There can be only 1 (vote that counts)

If you were Mayor of one of the largest, most diverse and publically ridiculed yet emulated cities in the world and you were still in the process of cutting the budget while handling an Occupy situation, would you take on the responsibility of also deciding where to build a new Engineering school?

New York City’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg is doing exactly this and although this story has no specific conflict mentioned in it, I suggest there may be protesting in the near future.

As the story in the New York Times states, even though the advisory panel of business people and scientists, the Economic Development Corporation and the City Council will all review the seven submitted proposals, the major has the final choice.

Controversial in that this decision will decide the fate of $100 million, city owned property and the future at least one institution of higher education. 

Thankfully, the president of the Economic Development Corporation, Seth Pinsky, created a scoring system to help the major make the final decision without too much contention, as several NYC schools believe the Mayor has ignored their potential in order to bring in other institutions.

Possibly Bloomberg is using the potential for furthering educational financial revenue as a boost to his popularity. He’s been petitioning and campaigning for this build for quite a while. Most say, though, that Bloomberg’s plan is to out-science Silicon Valley and MIT.

However, in light of all the other contenious events happening in NYC as well as the data-falsifying  and other scandals coming to light in higher education, perhaps Mayor Bloomberg should maintain a distance from the possibly controversial decision.