<p>I know more about this subject (the status of the biological sciences and medical school in the University) than I should. I will just say this to put it in context.</p>
<p>I’m going to be intentionally vague. The Dean of the Biological Sciences Division years ago told me that, despite its early prominence, for whatever reason things slid over time and at a certain point the University basically wrote off the medical school and biological sciences and wasn’t spending any money on it, at least from the faculty’s point of view.</p>
<p>In addition, the hospital was losing tons of money–bleeding money. At one point, the University even considered closing the hospital.</p>
<p>They formed a committee evaluating the BSD and decided to re-organize the Hospital, which was spun off into a separate corporation (a subsidiary of the University.).</p>
<p>About the same time along came the U.S. News rankings and it was kind of an embarrassment for the University. Lot of things changed. They dropped the Education Dept. and Geography Dept. because they were ranked too low. They suddenly wanted to raise the medical school up to the level of the Business school and Law school.</p>
<p>And they started spending money. The faculty couldn’t believe it when they actually built the new medical school building several years ago–and a lot more has followed.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the re-organized Hospital, free from the University bureaucracy, actually began to make money. The medical component of the University is unique in that it is basically a business. Although technically non-profit, the hospital made about $100 million last year (and has revenue of over a billion dollars a year, which is used to support programs) The University transfers about $25 million a year to the medical school and biological sciences–money it wouldn’t have had in the past. (That’s about a billion dollars over ten year period.)</p>
<p>So, yes, it takes time to improve things. But there is a much stronger effort now to make a change than in the past when nothing was being done.</p>