The Houston Chronicle released an interesting article about the Rice-Baylor merger a few days ago suggesting that the merger would create “one of the most unbalanced academic institutions in the nation.” The article itself was rather insightful; however, some comments left by readers put me over the edge.
Yes, as a student at Baylor Med, I’m inherently biased to promote a great image of the school. At the same time, when negative aspects of the school are expressed, I can usually appreciate/relate to them.
The following is a snippet from one of the comments left on the article.
“Sounds like Baylor Med is about down and out. If Rice doesn’t rescue them they can’t survive.”
The preposterous notion that Baylor Med will die without Rice is… ummm… a testament of how juvenile the reader’s knowledge is about the situation. 😛 Between a positive fiscal year in 2010 and a profitable outpatient clinic, Baylor is doing just fine. As a student, the idea of a Rice-Baylor merger is almost transparent as it hasn’t affected a single aspect of our education… except for the occasional: “Don’t worry if you break [insert furniture, lab equipment, etc] … Rice will fix it!” 😀
Whether or not the merger goes through (which, personally, I think is just a matter of time), neither institution is facing its demise at the present moment.
See Public Lecture at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/merger