Laureate, to me, seems a bit spooky. They want to build an Art
School, which fills a gap in their currently available offerings world
wide. They can have folks visit Santa Fe for their Arts studies,
using other Laureate facilities for the rest of their degree.
So that leaves in the cold anyone wanting to study other fields,
certainly in the sciences. So it leaves Santa Fe still being "quaint"
and "arty". Oh my.
My prediction is that this will ultimately enhance the Community
College, mainly by beefing up the Highlands Santa Fe Center:
http://www.nmhu.edu/statewidecenters/santafe/
(Note UNM dropped its local center.)
My preference would be Highlands taking over CSF but that would
require state funding .. an unlikely event.
I really hope Dave West's idea of the Academy at the Complex works out.
-- Owen
On Apr 24, 2009, at 6:16 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
All,
I again attended the meeting of the goverenor's task force to
suggest what to do about the impending demise of the college of
Santa Fe. The accoustics in the room were terrible and so my report
will be more brief. Also, there seemed to be an attentive reporter
from the New Mexican there, so I imagine there will be something
fairly informative in tomorrow's papers.
Briefly, something seems to be taking shape for higher education in
Santa Fe. Economic analyses seem to suggest that the impact of
having (or losing) the college upon the city of Santa Fe is of the
order of HUNDREDS of millions of dollars. (sic!) In other words, the
City cannot afford not to save or replace the college. The outlines
are as follows:
(1) City of Santa Fe takes ownership of most of the campus through a
bond issue. The rest is obtained by state or other enterprises
having to do with education.
(2) Laureate College leases 3/4 of the campus and takes change of
the College of Santa Fe. On this scenario, the college is up and
going in the fall. Laureate is a for profit enterprise that boasts
500,000 students world wide. It can sustain substantial losses for
a few years and is apparently willing to do so, but believes that it
can make a profit running an art school here, if it can lease the
property from the city at market rates.
(3) Something else educational will happen with the rest of the
college and the rest of the land.
I still think, even within this frame work, there is a place for a
framework that embraces all the educational and quasi educational
institution in the city as The City University of Santa Fe.
Laureate U. seems possibly a benign force under the present
circumstances, but we dont want them wagging the Santa Fe
Educational Dog. And I still think it is important to pull together
the people in Santa Fe who feel they benefit from having
institutuions of higher learning in the city.
I just cant think how.
There is another meeting of the task force from ten to noon THIS
wednesday, probably it's last meeting.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/============================================================
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