Friday, January 08, 2010

Someone's going to be annoyed....

I was quite surprised to see this article in Science, talking about the much debated possible merger between Rice and Baylor College of Medicine.  I guess it's a good thing in some sense that my institution is sufficiently high profile that subjects like this make news in international-level publications.  Still, not necessarily the best way for people to learn about Rice.... 

3 comments:

Zach said...

Well, at least that's settled now. I never did see the upside for Rice in this deal.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering, why in your opinion is this not particularly good news for Rice? Baylor College of Medicine I have heard is a very good and highly regarded school.

I hope this does not come off as ignorant, I just don't understand what is so bad.

Douglas Natelson said...

Update: there will be no merger. They announced that today.

Anon., the main reason people at Rice were apprehensive is financial. Baylor has made some very poor financial decisions in the last decade, and their debts outweigh their liquid assets. Worse, they've been running an operating deficit for the last 5-6 years. The fear was that this would place Rice at great financial risk, particularly since Baylor's overall budget is so much larger than Rice's.