"SJU has been fairly successful in its current niche" - Beast of the East
- Until Now. You are correct, and even non-profits are supposed to have a financial bottom line. I'm not sure that I would completely agree that they're businesses in a conventional sernse: A real firm would've gone out of business a long time ago (even with instituted protectionism from market forces), with the current level of mis-management I suspected back then. I say that they're businesses in the sense of being what's called "overpriced reputational goods". Scale up the infrastructure and spend heavily on global branding. Higher tuition is one of the resultant side effects, or should I correctly state intended effects, according to their revenue model.
Although Harrington has taken SJU a long way, his tenure also had some serious drawbacks. I heard (a few times) that he actively pushed to keep admissions standards down across certain academic sectors of the university. If this allegation is true, then such behavior is highly objectionable. But back to your last statement. The problem that SJU faces now is that they want to run the university unencumbered, while seeking alumni donations to expand the endowment. It looks safe on the surface, until alumni start attaching individually and collectively their donation consideration to certain conditions. We're already seeing this occur. The next President will be forced to move the university in a more academic direction, because too many alumni are closely monitoring the university's current events and academic standing. The question will be - how will this be successfully executed? I think that from a realistic standpoint, the school's media should focus more on it's Pharmacy, Law, and MBA programs. I think that the business school right now needs a serious shake-up, at the administration level. And I'm talking about the possibility of bringing in a new dean with a steep corporate background. The pharmacy program is making strides, while SJU Law seems to have gone on a hiring spree selecting new faculty with JDs from top 10 law schools.
Regarding the Manhattan campus, the business school never used the space properly. And in a city with the highest concentration of business schools per square foot, they had better lease an alternate downtown location fast: Queens won't cut it anymore. Top European bschools are already setting up shop in Manhattan with more top competitors, on the way. Even schools within Tobin's competitive range like Fordham are quickly expanding their offerings to meet current demand. This is the reality, at present. The product offering has to be configured in a more academic direction, but through unconventional means. Based on a law of averages, top students tend to select schools based on superior academics relative to financial aid package offerings, even when other expected leisure amenities are taken into consideration. In that contention, there is a very specific competitive advantage that the university can use against better academically endowed competitors: Continue the improvement of financial aid subsidies, and begin the market this portion of the product mix on a global scale. That's SJU's unique selling advantage in the $100K+ 4-year tuition space.
There are so many components to creating a great university, and you've hit on many of them. On the college selection circuit once again, I was browsing the USnews report, and discovered that a university had its ranking increased based on improvements in graduates findings employment. I think this is one area that SJU with an incredibly strong local alumni, could really deliver the goods if they had talented administrators who would work hard in selling SJU grads to alumni. It's an area all of us in the position of hiring SJU grads could help.
While attending a Boston College tour, which beings with an information session (packed to the gills), student presenters spoke about the many internship opportunities available to BC students. Parents and prospective students were quite interested in hearing this. I raised my hand and asked if most of these opportunities were in Boston, and was told that no, they are mostly in NYC.
I guess one way that concerned alumni could help raise our academic profile is to hire SJU interns and graduates. After all, the thing all students, including high achievers, want is a job after they graduate. Apparently this is part of the criteria for US News uses to rate colleges and universities.
It's funny timing you mention this. St Johns used to have some sort of Mentorship program that I participated in working with the students who might have an interest in where we kind of became a person the kids could call or some in and talk to and just talk about what we did and what their expectations should be in our fields etc and just last week a kid a long time ago I had gotten a job at my firm but then left a couple of years later sent me an email just keeping in touch and he is at credit suisse doing well.
Was nice to know that. I wonder if St Johns still has that program because they havent contacted me in quite some time about it