(Photo: CornellNYC Tech)

Cornell NYC Tech, the Ivy League school's Technion assisted expansion onto Roosevelt Island, just got a huge PR boost from three big names. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Qualcomm Founder Irwin Jacobs, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have all been tapped to be advisors to the new tech campus.

Now they're like the super-important ultra-rich white guy Avengers of Cornell. 

This is, of course, not the first time that the Mayor and Mr. Schmidt have been involved with Cornell NYC Tech. Mayor Bloomberg has participated in pretty much every major announcement about the campus, including personally revealing the appointment of Cornell NYC's first dean at Tumblr HQ.. Although Mr. Schmidt hasn't publicly been associated with the campus, Google has gifted the campus 22,000 square feet of office space for the next five years.

In addition to being the founder of Qualcomm, Mr. Jacobs was an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT from 1959 to 1966 and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California, San Diego from 1966 to 1972. Besides the fact that he's an incredible entrepreneur, it's clear that the guy knows some stuff about tech education.

In a press release sent to Betabeat, the three titans shared their thoughts on officially becoming a part of this new venture. Some shared more thoughts than others. A little terse there, Mr. Schmidt:

“New York City’s growing tech industry is about to be infused with new talent, thanks to the historic investments made by the City and Cornell for the new campus on Roosevelt Island,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Ensuring that the new campus is connected in the right way to the thriving entrepreneurial sector is important to delivering on the promise of economic growth that is at the center of this project. I look forward to advising the university leadership on how we can achieve these goals.”

"Throughout my career as an educator and as founder of two companies based on innovation, I have experienced great satisfaction in developing unique products and growing large markets by exploiting rapid advances in applied science and engineering," said Irwin Jacobs.  "I am excited by this opportunity to work with Mayor Bloomberg and Eric Schmidt in guiding Cornell NYC Tech and the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute through a rapid transition from startup to major player in applied science education and the formation of impactful new companies. Both Cornell, where I received an excellent undergraduate engineering education, and Technion, which has trained many of the engineers working at Qualcomm Israel in Haifa, have the energy and experience to surpass our great expectations."

“I am pleased to join the steering committee for Cornell NYC Tech as they build their presence in New York City,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. “This campus is an important step forward for the development of the city’s tech sector and its continued economic growth.”

The press release gives a hazy description of what the three will actually be doing for the new graduate program. It says that they "will provide advice to tech campus leadership on the educational, research, economic development and community engagement functions of the campus, helping to promote new national and international models connecting academia and industry."

We doubt that any of these three guys will be picking up some chalk to teach a class any time soon, but at least their presence gives promise that this campus will be pretty star-studded.

Over the next six months, he said, Cornell plans to start a search to find "at least one university from Europe and as many as two from Asia" to boost the applied sciences program's prestige abroad.

“It’s a whole new model,” Fuchs said, adding that the campus will make Cornell the first American university to build a school in the United States with international schools. “We think about going elsewhere — there are many [American] universities that have campuses and partnerships overseas — but not about bringing [international universities] here to the U.S.”

The working motto seems to be "a rising tide lifts all boats," something Cornell president David Skorton said at the press conference announcing Cornell-Technion as the winner of the fierce competition to build on city-owned land.

“If we have more partners in this innovation institute, it raises the reputation, the ranking, the visibility, the prestige of Cornell in the home countries of those universities, just as it would raise their own prestige,” Fuchs said. “If we had a university from Asia, they’re going to have visibility — that’s why they’d be eager to do it.”

Although the move may be aimed at ensuring a competitive applicant pool, Mr. Fuchs emphasized it was not designed to help Cornell shoulder than $2 billion price tag for the 30-year project. He did admit, however, that other schools will “certainly bring resources indirectly.” Considering that the city is only chipping in $100 million, every little bit helps.

According to Mr. Fuchs, this cosmopolitan twist has been part of the plan all along, despite the fact that this wasn't discussed during the heated battle between Cornell and Stanford:

“If I remember correctly, in the agreement with the Technion we talk about creating a global innovation institute and inviting other members,” Fuchs said. “When anyone asks us about this, we certainly tell them.”

Ah, we see. It's just that no one bothered to ask the right questions. Makes you wonder, what else should we be asking Cornell . . .

Fred Wilson was pleased; but what did the Twittersphere think? Turns out, most were sad to see Stanford go.
Omid Ashtari, former sales and biz dev at Google, currently biz dev for @foursquare in Europe:

This really sucks: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat betabeat.com/?p=24415

— Omid Ashtari (@thecoolgeek) December 16, 2011

Eric Hippeau, co-founder and former CEO of The Huffington Post:

Huge missed opportunity for NYC RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat betabeat.com/?p=24415 — Eric Hippeau (@erichippeau) December 16, 2011

Andrew Hill, product manager at LinkedIn in San Francisco.

Pulling back is the right move for the University. RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415

— Andrew Hill (@hillens) December 16, 2011

Shai Goldman, Silicon Valley Bank.

Unfortunate, now I'm rooting for the Cornell/Technion proposal “@betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for NY Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415” — Shai Goldman (@shaig) December 16, 2011

Nihal Mehta, angel investor and CEO of LocalResponse:

would LOVE to hear the backstory RT @nitashatiku: BREAKING: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat bit.ly/ttaKFK

— nihal mehta (@nihalmehta) December 16, 2011

Harry Heymann, lead engineer at Foursquare.

@betabeat very disappointing news — harryh (@harryh) December 16, 2011

Momentum, mysterious Twitter account

@Stanford it was going top be such an awesome move. reconsider :)

— Momentum (@mmntum) December 16, 2011

Julia Claire, LiveIntent

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415" — julia claire (@hooliaclaire) December 16, 2011

Over on Hacker News, one user wrote: "Surprising indeed. It seems strange that they would take the proposal this far before withdrawing for financial reasons, or fear of losing. Surely there is a more interesting bone of contention here that didn't become evident until late in the process."

To which another replied: "Maybe the data from the online courses came in during the meantime and Stanford realised that they could grow the university exponentially without opening new campuses?"

(stanforddaily.com)

Stanford has reportedly been the frontrunner in the city's application process for an applied sciences and engineering campus in New York City, for which the city first offered monetary incentives over a year ago.

But according Stanford University, that's no longer the case. "After several weeks of negotiations with New York City, university leaders and the Stanford Board of Trustees have determined that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity," said a press release sent out around 2 p.m. today.

Stanford president John Hennessy, a Long Islander and fan of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, accepted the decision graciously.

"I applaud the mayor's bold vision for this transformative project and wish the city well in turning that vision into a reality," he said in the release. "Stanford was very excited to participate in the competition, and we were honored to be selected as a finalist. We were looking forward to an innovative partnership with the city of New York, and we are sorry that together we could not find a way to realize our mutual goals."

Mr. Hennessy thought the idea of a second campus across the country would be in line with the way modern universities will work. Indeed, he and Mayor Bloomberg seemed to be winking at each other from across cyberspace, the mayor's office issuing press releases touting Stanford's proposal and Mr. Hennessy responding in kind. Stanford even set up a Tumblr for its cause. From the description: "Stanford seeks to launch a new hub of innovation in New York City through the creation of an applied sciences center for teaching and research. Stanford has created this Tumblr to showcase reflections and perspectives on the benefits of Applied Sciences NYC."

Making memes? Seemed like somebody at Stanford really wanted this. But the proposal was not popular with everyone in Palo Alto, most notably the student body. There were also disagreements over the proposed location—Roosevelt Island—and other facets of Stanford's application. It's also possible that Stanford was worried that the city would pick another school, which would be a black eye for the university. Another factor was the amount of money each school was requesting. "Not sure. I wasn't in the negotiations. I think there were a variety of areas where they just didn't see eye to eye," said one source familiar with the process, adding, "It's what it looks like -- they just couldn't come to an agreement on terms and there wasn't much point in continuing to negotiate. There are a lot of issues in these types of deals, both sides were tough negotiators, neither came off their positions, and as a result, there was nowhere left to go."

While it doesn't look great for the city, this could be good news for local contenders: most notably Cornell, which has been lobbying hard for its proposal, a 50-50 partnership with Israel's Technion, and NYU, which wants to build the campus in Brooklyn. "Cornell wins!" tweeted one fan. It seems Cornell may now be the city's favorite. "They were neck and neck on Wednesday night, so they [Cornell] are surprised as well," a source told Betabeat.

Lisa Lapin, a spokeswoman for Stanford University, told the New York Times' City Room blog, "our negotiating team is still in New York; they were still working on it yesterday.” According to the blog's sources, Stanford officials were frustrated by the fact that the city tried to negotiate new terms after the official proposals were submitted in October.

"I'm surprised to be honest but there are a number of strong proposals remaining including the CUSP proposal for downtown Brooklyn which is a better location than Roosevelt Island which is too isolated from industry and startups to be a catalyst for job creation," said Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson. Mr. Wilson has been very vocal about his opinion that the city should choose a New York school over Stanford.

The fact that Stanford pulled its bid could be seen as bad for the process, as it reduces some of the pressure on the other schools. But it could have the opposite effect, as Stanford seemed such a clear frontrunner. Now the playing field looks a lot more competitive.

"This competition is about changing the future of the City’s economy, and we are thrilled that we have a number of proposals that we believe will do exactly that," said Julie Wood, from the Mayor's Office. "We are in serious negotiations with several of the other applicants, each of whom has a game-changing project queued up. We look forward to announcing a winner soon. We thank Stanford for participating in our process and wish them good luck."

We'll be updating this story as we report it out.

The rest of the press release is below:

"Stanford put forward an ambitious and serious proposal and worked hard to see that vision fulfilled," Hennessy said. In the end, Hennessy said, the university could not be certain that it could proceed in a way that ensured the success of the campus. He said that the university decided to withdraw so that the city can move forward with its selection process and meet its tight timelines for the completion of the project.

"I appreciate the tremendous effort put forth at all levels of the university and the city. We are grateful for the enthusiastic support of the tech community both in New York and in Silicon Valley, the efforts of our alumni and the welcome we received throughout New York and from residents of Roosevelt Island in particular," Hennessy said. "We gained through this process a fruitful partnership with our colleagues at the City College of New York, a partnership that will strengthen both of our programs and will continue to benefit New York City students for many years to come.

"We learned much from this process and know there will be exciting opportunities in the future to explore the issues that were at the forefront of this effort—the challenge of expanding our ability to deliver Stanford's high-quality education to more outstanding students," Hennessy said. "Great universities need to continue to take risks, to innovate and to explore new opportunities where we can make contributions to supporting economic growth and expanding knowledge. Stanford will continue to follow this path."