I thought I should stop referring to this as a FAQ, since nobody has asked ANY
questions so far as I know. So now its, "Rarely Asked Questions".
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TASK FORCE MEETING TODAY?
Beats me, and I was there for every second of it! Public meetings are an
absolute mystery to me. Really they are like Wolfram CA's: seathing dog vomit
for hours, and then suddenly a pattern emerges. In this case, the pattern was
pretty hazy... They adopted as a temporary orientation .... a signal to the
governor, it seemed ... that they were considering four options, but the
options were never that well articulated, so the force of the resolution was
not at all clear to me.
Some things are beginning to become clear, however.
(1) The City is going to be a big player. Everybody agrees the solution must
be a Santa Fe-ish one.
(2) Laureate (aka sylvan learning systems) is still a player. Did you know
that they have already sunk 3 million dollars in evaluating the take-over of
CSF. Somebody thinks there is gold in these thar hills. The governor's man
who is chairing the meeting said that he had received "several" calls from
private parties, including one tht demanded that he execute a confidentiality
agreement before the the call could continue.... he didnt take the call. We in
the audience began to wonder if there might be oil under the campus. Several
models were mentioned of regional colleges in attractive places that are making
money. Higher education in Santa Fe does not have to be a basket case, or
even a charity.
(3) A state take over is unlikely. The state might operate some education
programs on the campus, but whatever entity carries on there cannot be bound to
state tuition caps.
(4) there is a possibility of some Federal funding.
(5) The mood of the taskforce has shifted substantially in the last week.
Something WILL be done.
WHAT SHOULD "WE" DO?
Well, the first thing is that we should be pooling our information. The
situation is tremendously fluid. I dont know if Dave West and Steve have
information they might want to share. Second thing is that "we" ought to be
prepared to support the city, politically if we want higher education in Santa
Fe. I think we do. It could easily become one of the city's most salient
industries.
I still think I should continue to try and round up the academic cats, in some
way or another. Not clear I know how to do that. I still think the City
University idea is viable, particularly since it would provide a broad gentle
embrace for such enterprises as the Complex.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The Task Force meets NEXT friday at 10 am, probably in the folk art museum.
After that, it will report to the governor. The most likely form of the report
will be a comparative list of options.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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