Comparison: Portland State :: Boise State

[BroadwayVik]

Gained status as four-year, baccalaureate degree-granting college

Portland State [1955], Boise State [1965]

Granted status as university

Portland State [1969], Boise State [1974]

Present number of doctoral programs

Portland State [23], Boise State [4]

Approximate number of alumni

Portland State [100,000], Boise State [70,000]

Approximate enrollment

Portland State [27,000], Boise State [19,000]

Present urban campus acreage

Portland State [49], Boise State [175] :shock:

Present endowment ($ millions)

Portland State [28.2], Boise State [53.0]

Athletics conference affiliation

Portland State [big sky], Boise State [Mountain West]

Boise State has enjoyed a much more supportive political environment than has Portland State. According to VP Lindsay Desrocher (Berkeley doctorate in political science, UCLA undergrad), metropolitan Portland has a highly discordant political environment--people are uncooperative and self-seeking rather than "being on the same page" and "pursuing goals in harmony." Portland State has also faced horribly negligent state-funding from the very time of its inception. Oregon behaves inhospitably when it comes to higher education, and even within this mileau has given Oregon and Oregon State preference. Each university needs to have greater autonomy in order to demonstrate its value as this state is not really grasping of the value higher education brings to it.

Portland State is working on establishing greater legitimacy and creating an oasis "concordant political environment" of relationships within the metropolitan area and state.

Portland metro is represented by only two Fortune 500 companies. We need many more and they need to be clean. We need to have financial-sustainability as part of our environmental landscape as well.

When I hear people say they are "realists" about PSU, I see them as having resigned themselves and the university over to a state of perpetual mediocrity. Perhaps they are myopic and do not see the greatness potential that this university has once conditions have been put in place so that it will be able to thrive (and thus attract supporters). I say if Boise State can do it, we certainly can too--so long as we can establish concordant agreement and decide to move forward on this basis together.

 

[VikThunder1]

Portland State and Boise State aren't comparable in many ways.

The state of Idaho doesn't have Universities comparable to UO and OSU that PSU co-exists with.

The Portland area is home to many private colleges: U of P, Lewis and Clark, Reed, Warner Pacific, Concordia, George Fox, Linfield, Pacific, etc. What does Boise have? Also, Boise State also provides a lot of 2 year degrees like PCC. PSU does not. There are many 2 year college options in Portland whereas Boise doesn't have those options. Portland has a big Med school. Boise does not and Boise State tries to pick up some of the health majors like nursing.

 

[pdxfan]

When you compare academics at Boise State and PSU it's obvious that although the presidents of the WAC talk a great deal about academic comparabilty they don't much mean it. Hype and a great deal of money is what matters.

 

[BroadwayVik]

"Hype" is a word which connotation suggests stimulating or enlivening by or as by the injection of a drug: as in a hyped-up fanatic. I think a more appropriate word would just be stimulating or enlivening but without the negative connotation. We would all benefit from more favorable campus buzz.

I agree with you that Boise State does not have the political challenges that Portland State has had. They had clear sailing. Boise State was not subjected to having the natural course of its development shackled for FIVE DECADES the way Portland State was. Idaho and Idaho State are certainly not comparable to Oregon and Oregon State. Boise State has risen to enjoy not flagship status but primacy status in the state of Idaho.

But Portland State is a university that has always been scrappy and done more with less. If we use Boise State as an athletics benchmark, it could help us steer our progress. If Portland State raised the bar to compete with Boise State on many dimensions, reserving football competition for when we are better able to give a good game, I believe PSU will have a good basis for competitive growth and development. We could also do comparisons with other peer-type institutions. But when it comes to athletics (really, football---I loved our basketball victory against them at Stott) development, Boise State is a great one to emulate and counter.

This comparison reveals that PSU also needs to multiply the acreage of the campus (in the works) and to double its endowment (in the works contingent on legislature approval).

 

[pdxfan]

Whoa boy! Double the enrollment?! You're asking for a 56,000 enrollment???

We're already playing Boise regularly in volleyball and basketball.

 

[pdxfan]

Wow, I really misread that! Apologies. Endowment doubled, maybe, though it will take some time. We seem not to have the rich backers that Boise has; OSU and UO soak them up.

 

[BroadwayVik]

Things are in the works for significant campus expansion, and the UO has a plan in place (subject to legislative approval) in which the state secures $800 million for them through the sale of bonds (that sum matched by private donations) to be applied to a $1.6 billion endowment for a single university (theirs). The legislature then no longer apportions money to the university, but rather uses the current level amount to service the debt on the mega-bond. The university, then, invests the mega-endowment and provides for its own fiscal needs, becoming self-sustaining in the process.

The mega-bonds are paid off in full after 30 years, and while the state is then effectively free of its fiscal obligation to the state university, it still maintains gubenatorial oversight. That way, the legislature is locked in and knows how much will be spent each year and the university bears the risk of high and low returns on their investments to cover their costs. And there is a boon to the state at the end of 30 years.

Portland State University needs something strikingly similar to this plan. The state would provide $800 million and PSU would do its utmost to raise matching funds. Our last mega-campaign raised $100 million, so I think we could raise $200 million this time around. But would the investment returns on $1.0 billion be sufficient to fund the university? Maybe. PSU is the scrappy university that does more with less. In all likelihood, we will need to follow up by having three more mega-capital campaigns, once at the end of each decade, perhaps in conjunction with the inauguration of a new university president.

In the meantime, are we courting the Ecotopian wealthy? Are we gleaning to find where Oregon and Oregon State are not or have outright neglected (in terms of wealthy donors)? Is there too much reliance by them on Phil Knight (Pat Kilkenny and Larry Lokey) and CH2M Hill, respectively?

Are we looking beyond Portland and Oregon to where the really big sources of money are? Do we realize how wealthy a place the farming community of Heppner, Oregon is? Have we tapped Eastern sources? Have we courted (and included) our wealthy international alums and brought them up to speed on our athletics/academics/sustainability mission? Have we really grasped what Dr. Maseeh has done?