The "e" stands for "unnecessary"
Interesting point made by a reader: the Rensselaer Plan, the document supposedly governing high-level decisions about the future of the Institute, makes mention of the Biotech center (cost: $100 million) numerous times, while the eMPA Center, or eMPAC (budget: $141.7 million) is never mentioned by name, and only once alluded to. Note: the high cost may have something to do with the fact that money was spent to design an entire page about writing the word "eMPAC ".
Also, please let me know if you can verify the accuracy of this zinger:
Q. Why will the eMPAC center be a non-profit facility?
A. Because it will lose money on every performance.
posted by Bernstein at 8:13 PM
18 Comments:
Oh no somebody added a special class to RPIs CSS sheets for displaying a logo! This is truely a disasterous misapplication of funds and one that truely hurts the quality of our education. Thank you Bernstein for bringing the most important and controversial issues with your groundbreaking and edgy blog.
I don't think the empac logo was what Bernstein was really going for with this post...
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=357169&category=CAMPUSCOL&BCCode=&newsdate=5/7/2005
Looks like bernstein got the attention of the Times Union
I still don't know what this building is really for. Sounds like a place for President Jackson to give speeches and a potential money pit to me. The worst part is that it's on the far end of campus - if it was were the Biotech Center is it might be more useful.
Some people feel more comfortable speaking up if they're anonymous. For me it's quite the opposite.
As a frequent anonymous poster, I fell that anonymous posting should be left on, as it encourages the posting of controversial information and opinions. Furthermore, it allows people to speak their minds without being concerned with "building up a reputation".
And when you think about it, what seperates anonymous posting from logged in here? I can create a blogger account or 10 here, post with them all, and nobody would be the wiser.
If you list all you details in your profile or use your real name...
Who cares about reputations? Keep it real.
I have one fast fact for all you Art Criticizers, The Art Department is the highest Ranking Department in all of RPI, we are 8th in the nation in regards to Electronic Arts, can you say the same for the Engineering, I believe they are way down there in the 30's. The prestige generated by this department is used to impress funders to the point where someone donated that money to build these buildings.
The biotech could be better if they allowed Stem Cell Research to happen in New York, but that's another thing.
EMPAC's logo might suck because it is going to be renamed to include the doner, perhaps... don't you think?
I think you guys are just misinformed, and not reading up on what is really going to go on, but he who laughs last... you know the rest.
Take Care friends.
Yes, I have the downlow on the Art deptartment and EMPAC.
lazeta
it certainly is a shame that rpi is taking steps to try and enrich the culture around these parts, give another reason for people outside of the rpi community to come to campus, and generally, just put rpi on the map for more than just having some awesome microscope. me and my whole LAN party crew were planning a protest for the groundbreaking, but we got sucked into some obscure board on halo. ah well - i still can armchair protest it...
c'mon folks - grow a set.
i cant verify the accuracy of that final statement, but im pretty sure its true. the thing is, i get the feeling you are saying that it is a bad thing. i dont really understand that, but perhaps you dont have a strong understand of value. its ok, a lot of people tend to substitute money with value. like, if its not making money, there is no value. or, if you cant put a price on it, its not valuable. i tend to disagree, as money is just a substitute for value anyway, even though our society has kind of reversed that.
so let me address the question. if you were going to open something thats purpose was to create value and enrich a community in desparate need of enrichment, and not to make money, then you would make it a non-profit or you would be an idiot. non-profit have numerous advantages if their is risk of not actually profiting. for example, no tax. another, people can give you stuff and then they can write that off their taxes. i dont really follow how empac could be for-profit given that rpi is a not-for-profit, but who knows.
so, maybe you were wondering why they would build a $140+ million facility if they plan to have it lose money. i'm not sure what you think other schools do, but this is kinda normal. although it would be nice, i'm sure, for it to generate some revenue, what it will generate is 1) attention, 2) donations/grants, 3) culture, and 4) complaints from people who dont understand what value is.
attention will raise the school in people's perception, which will help every student with an rpi degree. "oh, you're from rpi? i just heard about the new building.. blah blah, wow, so, would you like a job?" attention will also increase donations/grants which is the same as revenue but can be applied differently. for one, rpi gets like 30% of most grants, which, lets say on a $1 million grant, is $300k, much more than most concert venues make in profit for a year. and thats just 1 grant. the other 70% goes to cool shit regarding the grant, which may be pay for students, equipment for students, or a free hot show that students can go to. it also might help give rpi a better name around the area and encourage a bit of "working together" that goes a bit farther than this communiversity/i'm the daddy and you will listen relationship they have with the county now.
grants/donations, as i mentioned before, are good things. i know there will be a number of artist in residences, which will bring hot artists and will increase the culture at school. better culture means less complaints from students, such as, "rpi sucks," or "troy is so fucking boring i cant fucking take it." unless, secretly, these people actually like it that way and just prefer to join in the chorus of other students who need to be told how to be entertained.
so, please, explain to me how EMPAC is a bad thing, especially when that money was donated for the building and NOT to subsidize your tuition.
bang-up job, raoul - here here for pointing out that value is not intrinsically linked to some sort of cash flow. value can be measured a ton of different ways, such as visibility this building and its program will bring to rpi, the city of troy, and the whole capital region. this building also has value in, as the president aptly often points, enriching the lives of rpi students and creating a more well-rounded graduate who can potentially carry on a conversation about politics, bach, AND science (to say nothing of the even further-out programming that the wow + flutter festival is indicative of). as a resident of troy, this building also has value in showing a HUGE cultural investment in this area, which will indirectly bring businesses and just plain people to this already interesting area to see what is hopping. i think that any walk through the center of town will display this tendency.
so yeah, cannot wait to see what this building has in store for the area - and shame on all the naysayers that have not really looked beyond that direct bottom line...
I'd like for either Raoul or dj wmd to tell me why SAJ built the biotech building first if the community was already "desperate for enrichment"?
Oh, and all those grants and revenue that eMPAC will supposedly generate won't be going toward helping out the students, you can be assured. Our tuition increased over $2000 (7%) in one year. RPI costs more than most, if not all, ivy league schools. But I suppose you could argue that you can't put a pricetag on an RPI education; it's just that valuable. Well I've got news for you: SAJ does put a price on our educations and quite a hefty one at that. Instead of worrying about impressing everyone with how many buildings she's built since becoming RPI's President, she should be worrying about the students and how we're suffering in many aspects. To me, "community enrichment" should come after that because the community isn't paying $40,000+ to attend here.
Refresh my memory, though...why is she building another building? Oh! That's right! Rather than focus on problems like the bad advising system, the TA Shortage, and underequipped labs, she'd rather impress the hell out of everyone and secure more donations and funds to make her look positively wonderful. It's smart, I gotta give her that. Self-advancement cloaked by bricks and mortar.
I'm not trying to degrade art students in any way; I have a lot of respect for artists, being an artist myself. I'm simply trying to point out that eMPAC is just the newest project in a line of projects that aren't quite aimed toward helping the students of RPI.
did you catch raoul's comments concerning empac gaining much-needed exposure for rpi in the area of the arts and the larger humanities, which will in turn raise awareness of the school and the degrees it awards to its graduates? people are talking about empac - outside of the rpi campus, people that would never turn their head up the hill are now paying attention. some of these people might be future employers that now have another reason to remember rpi when they see it on a resume. get the picture? i mean, i hate to play into this whole "why build a new building when the cafeteria still serves tater tots instead of gourmet steak fries", but this buidling will create an on-campus atmosphere and off-campus interest that will all add up (directly and indirectly) to a wider recognized student / faculty / staff / whatever.
oh, and as for why build bio-tech before empac: (1) biotech is not open yet, in that it is still barely functioning and still requires a lot of work, and (2) perhaps because, architecturally, empac is a much, much larger undertaking - i mean, have you seen the designs? this is not a typical building - it is a signature piece of architechture. which, by the way, will also garner publicity and attention for this school and its students and their degress.
Raising awareness of the school and it's degrees = not guaranteed
Raising the tuition ridiculous amounts every year = guaranteed
Get the picture?
If you don't, SAJ has you brainwashed already. eMPAC won't be the holy grail RPI's looking for, I can guarantee you.
And the biotech building is open, despite it being finished 6 months behind schedule and having an early opening. Gee, I wonder why? The public was beginning to wonder if the building would ever get done, so SAJ had to have an open waaaay before it was finished to, perhaps, prove something?...I'll let you think about that one for awhile.
Another interesting tidbit: RPI also hired the same contractors to build the eMPAC building [who built the biotech building] because they were about $40,000 cheaper than any other company. Is it just me or does it seem fishy that RPI would want to save such a small amount- LESS THAN the cost of one student's tuition for a year here?
I've done my homework, have you?
my recommendation, anonymous? go to wpi - the main competition for this school and there, you will never have to think about the arts or the community the school happens to be in, or barely anything outside of the realm of your computer.
or, if you want to change something, filing gripes anonymously on a barely read blog is really not going cause any sort of change.
the same, however, could be say for people that post opposite opinions under pseudomyms...
so, anonymous, your logic is a tad flawed. understanding why these things are happening does not make you brainwashed by SAJ, it just means you understand big picture improvement goals. so let me address some of your points.
1) more grants goes to the students. RPI takes a percentage (can't remember but its around 34%) of grants as "administrative overhead." now, lets say rpi gets $100 million in grants a year. That means they get (roughly) $34 million. Thats the cost of 850 students tuition. Thats how much your tuition does not have to go up. Not to mention, if you are complaining about paying for tuition, i gotta assume you are a nice middle class white american. i am, and i have loans to pay for the tuition. and it is a lot of money. but, the benefits outweight the cost by far. i just dont understand how people complain about having to pay to go to a decent college, how about complaining about not being able to afford food or something... or complaining that your government just killed your family and now you have to be sex slave to stay alive. or just complain about how high your gas prices are....
2) have you done your homework? if so, tell me why rpi needed to increase tuition 7%. what were the other cost increases that called for that. what do these new costs provide for the students? if i recall, rpi doesnt have open book accounting so its rather difficult to be in the know on where this money is going, but if you do, let me know. i'd like to see the justification for it as well. (and yes, i do think SAJ salary is beyond extreme, but it does get is in all the newspapers when they talk about highest paid university people...)
3) the biotech had immediate return on investments. the year it was decided happened to be the same year new york state and the feds announced HUGE and MASSIVE grants available to schools doing biotech. i find that to be a funny coincidence eh? in addition, the money that paid for it was donated under the stipulation that rpi build a biotech center and an arts center, so, i'm pretty sure these things didnt really affect your tuition the way you think they do. either they would have been built, or nothing else would have happened. which would you prefer? and why do you think SAJ _chose_ to build these buildings? again, it was stipulated in the donation, so its not self-advancement cloaked as brick and mortars. perhaps you could call it good timing, but i think its more likely that she securing the 2nd biggest donation to a school in history, as opposed to someone just randomly donating.
4) ask a student how they are suffering, and 9 out of 10 will say boredom. I remember one class of 30 students where the prof asked, "who likes troy?" i was the only one to raise my hand. another class had the teaching telling all the "classic" troy jokes, all the students laughing... community enrichment will help keep students from being bored. i think this is directly affected the things that are troubling students the most, like "how do i get to have a college experienec in a place like troy?"
i do agree that there are aspects of student life that need fixing, like bad advising. i think bad advising is caused by apethetic teachers. i just dont think they've had much to be excited about over the last 20 years. recently, however, there is much more going on. making the prof's feel useful, needed, and appreciated is important and will help improve their interactions with students. the same thing applies to them, if people are talking about rpi, it makes them take more pride in their work. that is good.
however, my advice (and my approach) is to not rely on your advisor to tell you things. do it yourself, build your own plan and your own path. rpi is filled with resources, make them work for you. its easier than you think, and maybe then you wont feel like 40,000 is such a rip-off (especially when you get the job you want because you started the first ______ club with rpi's money and your future employer thought that was the tipping point that gets you hired.)
if i'm wrong in my assumptions, i apologize. they are just that, assumptions, but based on educated guesses. however, the web is not the richest communication medium, so my interpretation may be off. i didnt mean to make any personal attacks, just so you know.
blah blah blah.... whine whine whine...
here is the link to Shirley hiding the RPI ART Ranking
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=681
in fact she only mentions it once
she never mentioned that THEART DEPARTMENT IS THE HIGHEST RANKING DEPT.. IN ALL OF RPI.
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