Paywalled, but the first few paragraphs can be read.
Brilliant strategy by Northeastern. Can it be duplicated effectively?
Depends on how good the businessmen are.
But they can afford to take the risk.
I think the risk is more than ROI. There is also reputational risk. Will be interesting.
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“Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, is the sort of highly selective institution that jockeys for the unofficial title of Harvard of the South. Recently, the university’s chancellor had a new idea: What if Vanderbilt was also in San Francisco? Maybe it could become the Harvard of the West too.”
The second part of that makes the rest of the article a joke IMO. The Harvard of the West? A branch of a school? Better than Stanford? oye.
I think this is really a huge hat’s off to Northeastern that Vanderbilt is copying them so obviously..
And I agree with reputational risk being biggest risk here if they are putting undergrads in these spots a la norteastern…(if only grad students less risky).
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I think many schools have satellite campuses/programs. so I doubt there’d be reputational risk. Syracuse has a DC, Texas an LA and NYC, ASU (known to be very inventive) just had to shut down an LA campus.
The Vanderbilt name won’t suffer from a failure here, no different than Middlebury will from their Monterey closure….short of some earth breaking scandal, of course.
Reputational risk can come in different flavors.
1 - Brand Dilution - Note Vanderbilt has a different starting reputation from Northeastern, Syracuse, Texas, and ASU.
2 - Offering a sub-par education (common satellite problem) or one with operational challenges can also hurt reputation.
3 - Money, but not how you think. Why does Vanderbilt feel the need to make a few extra $$ playing around in this game? Makes me wonder if they are as wealthy as they are perceived to be.
Likely, it will all be fine. But I do not think the risk/reward is a slam dunk.
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Might be interesting to put together a list of other colleges that operate various satellite campuses. Georgetown opened one for the school of public policy to be even closer to the centers of power in DC (or maybe they just needed the space!) Johns Hopkins did the same with a satellite in DC. UChicago operates their own little satellite campus in Paris for various programs. And then the schools that went overseas seem to be doing ok, like NYU, Georgetown, and Duke.
There are definitely 100+ of them if we get liberal with what we are categorizing as “this strategy.” But the Northeastern approach is a very different game IMO. International is another game, too.
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Many of those programs are specialty programs that current students at that college attend for a semester or a year. They are not college owned campuses (usually leased space) that students spend four years at to earn their degrees.
And there is also Vanderbilt in New York City.
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Vanderbilt does not consider itself in the same class as Syracuse, though.
Middlebury’s was never a satellite like northeastern’s are. (I am not yet sure what Vanderbilt plans for this, though).
I was simply noting, short of a crisis like happened at Dartmouth on campus (in the psych dept), I don’t see any reputational risk, even if failure. For Vandy ….or Syracuse or ASU. Forget the grouping - if they fail, no reputational harm.
Reputational harm comes in all shapes and sizes. A Dean at a satellite campus mishandles a sexual assault case reporting. Campus suicide– or worse, one suicide which then triggers two copy-cats. Poor handling of a union issue with the kitchen staff or groundskeepers (which is more likely when a satellite campus is in a different state with different labor laws, different notice requirements for a RIF, etc.) ROTC commander at an adjacent college where the satellite kids train gets fired and not replaced, leaving the seniors in limbo and the parents screaming into social media.
It is very hard to absorb another institution’s staff, facilities, footprint, and liabilities without something falling through the cracks.
But here OP is talking about the overall reputation of the college, not specific instances and potential issues related to an individual suffering from a closure.
Heck, Dartmouth profs were forcing sex - and the school, while paying a settlement and maybe having initial egg, is unscathed reputationally.
If Vandy’s campus closes, in regards to Vandy’s overall reputation, it would be minimal if any.
That’s my hypothesis.
That is, in theory, (I don’t remember exact details thugh do remember the case and it was a very bad look) was a personnel problem… I am going to go out on a limb and assume it wasn’t a business strategy they developed… And unfortunately, that sort of thing happens at almost every large institution, from most churches to the military to almost every single university, to scouts, to a degree (maybe not always as badly). MSU and the abuser of gymnasts - all the Epstein stuff now. LOTS of sexual abuse and related in big orgs. I won’t even get into the obvious presidential one.
I don’t think Vanderbilt will collapse if they start sending lots of freshmen to SF and it doesn’t work, but I think it won’t be a good look for management/administration. ESPECIALLY since apparently northeastern could make it work.
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The question isn’t of them and their job status but on Vandy reputationally…
No one is not going to apply to Vandy if their experiment doesn’t work unless they were targeting that campus. Nor will any rank fall etc. Nor will employers not want Vandy grads because of it.
but might this dilute their brand by taking lower tier students and placing them in other locations. unlike northeastern, this is a small/medium sized school where the low percentage of admits contribute to its prestige.
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We can look back in 5, 10 years and see the results.
NU seems to be letting in a lot and not counting in the stats. Vandy may be the same.
We can speculate but we’ll know the truth in a decade.
Vanderbilt’s statement is here: Vanderbilt University to establish full-time academic campus in San Francisco | Vanderbilt University
Not too detailed, although it will include arts.
I tend to agree. When colleges do a half-hearted effort at campus expansion and keep it to a small population, or close the campuses immediately - it is more of a tree falling in the woods. Comparing it to Northeastern, pretty much the opposite of that, is why I see the risk. Maybe it is just overzealous PR.