UMass Finance Committee Approves SNESL Acquisition

The UMass administration and finance committee voted 12-4, yesterday, to approve the acquisition of Southern New England Law School by UMass – Dartmouth.  The story is here.  As more details surface, the whole project  becomes more curious.  For example, we learn that the $23.2 million dollar gift from SNESL includes a 140,000 volume library collection worth $11 million.  The problem, it seems to me, is that a huge part of a law library's cost comes from ongoing subscriptions (this is a digital age, after all) and salaries.  I doubt that UMass would pay $11 million for library resources if it were to start a new law school; I wonder if it would even pay a third of that amount.  Dean Roger Dennis had further questions here.