Coming back from a recent swim meet against the Big Red of Cornell, my youthfully ambitious yet insecure mind came to an obvious epiphany: Ivy League schools are not only academically better than Binghamton, but they even look the part.

As our solemn coach bus pulled away from that little university on the ridge and drove over the infamous bridge where many ill-willed engineering students (supposedly) have ended their lives, I thought to myself, ‘What does our school need to boost itself from our miserable third-world state college status?’

It seems to me that we are severely lacking in several things: history, money and a creative and progressive-minded administration.

Let us reluctantly start with history. Harvard was founded in 1636; Columbia, 1754; Princeton, 1746; Cornell, 1865; Binghamton, 1946. Besides having 100 years or so head start on us, the Ivy League institutions were all initially started by funding from different Christian churches, for the palpable purpose of bettering the minds of all. Binghamton, however, was founded after the Second World War and originated as a branch of Syracuse University.

Now leaving our history hurriedly behind and looking at the issue of money ‘ we quite simply do not have a lot of it. Yes, our University does receive funding from our state government, but not much. We rely heavily on the support of donors, most of which are alumni. The Ivy League schools not only have an alumni association that consists of the most wealthy families in America, but their tuition and housing costs support their demands quite comfortably. To acquire history and money, all we have to do is an easy, but slow-moving, activity ‘ wait for time to go by, which will allow us to accumulate a longer alumni list (and thus extra money), besides adding more years to our meager time line.

As for our third problem, a progressive-minded administration, let us take a look at President Lois B. DeFleur. Positive acts: moved us to Division I (though it doesn’t make our sports teams any better), increased endowments, installed a new residence hall and new schools (School of Education, Public Affairs). Negative: still a lowly state school (not to mention giving us a never-heard-of, just plainly weird mascot).

What do I say? Split from the state and become a privately funded university.

Alter the architecture of our buildings. Right now we are at both ends of the spectrum, from really modern (Academic A and B) to really irrationally nauseating and uninspiring where ugliness prevails (the Science Buildings, Bartle Library, Hinman College, College-in-the-Woods, Newing College, Dickinson Community ‘ almost everything). While visiting Princeton, the atmosphere of their sophisticatedly built campus continuously begged me to whip open a copy of ‘Summa Theologica,’ while Binghamton has me wishing I was somewhere more intuitively minded.

Why don’t I transfer? I’ll wait until graduate school. A final note: change Binghamton University to The University of New York to at least provide some dignity to a school that looks just as ugly as it sounds. Oh yeah, and stop giving our crappy basketball teams more money than they deserve ‘ have them study, for once.