<p>Admisscouns, in my opinion, your comparison to the California system is not a sound comparison because of the much smaller size of UMass. Moreover, I think it is short-sighted to give ‘the bulk of the basket of eggs’ to Amherst because I do not believe that the Dartmouth campus, for example, is far behind the Amherst campus in intellectual assets, the UMassd Marine Biology program [an important resource for Massachusetts] is one example. Fisheries and Marine Science is critical to the state’s economy and the UMassd program, while perhaps not as comprehensive as its sister departments at UMaine and UNH (no Ph.D in Marine Biology/Zoology/Oceanography at UMassd, yet) has great potential if it is vigorously supported by the university system officials.</p>