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Date: | Thu, 17 Nov 1994 09:59:05 EST |
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OK, here's my slant on the issues.
RPI vs. Rensselaer
I was a senior at the time this issue surfaced. It seemed that board
wanted several things. First, they wanted more recognition of the
school around the country. (Why Rensselaer is more recognizable than
RPI is beyond me. Besides, RPI is easier to pronounce. :-) ) Second,
the board wanted the institution to be a well rounded university so
people with liberal arts interests would be interested in attending.
This is rediculous. You don't call yourself a university just because
you want to be one. It doesn't work that way, and it's very
misleading. A university is generally defined as a collection of
colleges whose objectives are to promote higher education and award
degrees in the arts and sciences. How can a school that doesn't offer
any bachelor of arts degrees (and only one master's - MFA in
*electronic* music) call itself a university? The most absurd thing
that occurred at that time was that RPI spent $100,000 (yes, that is
the right number of zeros) for some firm to come up with the
"Rensselaer with the bar under it" logo!
ECAC vs. HE
Granted, this is my opinion, but it's all a matter of appearance. I
know that many HE scools have some tough admission standards, and all
HE schools are good institutions of higher learning. The same is true
of the ECAC schools. An education is more what the student makes of
it more than the institution s/he is at. But let's look at this from
the point of view of a random person in the US. HE and the ECAC have
been close for a few years now in terms of hockey prowess. HE's
advantage is slight in real terms, more so in exposure terms. Who are
the well known schools in the ECAC in terms of academic reputation
(not necessarily standards)? The first schools that would come to
mind to John Doe would be Harvard, Yale and Princeton. HE? Probably
Boston University and Boston College. All five of these schools are
great academic institutions, as are the rest of the HE and ECAC
schools. But the *perception* is that the ECAC has the better
schools. Moving to HE would give RPI the *appearance* of lowering
their academic standards. Whether this is actually true or not is
rather irrelevant to the general public. I think this offset the
minor extra exposure RPI would get from HE. Let's face it. Most of
the country doesn't even know college hockey even exists.
Dave / RPI '91
LET'S GO RED!!
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