?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That could also be interpreted as Bloomberg more or less saying, “Fine, we don’t need Stanford, Cornell was awesome!” The only way to know which proposal was better is to actually look at them. The details we’ve been given indicate that, at best, they were equal (which is why this was such a fierce competition in the first place), or at worst Stanford had several advantages. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You should subscribe to Google News on this topic and look through the archive articles on it. News accounts overwhelmingly showed Stanford outshining Cornell for most of this process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was quoted earlier in this thread. I haven’t found another source corroborating such. I have found tons of articles supporting the opposite.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>… Stanford and Cornell were virtually equal in those aspects. 2m sq ft, 200-300 professors (Stanford was imprecise about this, saying at least 200 professors), 2500 students, early start date (both would start classes in a few months).</p>
<p>If there were other factors that put Cornell ahead of Stanford that we aren’t aware of, it’s because both universities - all competitors, in fact - kept almost all the details of their proposal secret. Now that Cornell has the bid, I expect that its proposal will become public soon. Stanford’s will probably become public sooner or later.</p>
<p>In response to your claim that both proposals were equal in spending, it appears that’s not true once it goes beneath the gross figures: </p>
<p>“What we were really drawn to here was that of all the proposals that were submitted…this was the proposal with the most students, this was the proposal with the most faculty, this was the propsoal with the most square footage, the proposal with the most aggressive timeline, the most money for startups, the most money for building and the partnership of two world class institutions that had experience in New York and had experience developing entrepreneurship.” - NYC Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky</p>
<p>If you read zencoan’s early posts, you will see the evidence you seek of “trashing, or at least trying to downplay, Cornell’s win”. I honestly think there are just some who perceive a top 5 computer science / top 10 engineering school by one metric as so inferior to how they view Stanford that losing head-to-head is simply not an acceptable reality. </p>
<p>It’s nothing against Stanford or its quality or its great student body and accomplishments, just a few individuals.</p>
<p>Believe me, I’ve been following this process for a while. Most of the news articles pre-decision did not suggest or state that SU was the university to beat. Rather, most of the articles stated, and rather clearly, that the two front-runners were Cornell AND SU. But this is pre-decision and, as I’ve mentioned earlier, means less than the evidence I supplied to support my arguments as those articles were pure editorial opinions and not based on any statements (official or unofficial) or documents coming from people actually involved in the decision-making process (i.e. the mayor’s office). The articles that came out after SU dropped out and Cornell was announced the winner show a remarkably different story, as I’ve also pointed out in earlier posts. </p>
<p>Note, even if your assertion about SU outshining Cornell for most of the process through media stories is true (its not), what actually happens at the end of the day (and the reasoning behind it) is far more indicative as to what institution out-shined the other. And listening to what made Cornell a far superior choice over its competitors, there is a lot of reason behind its selection. If you haven’t watched Bloomberg’s press conference from yesterday, I suggest you watch it if you have time. It’s not too long.</p>
<p>I did not claim (and apologies if it looked that way) that the anonymous sources from within the mayor’s office somehow equal fact. They are, however, evidence from people directly involved in the decision-making process that goes to support my contention. </p>
<p>I don’t see how you can not think that it would be better from a PR perspective for a university (especially a university known for its tech enterprises) to withdraw from a competition than to lose to a competitor some feel is “inferior.” Even if you take out the latter point, simply losing a competition of this magnitude and price is bad PR, no matter how you spin it. And a $2 billion project is by NO means a small project for any educational institution, even for an institution with a $16 billion endowment. You have to know that endowments are generally restricted, which is why even a Harvard University still relies (they can’t do what they do any other way) on hundreds of millions of dollars in governmental grants each year for research, etc. I couldn’t believe that I actually read that! </p>
<p>Your point about interpreting Bloomberg’s statements is well taken. But, taken together with everything else I’ve supplied and all of the other comments made anonymously by people close to the deal tends to support my argument over yours. And let’s not fail to mention the other factors Bloomberg mentioned, including Cornell pledging more teachers, students, and an earlier state date for classes than any other submission. </p>
<p>Its true that much of the proposals are secret, which is why I can only support my argument with information that has actually been released, including, most importantly, Bloomberg’s official statement, and other credible sources on the matter given to different news networks. As for Bloomberg’s statement, it is especially informative. By stating what Cornell did have that put it over its competition, we know at least in part what SU (and the others) did not have.</p>
<p>And, thanks applejack. I just didn’t want to have to go through the posts and copy and paste those comments when I was writing an essay of a response lol</p>
<p>I think no one outshone the other. Both had amazing proposals and I’m sure Stanford’s would have made a huge impact on NYC, just as I know Cornell will in the coming years. Stanford pulled out and Cornell won, but until we get official statements, we can’t say they were related.</p>
<p>Congrats to Cornell and I’m looking to visit NYC, and the new campus, soon!</p>