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Comment by carbocation

9 days ago

So far the fight/not fight decisions can be predicted in advanced based on whether an institution has a medical center with NIH grants.

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carbocation

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alephnerd  9 days ago

And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a similarly active student activism scene.

Most other private universities could have easily managed the relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up.

Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni relations team actually TRY to maintain a relationship. The other high prestige colleges (excluding USC) ignore you until they need to hit fundraising KPIs.

A Tuck or Dartmouth College grad will always fight for an alum if they make it to the shortlist - most other Ivy grads don't (Wharton kinda, but that's only for Wharton). This really helps build loyalty.

[0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...

  • Balgair  9 days ago

    The way I saw the Columbia protests was that Donny's trial was downtown, and because it was not televised, producers told their crews to stop filming the doors to the courthouse. So, looking for any story at all, they took the subway uptown to the hippies camping out on the quad. Hey, at least it's better than literally staring at a door, right? Next thing you know, the student protest thing blew up. Why? Because there was literally nothing else going on for the TV news crews to film those days. Soon as graduation happened and the trial wrapped up, we never heard another thing.

    Dartmouth, sure, it may have a high energy protest scene and be smart and whatever. But no-one knows about it - not because they are crafty - but because it's in freakin Hanover.

  • CPLX  9 days ago

    Dartmouth is also famously the "conservative" Ivy.

  • insane_dreamer  9 days ago

    Dartmouth's time may still come. Brown is apparently about to be targeted next. Trump is clearly not done yet.

drooby  9 days ago

He states in the interview that Wesleyan has NIH grants. They are preparing to let scientists go if it comes to it.

  • carbocation  9 days ago

    Wesleyan does not have a medical center and according to the NIH’s public reporting, they have under $2 million in NIH grants, compared to $600 million for Columbia. (Edited from $400 million, which is the value cut.)

    Wesleyan has a $250 million operating budget, so the (from what REPORTER indicates) $1.6 million in NIH funding represents 0.6% of their budget. In contrast, the $600 million in NIH funding to Columbia represents about 10% of its $6 billion operating budget.

    So both in terms of absolute numbers and relative numbers, the NIH contributions to Wesleyan are de minimis.