Turns out the mysterious Tao Tan is now in Australia. Stranger still, he's been paying attention to the latest news coming out of Morningside Heights. The armchair Columbia historian's thoughts (which matter, we think) on today's front-page shocker:

1) I had drinks and lunch with Peter Awn some years ago. I have a very good friend who's my age and who's in GS, because he's also JTS and the joint program is only GS-JTS and BC-JTS. I asked Awn have they ever thought offering a CC-JTS programme, so my friend could go into something more his age group and still be able to pursue his JTS studies. Awn waffled, saying something like how the GS-JTS program is longstanding and how it would be impossible to satisfy the CC Core requirements whilst still taking JTS studies.

To me, this smelled like BS because 1) GS has the same core requirements as CC, and 2) BC has a similar core load in terms of credits. It is far more likely that the GS-JTS joint programme was conceived because when it was conceived (in the 1950s), CC was a bit, shall we say, anti-Semitic...but, GS is composed of 40% people of "traditional" age (most of whom are JTS enrollees) and 60% older people. I think that the prime beneficiaries in this are the traditional-aged GS-JTS students.

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2) I think if they ever considered a merger, GS admission rates and class sizes would drop precipitously. In the 1960s and 1970s, GS was 3-5x larger than CC, because back then, GS was a cash cow that took open enrollments. After Awn took over in 1995, started offering up competitive merit-based financial aid, and tried to make GS a more selective school, enrollments dropped and admission rates dropped as well (to just below 50%). The key takeaways from this is that IF GS is recast in the mold of a more traditional school, they will have to do something about the merit-based financial aid -- because, as you know, the Ivy League does not grant merit-based aid. If GS goes all-need-based, then it will become unbelievably more competitive to get into.

3) I have $100 Aussie dollars that absolutely nothing of any significance will come of this...a professor once told me that every few years, Columbia announces some sort of revamping operation (this being no different) that comes out with sweeping, grandiose plans to fundamentally change blah blah blah. And when they do come out with their much-ballyhooed report, the alumni revolt makes sure the whole thing is quietly shuffled and buried and nobody thinks much of it until when a few years down the line, the next hare-brained committee is formed.

The most recent task force that professor served on was the one right after the 1996 hunger strike on ethnic studies when a task force was formed to talk about the future of undergraduate education and curricula at Columbia. After that he got tenure and refused to deal with any more faculty committee crap. I think a possible compromise they might dream up is that GS will have to fundraise until it has sufficient monies to run a sustainable need-based-aid regime, and then talk about closer integration -- knowing full well that it is beyond unlikely for GS to fundraise like that. That way, they can throw a concessionary bone to GS , while making sure that -- in the grand tradition of faculty committees past -- nothing. Ever. Happens.