Regardless of the $ figure, Stanford is clearly the right choice here. NYU has been in NYC for a very long time (just look at the name, right?) and has not contributed meaningfully to the technology scene. What New York needs is a fresh dose of valley perspective from the guys at the heart of it.
How do you expect Stanford opening a graduate campus in NYC will bring "valley perspective" to NYC? It takes people and I don't see anyone wanting to move from Palo Alto to NYC.
i think a large problem with that is that the offshoot campuses are almost always subpar to the original. Sure the degrees will still say Stanford, but the smart people will all go to California...NY Stanford will be their safety school
The proposal mentions that the NYC campus will largely serve graduate students and graduate school programming. Stanford already has a satellite campus in Monterrey, CA for marine biology and oceanography students where students split time between the main and satellite campuses. I expect that the NYC campus will follow the same model (i.e. spend a couple quarters at each campus to fulfill complete course load).
It's not that tricky, it's a problem easily solved with money.
Step one: "Hey big-name famous professor, want a job at Stanford NY? We'll pay you $big_face_money and you'll get all our fancy new facilities, plus the Stanford name, and whatever the hell else you want." Repeat 200 times.
Step two: The professors attract the grad students.
Step three: The grad students create the ecosystem.
I'd assume that getting into StanfordNYU would be just as hard as getting into Stanford in California, so I don't think it would be much of a safety school.
Looks like NYC is soon becoming a tech hot spot with Google setting up an office and Stanford (maybe setting up)... lol. I can almost hear the West Coast VCs rejoicing across the country.
There remains a viable third candidate -- the Cornell / Technion proposal
Together Cornell and Technion have put together a solid proposal. Cornell has an excellent existing Medical School model, with research components being located at the upstate campus and applied components being located in the City campus. This split model has not only served them extremely well, but it has allowed for them to allocate space and resources in a very efficient manner.
Technion, on the other hand, is likely one of the brightest stars internationally in developing applied technologies for markets
As a Cornell graduate myself, who actually did my graduate thesis on Roosevelt Island, proposing distributed infrastructural solutions for waste management and sewage treatment, the potential of Roosevelt Island is exceptional.
Even the Van Alen Institute, after their success with the Governors Island competition sponsored a Roosevelt Island competition that proposed some excellent solutions for public use of the Island. That suggests that Roosevelt Island will most likely be awarded this round to either Standford or Cornell, since the process has been developing for some time.
I saw Cornell Dean of Computing and Information Sciences Dan Huttenlocher present the proposal at Zimride in SF a couple of months ago, and it was clear that by partnering with Technion, their proposal may even be considered to have the lead over Standford, because not only does Cornell have the NY State political support, and with the existing Medical Campus, it has on the ground proof of it's bi-campus capabilities. Also the Israel/NY power connection is certainly something that can't be discounted with the Technion partnership. Whereas Standford has only the promise of $ 2.5B, and the - fingers crossed - hope that their unique entrepreneurial culture can cross the country and flourish in a completely contrary East Coast culture. Perhaps this can be seen as a classic East Coast Power, vs. West Coast Money battle.
In the end I think NYC will award both the Jay Street location and the Roosevelt Island locations, with NYU coming out a clear winner, and Cornell/Technion and Standford going to the wire for the win on the Island, with my money on Cornell/Technion for the last minute win.
ps. interestingly enough, Roosevelt Island, previously named Blackwell and then Welfare Island, was home to one of America's most notorious mental institute for the criminally insane -- though back in the days, they did like to incarcerate the poor and destitute and perfectly sane Germans (who were considered the lowest and most despised immigrants of the time)
I can't concentrate on the 'Who win's' issue. All I can do is shake my head at the fact that there are US schools that have access to BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, while others are broke.
That's actually a sign of a healthy marketplace. Crappy schools that squander resources are denied more resources, and world class schools like Stanford are growing.
