UM no longer top 50

[plantcity3]

See what happens when you rabble-rousers fly a banner? I hope you're happy.

Where is our the more you know

 

[NVA CANE]

Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc give off a good impression. **** near every other school in the country does not. Now certain schools are known to have strong specific academic programs in the Medical industry or in Law, so maybe UM is known as a top tier school in those industries.

But if you're talking general academics, then aside from the top 25 schools or so, no one cares what school you attended. You're essentially just another college graduate.

 

[Dingaan1828]

Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc give off a good impression. **** near every other school in the country does not. Now certain schools are known to have strong specific academic programs in the Medical industry or in Law, so maybe UM is known as a top tier school in those industries.

But if you're talking general academics, then aside from the top 25 schools or so, no one cares what school you attended. You're essentially just another college graduate.

And, once you've been in the job market a little while, it is completely irrelevant where you went to school. It's just a lot easier to get through the door the first time or so if your degrees impress someone. Later, it doesn't matter. You can either get it done or not.

 

[Cane Dynasty]

Where you get your undergrad degree from is basically irrelevant.

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

This is about as ignorant as it gets, and that's hard to do around here, even for you. The best students in Florida apply to either Miami or Florida, and the cost of Miami eliminates many of them. Students know that Miami is a top-notch school, that's why the mediocre students don't even bother and just apply to FSU, USF and UCF.

The whole Suntan U thing is so 1985. Get with the program.

Should wrap it up right there. That pretty much sums up the school's position.

Something that Florida does that I wish Miami did too is go after the best and brightest public school kids in the tri-county area. Boyd Anderson has one of, if not the best, IB program in the state and especially in Broward. The AP education at Cypress Bay (**** them) is top notch. Dr. Krop has a well-respected AP program and an elite arts program that regularly sends kids to Florida over Miami due almost exclusively to not being given enough of a grant benefit.

Doesn't matter what students any school targets.

George Washington has a campus in norfolk targeted towards the TA dollars.

Texas A&M has a school in San Antonio for that grant money.

Penn st has a full online degree plan.

I got paid 10k a year to go to school.

EVERYBODY has a bachelors. My buddy served 8 years with me and has a degree from UT. He works at Bill Millers now. The entire staff there has a bachelors.

Nobody gives a ****. Just win football games.

Yes, a lot of people have a Bachelor's now. But not all Bachelor's are created equal. A Bachelor's from Duke or NYU or USC gives a you a better chance for a better job than a degree from Liberty or Lehigh or North Dakota State.

A lot of people care about the academic credentials especially if there's a particular field you are interested in. As an example, Chad Thomas said that the modern music specialty in the music school at Miami was a major draw for him.

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true but you're talking about an individual to individual relationship and not the academic prowess of a college. By your logic, a candidate that went to Harvard will lose out to the Liberty graduate as well and I'm saying that if the two Liberty alumni don't personally know each other than the Harvard graduate or the other candidate will get the job if their college is well respected enough to overcome the shared college connection. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage of personally knowing somebody in a powerful position like that is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

 

[CaneInTheBrain]

Should wrap it up right there. That pretty much sums up the school's position.

Something that Florida does that I wish Miami did too is go after the best and brightest public school kids in the tri-county area. Boyd Anderson has one of, if not the best, IB program in the state and especially in Broward. The AP education at Cypress Bay (**** them) is top notch. Dr. Krop has a well-respected AP program and an elite arts program that regularly sends kids to Florida over Miami due almost exclusively to not being given enough of a grant benefit.

Doesn't matter what students any school targets.

George Washington has a campus in norfolk targeted towards the TA dollars.

Texas A&M has a school in San Antonio for that grant money.

Penn st has a full online degree plan.

I got paid 10k a year to go to school.

EVERYBODY has a bachelors. My buddy served 8 years with me and has a degree from UT. He works at Bill Millers now. The entire staff there has a bachelors.

Nobody gives a ****. Just win football games.

Yes, a lot of people have a Bachelor's now. But not all Bachelor's are created equal. A Bachelor's from Duke or NYU or USC gives a you a better chance for a better job than a degree from Liberty or Lehigh or North Dakota State.

A lot of people care about the academic credentials especially if there's a particular field you are interested in. As an example, Chad Thomas said that the modern music specialty in the music school at Miami was a major draw for him.

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

Doesn't matter what students any school targets.

George Washington has a campus in norfolk targeted towards the TA dollars.

Texas A&M has a school in San Antonio for that grant money.

Penn st has a full online degree plan.

I got paid 10k a year to go to school.

EVERYBODY has a bachelors. My buddy served 8 years with me and has a degree from UT. He works at Bill Millers now. The entire staff there has a bachelors.

Nobody gives a ****. Just win football games.

Yes, a lot of people have a Bachelor's now. But not all Bachelor's are created equal. A Bachelor's from Duke or NYU or USC gives a you a better chance for a better job than a degree from Liberty or Lehigh or North Dakota State.

A lot of people care about the academic credentials especially if there's a particular field you are interested in. As an example, Chad Thomas said that the modern music specialty in the music school at Miami was a major draw for him.

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation got and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the logo and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

 

[OrangetieFatface]

I explicitly stated that Ivy League Stanford and Caltech carry weight. And maybe a few others.

Almost all jobs are acquired through networking, except entry level jobs as stated by someone else.

The networking is established by taking that entry level job. My buddy at work has a buddy that got promoted. Now he's a director of resources looking to hire. That's when I get my break.

Then a competitors head hunter is hiring, I move up again.

A year later were hiring, I call my buddy up. He just got promoted, but he vouches for a colleague.

By networking, I know the person getting hired is proficient at their job. I couldn't give two ***** what degree they have or from where.

There's no sense in taking a flyer on some dude I don't know because he went to UM, when I know for a fact the other guy is a competent employee.

That's how it happens.

Everyone starts at the bottom. Even MDs and Lawyers.

The reputation of a school not in the top 20 is meaningless.

Miamis reputation should be winning some ******* football games.

 

[CaneInTheBrain]

Yes, a lot of people have a Bachelor's now. But not all Bachelor's are created equal. A Bachelor's from Duke or NYU or USC gives a you a better chance for a better job than a degree from Liberty or Lehigh or North Dakota State.

A lot of people care about the academic credentials especially if there's a particular field you are interested in. As an example, Chad Thomas said that the modern music specialty in the music school at Miami was a major draw for him.

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

I explicitly stated that Ivy League Stanford and Caltech carry weight. And maybe a few others.

Almost all jobs are acquired through networking, except entry level jobs as stated by someone else.

The networking is established by taking that entry level job. My buddy at work has a buddy that got promoted. Now he's a director of resources looking to hire. That's when I get my break.

Then a competitors head hunter is hiring, I move up again.

A year later were hiring, I call my buddy up. He just got promoted, but he vouches for a colleague.

By networking, I know the person getting hired is proficient at their job. I couldn't give two ***** what degree they have or from where.

There's no sense in taking a flyer on some dude I don't know because he went to UM, when I know for a fact the other guy is a competent employee.

That's how it happens.

Everyone starts at the bottom. Even MDs and Lawyers.

The reputation of a school not in the top 20 is meaningless.

Miamis reputation should be winning some ******* football games.

Okay so all schools not being created equal isn't limited to the Ivy's and Cal Tech. Then what schools is it limited to? Duke? Stanford? USC/UCLA? Johns Hopkins? Georgetown? If there is a line where the school's name doesn't just overrun prior networking, what is it?

You say that all jobs start at the entry level and that they aren't acquired through networking. So then it's purely candidate resumes going up against each other. At the level, the college from the applicants graduated from matters entirely and the guy from Wake Forest with the exact same credentials will get the job before the guy from Robert Morris.

You're talking about climbing the career ladder. At that point, an employee should show that they're more than competent and will have an advantage over an outside applicant because of the networking and at that point the weight of a college has already passed like you've stated but to get to Step 1 at the entry level your college does matter. You said it yourself and that's what I'm talking about. That step is the most important one if there is no special prior relationship like you've discussed. Those are extremely rare. That's a blessing.

Carnegie-Melon, Tufts, Wake Forest, Michigan, and NYU are all outside the top 20. Their reputations are far from meaningless.

And don't get me wrong. Winning football games at Miami should be a priority and for the longest time it hasn't been. Even Duke, a preeminent academic school, invests ridiculous amounts of time, effort, and money into the basketball program and as strong as the academics at Duke are basketball helps pull students and anybody saying otherwise is lying. Basketball is such a strength of the school that it competes with the academics for the main image of the school. That's exactly what should be happening at Miami with football and it is very much possible.

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

I can't blame you for your cynicism. It's been fostered over the course of a decade of lukewarm behavior and unachieved potential by the school.

I agree with you on most points. The school has always done a tremendous job of really reaching out to the elderly starting with getting George Jenkins to support the business school. As far as reaching out to the Hispanic community, up until very recently that's been limited to a strong emphasis actually found in the History and Religious Studies departments. In about 2003, you saw the influence in the art and drama departments. Now with Dr. Frenk running the ship, he's aware of the untapped resource of the community and the surrounding countries that you mentioned. The wealthiest man in Colombia has a son at Miami. Brazil just had their biggest economic boom ever and really have started to view Miami as their hub school. With a Mexican citizen as our new president, I would think that a channel of success between the Hispanic world and the school would open up and become a strength starting with medicine and then business. I'd be surprised if the business school, which has fallen in recent years, isn't the single department that undergoes the most attention and revamping.

 

[OrangetieFatface]

I explicitly stated that Ivy League Stanford and Caltech carry weight. And maybe a few others.

Almost all jobs are acquired through networking, except entry level jobs as stated by someone else.

The networking is established by taking that entry level job. My buddy at work has a buddy that got promoted. Now he's a director of resources looking to hire. That's when I get my break.

Then a competitors head hunter is hiring, I move up again.

A year later were hiring, I call my buddy up. He just got promoted, but he vouches for a colleague.

By networking, I know the person getting hired is proficient at their job. I couldn't give two ***** what degree they have or from where.

There's no sense in taking a flyer on some dude I don't know because he went to UM, when I know for a fact the other guy is a competent employee.

That's how it happens.

Everyone starts at the bottom. Even MDs and Lawyers.

The reputation of a school not in the top 20 is meaningless.

Miamis reputation should be winning some ******* football games.

Okay so all schools not being created equal isn't limited to the Ivy's and Cal Tech. Then what schools is it limited to? Duke? Stanford? USC/UCLA? Johns Hopkins? Georgetown? If there is a line where the school's name doesn't just overrun prior networking, what is it?

You say that all jobs start at the entry level and that they aren't acquired through networking. So then it's purely candidate resumes going up against each other. At the level, the college from the applicants graduated from matters entirely and the guy from Wake Forest with the exact same credentials will get the job before the guy from Robert Morris.

You're talking about climbing the career ladder. At that point, an employee should show that they're more than competent and will have an advantage over an outside applicant because of the networking and at that point the weight of a college has already passed like you've stated but to get to Step 1 at the entry level your college does matter. You said it yourself and that's what I'm talking about. That step is the most important one if there is no special prior relationship like you've discussed. Those are extremely rare. That's a blessing.

Carnegie-Melon, Tufts, Wake Forest, Michigan, and NYU are all outside the top 20. Their reputations are far from meaningless.

And don't get me wrong. Winning football games at Miami should be a priority and for the longest time it hasn't been. Even Duke, a preeminent academic school, invests ridiculous amounts of time, effort, and money into the basketball program and as strong as the academics at Duke are basketball helps pull students and anybody saying otherwise is lying. Basketball is such a strength of the school that it competes with the academics for the main image of the school. That's exactly what should be happening at Miami with football and it is very much possible.

Yes I'm saying most of those things.

I think you're severely inflating the value of the name of a school. Micro miniature electronic repair theory, utilitarianism and Hawthorne are the same at every school. This isn't a secret.

We're at an impasse in principal. I bid you ado and much luck good sir.

 

[CaneFan79]

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

I can't blame you for your cynicism. It's been fostered over the course of a decade of lukewarm behavior and unachieved potential by the school.

I agree with you on most points. The school has always done a tremendous job of really reaching out to the elderly starting with getting George Jenkins to support the business school. As far as reaching out to the Hispanic community, up until very recently that's been limited to a strong emphasis actually found in the History and Religious Studies departments. In about 2003, you saw the influence in the art and drama departments. Now with Dr. Frenk running the ship, he's aware of the untapped resource of the community and the surrounding countries that you mentioned. The wealthiest man in Colombia has a son at Miami. Brazil just had their biggest economic boom ever and really have started to view Miami as their hub school. With a Mexican citizen as our new president, I would think that a channel of success between the Hispanic world and the school would open up and become a strength starting with medicine and then business. I'd be surprised if the business school, which has fallen in recent years, isn't the single department that undergoes the most attention and revamping.

The drop from Kahn to Anderson was palitable in the Business school...Sapped energy like a Air Conditioner at full blow cooling a house to 50 degrees.

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

I explicitly stated that Ivy League Stanford and Caltech carry weight. And maybe a few others.

Almost all jobs are acquired through networking, except entry level jobs as stated by someone else.

The networking is established by taking that entry level job. My buddy at work has a buddy that got promoted. Now he's a director of resources looking to hire. That's when I get my break.

Then a competitors head hunter is hiring, I move up again.

A year later were hiring, I call my buddy up. He just got promoted, but he vouches for a colleague.

By networking, I know the person getting hired is proficient at their job. I couldn't give two ***** what degree they have or from where.

There's no sense in taking a flyer on some dude I don't know because he went to UM, when I know for a fact the other guy is a competent employee.

That's how it happens.

Everyone starts at the bottom. Even MDs and Lawyers.

The reputation of a school not in the top 20 is meaningless.

Miamis reputation should be winning some ******* football games.

Okay so all schools not being created equal isn't limited to the Ivy's and Cal Tech. Then what schools is it limited to? Duke? Stanford? USC/UCLA? Johns Hopkins? Georgetown? If there is a line where the school's name doesn't just overrun prior networking, what is it?

You say that all jobs start at the entry level and that they aren't acquired through networking. So then it's purely candidate resumes going up against each other. At the level, the college from the applicants graduated from matters entirely and the guy from Wake Forest with the exact same credentials will get the job before the guy from Robert Morris.

You're talking about climbing the career ladder. At that point, an employee should show that they're more than competent and will have an advantage over an outside applicant because of the networking and at that point the weight of a college has already passed like you've stated but to get to Step 1 at the entry level your college does matter. You said it yourself and that's what I'm talking about. That step is the most important one if there is no special prior relationship like you've discussed. Those are extremely rare. That's a blessing.

Carnegie-Melon, Tufts, Wake Forest, Michigan, and NYU are all outside the top 20. Their reputations are far from meaningless.

And don't get me wrong. Winning football games at Miami should be a priority and for the longest time it hasn't been. Even Duke, a preeminent academic school, invests ridiculous amounts of time, effort, and money into the basketball program and as strong as the academics at Duke are basketball helps pull students and anybody saying otherwise is lying. Basketball is such a strength of the school that it competes with the academics for the main image of the school. That's exactly what should be happening at Miami with football and it is very much possible.

Yes I'm saying most of those things.

I think you're severely inflating the value of the name of a school. Micro miniature electronic repair theory, utilitarianism and Hawthorne are the same at every school. This isn't a secret.

We're at an impasse in principal. I bid you ado and much luck good sir.

True, but the preparation for professional applications is what I think is the difference.

I accept your kind departure and return you with one of my own. May you and your family have a splendid day. (Looks at you through opera binoculars on a stick).

 

[TedHendricksOffspring]

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

I can't blame you for your cynicism. It's been fostered over the course of a decade of lukewarm behavior and unachieved potential by the school.

I agree with you on most points. The school has always done a tremendous job of really reaching out to the elderly starting with getting George Jenkins to support the business school. As far as reaching out to the Hispanic community, up until very recently that's been limited to a strong emphasis actually found in the History and Religious Studies departments. In about 2003, you saw the influence in the art and drama departments. Now with Dr. Frenk running the ship, he's aware of the untapped resource of the community and the surrounding countries that you mentioned. The wealthiest man in Colombia has a son at Miami. Brazil just had their biggest economic boom ever and really have started to view Miami as their hub school. With a Mexican citizen as our new president, I would think that a channel of success between the Hispanic world and the school would open up and become a strength starting with medicine and then business. I'd be surprised if the business school, which has fallen in recent years, isn't the single department that undergoes the most attention and revamping.

The drop from Kahn to Anderson was palitable in the Business school...Sapped energy like a Air Conditioner at full blow cooling a house to 50 degrees.

Ding, ding, ding. I didn't want to trash Dean Anderson, but yeah.

 

[mirednmediocrity2]

Doesn't matter what students any school targets.

George Washington has a campus in norfolk targeted towards the TA dollars.

Texas A&M has a school in San Antonio for that grant money.

Penn st has a full online degree plan.

I got paid 10k a year to go to school.

EVERYBODY has a bachelors. My buddy served 8 years with me and has a degree from UT. He works at Bill Millers now. The entire staff there has a bachelors.

Nobody gives a ****. Just win football games.

Yes, a lot of people have a Bachelor's now. But not all Bachelor's are created equal. A Bachelor's from Duke or NYU or USC gives a you a better chance for a better job than a degree from Liberty or Lehigh or North Dakota State.

A lot of people care about the academic credentials especially if there's a particular field you are interested in. As an example, Chad Thomas said that the modern music specialty in the music school at Miami was a major draw for him.

2 candidates with equal credentials apply for the same job. One went to UM and one went to Lehigh, same degree.

The dude that went to Lehigh knows the director of HR. He's getting the job.

Sorry. Welcome to the real world.

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

Stopped donating several years ago when the Med School mess started, followed closely be ****piro's antics. A well-run, top university would never have such problems. Can't believe how bad Shalala was at controlling this garbage. (This woman was a cabinet officer?) I wonder how soon some of these bunglers in the admins will realize if they don't start running this university much better, it may soon drown in red ink and be shuttered. No one should pay the kind of tuition they charge for the product the students are getting. This "Harvard of the South" BS is laughable when the education offered by the state school, which is a big mediocre Southern university, offers much more for much less $$$$$!

UM is a joke. It's still effing "Suntan U" and I wouldn't give them a dime.

AB '65

 

[CaneInTheBrain]

Of course that's true. But to assume that connections like that exist all over the place is disingenuous so that high assumed advantage is rare.

The Miami alumni link around the country, especially in South Florida, is incredibly strong and stronger than most schools. It carries more weight than most.

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

I can't blame you for your cynicism. It's been fostered over the course of a decade of lukewarm behavior and unachieved potential by the school.

I agree with you on most points. The school has always done a tremendous job of really reaching out to the elderly starting with getting George Jenkins to support the business school. As far as reaching out to the Hispanic community, up until very recently that's been limited to a strong emphasis actually found in the History and Religious Studies departments. In about 2003, you saw the influence in the art and drama departments. Now with Dr. Frenk running the ship, he's aware of the untapped resource of the community and the surrounding countries that you mentioned. The wealthiest man in Colombia has a son at Miami. Brazil just had their biggest economic boom ever and really have started to view Miami as their hub school. With a Mexican citizen as our new president, I would think that a channel of success between the Hispanic world and the school would open up and become a strength starting with medicine and then business. I'd be surprised if the business school, which has fallen in recent years, isn't the single department that undergoes the most attention and revamping.

You represent the university well. I like what I'm hearing.

That the wealthiest man in Colombia's son attends Miami is a tribute to the status the city of Miami has within Latin America. Building on that inherent advantage, we should actively recruit top faculty and top students from the Latin American region. We should realign the university toward a more international focus generally - offering degrees in Spanish, for example, and develop relationships with regional employers - to broaden our appeal to the top minds from the region.

To be a bit blunt - Miami has, for a long time, been a school to which rich parents from the Northeast send their underachieving kids. If the goal is to raise the prestige and status of the university, then at some point we should pivot from this toward actively recruiting overachievers. Due to our already-existing prestige in Latin America, I believe that to be the most accessible market to target.

The "Stanford of the South" can come later. Realistically, we have more to overcome in the way of branding and performance if we wish to compete with the likes of Virginia, Duke, Rice, UNC, Vanderbilt, etc. than we do positioning ourselves as the top university in L. Am.

 

[mirednmediocrity2]

Glorified and very expensive community college. Possibly the most poorly run university in the country. Crummy commuter school and never has been any better.

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

 

[mirednmediocrity2]

I wonder if the BOT is fuming and probably blaming at the black kids on the football team for this. We all know the people that run the U are racists and felt it was necessary to shed our african american imagery in order to improve the school.

Right now the BOT is thinking of ways to further neuter our ballers so we can move back into the top 50.

We need to neuter this BOT and replace some of these rich trustfund azzholes with competent people who want excellence in the classroom and on the playing field. I still can't understand why we alumni are totally ignored in choosing these people.

 

[mirednmediocrity2]

The reputation Miami has among alumni is not so good, at least that's the perception among the alumni I have spoken with. Perhaps that's why we struggle to pull in donations.

My gripe with the administration is that they are tone deaf to the feedback they get from former students (and the community at large), and that they are more interested in fundraising than they are in actually using that money to build anything of value.

The university needs managers, not fundraisers. Good management wouldn't have purchased the hospital. Good management would make this a Top 25 university, academically. Good management would not have lost the Orange Bowl stadium, nor would it have mismanaged the Miami brand to the extent the university has.

On that point, that they are totally clueless as brand managers.... consider that in the 80's and 90's, EVERYBODY knew who the University of Miami was due to the football team. Now, was all of that publicity positive? No, of course not. But a good brand manager knows that all publicity is good publicity. Good brand management would have embraced our "swagger" image and turned it in to something positive.... the University chose to run away from it and bury it.

Then, a decade later, we had ANOTHER athletics scandal anyway! That's poor management. At least according to the NCAA governing body, which cited UM with "Lack of Institutional Control," as I recall.

But that's what happens when you hire a bunch of fundraisers and yes-men, and don't give a **** about the actual managerial, strategic and administrative duties of running a university.

And people wonder why I don't donate. Pshhh...

The last few years have seen a decrease in Miami alumni support for the school itself due in large part to a fed up attitude with upper administration and a backslide in academic success from our peak in 2011. Donations are still at a high with the success of the Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 programs but it comes from less donors giving just more money. The recent presidential change has excited a lot of the alumni base because improvement can be achieved almost immediately with Dr. Frenk.

The school needs both administration and fundraising for success. In the last few years, the music library has been revamped and the new Student Activities building is pristine. There's a cancer treatment building being put on campus right now. However, the hospital purchase has been a hemorrhaging of money until the last few years and that's pretty much canceled out any attempts to use the fundraised money for expansive projects. With the hospital being the labor that it was and is, spending on other projects became less of a priority until the hospital was sorted out. Again, Dr. Frenk will really make that a strength.

Dr. Frenk is by his literal definition an effective manager. He'll make the hospital a true success. He knows what it likes to be at a top institution and can intimate that progress. The Orange Bowl falls on both the city and the administration and with how bad the stadium situation and the gravity of it wasn't appreciated at the time.

As far as the brand goes and my fellow recent alumni on the board can attest to this, the school got so protective of the log and the brand that they ended up hurting it by not making it as a public a fixture as it could and should be. With the change in administration, a change in attitude should be on the horizon. I know I'm pumping Dr. Frenk pretty high, but his track record and differences from the previous regime speak for themselves.

Of course I will give President Frenk a chance, but as you can tell I'm cynical after the last few years of what I perceive as unfocused mismanagement.

I'm critical of the university because, as a former student, I harbor high expectations. I see the world of potential that we have, I see our failure to reach it, and I see that the cause for that failure would be easily addressed - if only the will and proper focus existed.

Strategically, the city of Miami has two unique things going for it: Retirees and Latin Americans.

With respect to the former, it makes perfect sense for the University to prioritize the medical school, as South Florida is well positioned to become a nexus for medical advancement in the coming years. I'm on board with the hiring of Dr. Frenk to this end, and I appreciate the planning and vision of the BOT to look ahead see this as an opportunity.

With respect to the latter, what have we done? The city of Miami has the reputation among Latin Americans as being the crown jewel of that culture. Among wealthy Latin Americans, vacationing to Miami, or sending your kids to Miami, is seen as a status symbol... much as a Swiss boarding school or a trip to Vienna are seen as status symbols to Americans.

Why have we not capitalized on this? We should be positioning ourselves as the #1 school in Latin America, a very realistic goal. We could cherry pick the best of the best from a pool of 600 million people. Think of what that could do to our rankings and success. If we just made it a point of emphasis to admit the top 1% of all high school students from countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc, we could rather quickly see our international stature rise. We should be offering undergraduate degrees in Spanish, as well as English. We should hire away the best published professors from Spain, Brazil, etc.

Where is the focus on international business, shipping, trade, etc? Especially with the rise of free trade and the BRICS countries, we should be ahead of this curve, not leading from the back.

I can't blame you for your cynicism. It's been fostered over the course of a decade of lukewarm behavior and unachieved potential by the school.

I agree with you on most points. The school has always done a tremendous job of really reaching out to the elderly starting with getting George Jenkins to support the business school. As far as reaching out to the Hispanic community, up until very recently that's been limited to a strong emphasis actually found in the History and Religious Studies departments. In about 2003, you saw the influence in the art and drama departments. Now with Dr. Frenk running the ship, he's aware of the untapped resource of the community and the surrounding countries that you mentioned. The wealthiest man in Colombia has a son at Miami. Brazil just had their biggest economic boom ever and really have started to view Miami as their hub school. With a Mexican citizen as our new president, I would think that a channel of success between the Hispanic world and the school would open up and become a strength starting with medicine and then business. I'd be surprised if the business school, which has fallen in recent years, isn't the single department that undergoes the most attention and revamping.

You represent the university well. I like what I'm hearing.

That the wealthiest man in Colombia's son attends Miami is a tribute to the status the city of Miami has within Latin America. Building on that inherent advantage, we should actively recruit top faculty and top students from the Latin American region. We should realign the university toward a more international focus generally - offering degrees in Spanish, for example, and develop relationships with regional employers - to broaden our appeal to the top minds from the region.

To be a bit blunt - Miami has, for a long time, been a school to which rich parents from the Northeast send their underachieving kids. If the goal is to raise the prestige and status of the university, then at some point we should pivot from this toward actively recruiting overachievers. Due to our already-existing prestige in Latin America, I believe that to be the most accessible market to target.

The "Stanford of the South" can come later. Realistically, we have more to overcome in the way of branding and performance if we wish to compete with the likes of Virginia, Duke, Rice, UNC, Vanderbilt, etc. than we do positioning ourselves as the top university in L. Am.

THIS!