<p>MTTFrog13, Frankly, you hit the nail on the head better than I did. Yes, if Syracuse had a HUGE endowment they could accomplish their laudable goals. However, they don’t, and as a result, academic quality had to suffer. I saw this 5 years ago and am astounded that Syracuse still doesn’t get it since they renewed Ms. Cantor’s contract.</p>
<p>I actually suggested all this to an admission rep several years ago. Her response at the time was, "You may be right ( about the potential decline in rankings and academic quality),but there is nothing we can do about it since their current policies are strongly supported by the administration. "</p>
<p>I do not believe that Syracuse’s downward spiral is a result of not having a medical school or being in a bad location. Everything is relative. For example, their location also provides very low cost of living for faculty. </p>
<p>One big problem with Syracuse that someone noted above is that they are not a nationally known school for research nor are they a liberal arts college that emphasizes quality teaching. In fact, there were a number of complaints about professors who don’t speak english well or who can’t teach. Syracuse really needs an identity and a specific “selling proposition” as to why people should go there.</p>
<p>If they don’t want to become or can’t become a nationally known research university, they should focus on teaching quality, which is akin to a liberal arts college. There is no reason to have faculty that can’t speak english well or whose rankings by students is abysmal.</p>
<p>I still think that with the right financial policies, a strong push for a lot bigger endowment,which should be used for endowing chairs and attracting more merit based kids and NOT for need based scholarships, improving facilities, greater attraction of well known faculty who can also teach or do research well, and with some good marketing, Syracuse could not only stop the ranking decline but actually substantially increase their rankings. It just takes a visionary chancellor who has more “horse sense” than Ms. Cantor. The board of directors need to understand this.</p>