Miami University to build $4M indoor equestrian center

https://dayton247now.com/dayton-business-journal/miami-un...

Yet their howls of butthurt protest echo throughout the state the minute anyone ever accuses them of being a diversity-free, preppy finishing school.

The state should honestly just cut them loose (after they've paid the taxpayers back for all the land and buildings!). Let's see them put all their big talk about going private into action with a 500M endowment and 35M/year fundraising. The place would be a DeVry campus within a decade.

Because, given the challenges facing the state system, I have a problem with one of its campuses building fancy equestrian riding facilities in some quest to pretend that it's some elite private college like Middlebury (when it's not even Denison) while at the same time they just fired 40 staff members due to budget cuts. Or the greater problem of how they've chosen to turn themselves into Chicago's safety school and scrour the Chicago suburbs looking for kids who couldn't get into Illinois or Wisconsin rather than just swallow their massive ego and just admit that they'll never compete with OSU for selectivity.

At the end of the day, they've shown over and over again that they think they're too good to and have no intention of being a part of Ohio's public university system. So let them go and attempt their fantasy, and I'll be happy to watch them fall flat on their precious little faces. Ohio will survive just fine without them.

I'm with you Andrew. I've never understood the hate of Miami. As a rival, years ago, perhaps dislike, but hate. I just don't get it. It's almost like an inferiority complex with some posters on here.

Miami sucks!

It's not so much anger as shaking my head at their misplaced priorities. If you're laying off dozens of staff, a fancy equestrian facility might not be the best use of funds.

And I think Miami has shown quite clearly that, while they were happy to be part of the system when their former President was running it and rigging everything in their favor, once they've had to compete on a level field (and this is primarily vis-a-vis OSU) that they want to take their ball and run away. Let them. That taxpayer money being sent to Oxford could go a long way to shoring up the schools in the system that are all-in and those thousands of Ohio students who would never pay private tuition for Miami would be welcomed at other public Ohio colleges that are facing enrollment challenges.

According to their student paper, entirely by private donations, so I'll concede them that. Money is fungible though, and unless it's some single donor who zeroed in on an equestrian program, those donations are most likely being steered away from other areas of the university. That's still an instance of misplaced priorities not to mention a glaring example of the conceit with which the school views itself.

And as I pointed out above, a far more serious example of that conceit is their turning their back on the state to pursue more and more out of state students in a way that goes far beyond any consideration of regional diversity, the pure hubris of if they can't beat OSU inside Ohio then they'll take their ball and go elsewhere.

I may not like everything about OSU nor agree with everything they do, but I do believe that they are committed to the taxpayers and economic development of the state of Ohio and provide the state with a solid AAU research university. For the life of me, I fail to see any such commitment or benefit to the state from Miami, so I thinks it's fair to question whether continuing to support a university that clearly doesn't see itself as an Ohio public university is in the best interests of the state or its taxpayers and whether those funds could be better redirected elsewhere in the system.

I think both of those serve much broader university constituencies than an equestrian center. One can debate special academic facilities for athletes, but then again, helping those kids get through school and get their degree is a far more legit use of funds than a riding academy.

Honestly, I'm kinds of surprised at the level of defense for Miami over this. At a minimum, it's a reason to poke some fun at them, their institutional pompousness and attempts to view themselves as far more elite than they have any rational reason to do. On a deeper level, it does open up the issue of what kind of school they're trying to be and whether that fits in with the concept of a public university system and whether the taxpayers of Ohio should be subsidizing it.

And that's a good point. If it were Ohio or Kent State, I could absolutely see that. However, everything in Miami's institutional history and character says they don't give a damn about the surrounding area and that "The Miamibrook Riding Academy For Affluent Girls From The Chicago Suburbs Who Never Outgrew Their Pony Phase" is all about branding themselves to affluent kids as some kind of socio-economic elite pseudo-private college.

Agree to disagree, I guess. I respect your opinions and you're free to assume the best intentions on Miami's part. This, however, is the university that played Lucy to our Charlie Brown and yanked that football right out from under us in the 60s. I'll assume the worst intentions on their part, and their history tends to back me up.

I know Miami gets a lot of flack here for being so popular amongst Chicagoites, but isn't appealing to out of state students a wise strategy? Presumably they create more revenue that way, right?

Come on, RP. Surely you played Pong!

Yea,forgot about that.

What evidence are you basing all of this vitriol and hatred on? OCF, no fair helping him out.