Thks

Bottomline both schools seem to cannot keep up to their peers. Except in some areas of athletics.

In the acc, the aau brand is basically a good house keeping seal of approval. It represents what most UNiveristy presidents want. Especially in the acc, the presidents rule and the commissioner is very very tight with them. Therefore, he's got some real good guidance from them.

The acc presidents want to be associated with schools that only enhance their schools brand .. And most of these folks are not sports centic. They are generally pleased with the conference...

(03-19-2013 04:42 PM)texasorange Wrote:  

(03-19-2013 02:01 PM)Fburghokie Wrote:  Lets clarify Nebraska was aau when they accept the big ten, after they were signed and sealed they left due to the schools desire to not maintain aau level of either broad research, faculty excellence or student standards / diversity.

Big 10 does not have a rule to kick out a member if they leave aau but bet they are not pariticipatimg In the big 10 research consortium . Includes all members including ex member UNiveristy of Chicago.

(03-19-2013 08:46 AM)TIGER-PAUL Wrote:  Acc was already looking at them.
Nebraska wasn't aau.

Actually it was the AAU that changed requirements. Nebraska & Syracuse were doing research in areas other than engineering & medical sciences.

B1G wanted ND which is not AAU member.
So, what it has to do with UConn be the target for B1G?
I have no clue how people come up with stupid idea.

(03-20-2013 06:54 AM)BayareaCards Wrote:  B1G wanted ND which is not AAU member.
So, what it has to do with UConn be the target for B1G?
I have no clue how people come up with stupid idea.

I wouldn't call this idea stupid. It does have some merit. Nebraska was technically part of the AAU - they just got booted out later. Of course, the B1G schools knew this was going to happen. However, it is big enough of a deal that the B1G HAD to pay it some lip service at a minimum. And a few of the member schools did take the AAU membership criterion seriously.

ND gets a pass because 1) their academics are still quite good and 2) they're ND. UCONN would NOT get a free pass on not having AAU because...they're UCONN...

Plus, with UConn, we're not talking about the B1G, we're talking about the ACC. The ACC is thought of as having higher academic standards, but AAU membership has never been part of the formula. These ACC members & invitees are not AAU schools:

BC
Clemson
FSU
Louisville
Miami
NCState
ND
Syracuse
VPI
Wake

Some of those schools are pretty elite when it comes to academics. Their AAU status is therefore due either to their own choice or the lack of research in areas the AAU requires.

The B1G, on the other hand, seemed to speak with one voice until Nebraska got kicked out (but, once again, they were still members at the time they accepted). ND is the clear exception because there is no conference in America that wouldn't want their football program, and no one has ever criticized their academics. Isn't it the case that ND was once an AAU member and resigned in order to keep its religious independence in areas of research?

(03-20-2013 06:54 AM)Fburghokie Wrote:  Thks

Bottomline both schools seem to cannot keep up to their peers. Except in some areas of athletics.

In the acc, the aau brand is basically a good house keeping seal of approval. It represents what most UNiveristy presidents want. Especially in the acc, the presidents rule and the commissioner is very very tight with them. Therefore, he's got some real good guidance from them.

The acc presidents want to be associated with schools that only enhance their schools brand .. And most of these folks are not sports centic. They are generally pleased with the conference...

(03-19-2013 04:42 PM)texasorange Wrote:  

(03-19-2013 02:01 PM)Fburghokie Wrote:  Lets clarify Nebraska was aau when they accept the big ten, after they were signed and sealed they left due to the schools desire to not maintain aau level of either broad research, faculty excellence or student standards / diversity.

Big 10 does not have a rule to kick out a member if they leave aau but bet they are not pariticipatimg In the big 10 research consortium . Includes all members including ex member UNiveristy of Chicago.

(03-19-2013 08:46 AM)TIGER-PAUL Wrote:  Acc was already looking at them.
Nebraska wasn't aau.

Actually it was the AAU that changed requirements. Nebraska & Syracuse were doing research in areas other than engineering & medical sciences.

Wrong. You have serious and fundamental misunderstandings as to what the AAU is and as to what happened in the case of Nebraska and Syracuse.

The State University of New York, Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESY) and SUNY Upstate (SUNY's med school) are both on the SU campus, but technically not part of SU. However, SUNY students can take classes at SU and SU students can take SUNY classes as well. It doesn't make sense fo SU to invest a ton of money in hard sciences. That money is already being invested, so further investment would only have a minimal gain. However, it makes a TON of sense fo SU to invest in soft sciences because those are not dubplicated on the SU campus. That's why SU's school of architecture is ranked #2, SU's communications school is ranked #3, and SU's government/economics school is ranked #1, and SU's business school is ranked in the top 50, but has a number of programs in the top 10. By changing the metric to focus on hard sciences, the AAU put Syracuse in a position where SU would have to needlessly invest heavily in parallel programs or eventually drop membership. Given that the AAU is just a certification and has nothing to do with academics (at all), or even improving research quality, it wasn't worth the investment. To put things in perspective, SUNY at Buffalo is in the AAU and Notre Dame isn't. Notre Dame is a top 20 school and Buffalo isn't even top 100. That's how much AAU status affects academics.

The fact of the matter is that Syracuse academics are better than the average school in almost all D-I conferences, SU academics would be the best in a number (if not a majority) of D-I conferences, and SU academics are on par with the average in ALL D-I conferences.

Nebraska's problem, from what I understand, is that their med school was on a different campus, so the AAU wouldn't let them count their med research as part of their research total. If they were to consolidate their campuses then they would be in the AAU right now. In short, AAU has very little to do with function. It has MUCH more to do with form.

Your statement that SU and Nebraska couldn't keep up is at best misleading, and your statement that the ACC places an especially high premium on AAU status is at best misleading. SU, BC, and ND aren't AAU, and I would be suprised if Louisville, Miami, VT, or FSU are either which means at least 3/7 of the most recent ACC adds aren't AAU, if not 6/7. That's how much the ACC cares about AAU status.

EDIT:
1. Don't get me wrong, I would rather be in the AAU than not be in the AAU, but Syracuse's academic ranking has actually improved since leaving the AAU. No, the ranking didn't improve because SU left the AAU. None the less, the fact that SU improved despite leaving the AAU shows that AAU membership doesn't affect academic rankings very much, if at all. Given the choice of going to a school that will give me a great education, or going to a school that does a lot of research, I'll take the school that gives me a superior education 10/10 times, and I think the vast majority of people would agree that my decision would be rational.

2. AAU status has nothing to do with faculty excellence, student excellence, or diversity (PSU is something like 84% white). AAU status reflects research spending in certain areas, and in my experience research professors tend to be very bad teachers, so there might actually be an inverse relationship between faculty excellence and AAU status, but that is very much open for debate and neither here nor there.

UCONN's biggest problem is that neither BC nor SU wants them in the ACC, because elevating UCONN football would hurt BC and SU, and the B1G doesn't want them because their football stadium is 20-30 miles from campus, they have [u]no history[/b], and they are from a small talent-poor state.

Even their basketball program is questionable. Ollie looks like he can hold it together, but it's easier to do that for one year than a career.

(03-20-2013 11:19 AM)Cardinals Wrote:  Plus, with UConn, we're not talking about the B1G, we're talking about the ACC. The ACC is thought of as having higher academic standards, but AAU membership has never been part of the formula. These ACC members & invitees are not AAU schools:

BC
Clemson
FSU
GTA
Louisville
Miami
NCState
ND
Syracuse
VPI
Wake

Some of those schools are pretty elite when it comes to academics. Their AAU status is therefore due either to their own choice or the lack of research in areas the AAU requires.

The B1G, on the other hand, seemed to speak with one voice until Nebraska got kicked out (but, once again, they were still members at the time they accepted). ND is the clear exception because there is no conference in America that wouldn't want their football program, and no one has ever criticized their academics. Isn't it the case that ND was once an AAU member and resigned in order to keep its religious independence in areas of research?

ACC school that are members:
Duke
UNC
Pitt
GT
UVA
(Maryland)
(Syracuse)

Sorry for my mistake in that list - I just pasted a list of all schools and removed the ones who were members, and I didn't remove all the names. I really shouldn't be posting on the internet most days.

(03-20-2013 06:50 AM)TerryD Wrote:  The massive budget cuts to by Governor Bobby Jindal to LSU in the last four years are now threatening to drop LSU from Tier One to Tier Two status.

State support doesn't typically matter that much. No public gets less state funding than Pitt and Penn State. Privates get virtually no support. What does matter is the type of R&D funding, and that could impact LSU.

LSU isn't likely to get in any time soon either, regardless of cuts. By its 2010 numbers it gets almost 20% of its R&D expenditures from the state of Louisiana. That doesn't fit the AAU profile. Most AAU schools get much less than 10% of their total R&D expenditures from their states. The list of schools that I provided before wasn't in any particular order.

Same goes for Virginia Tech and NCSU, both over 20% from their states. UConn is in better shape in that regard but still well behind other schools in total research...for instance $150 million behind Utah in R&D and over $120 million behind them in federally allocated R&D. BU, which is the most recent AAU admit, has over 2X the federal R&D as UConn.

AAU change is slow. If you look at research numbers UAB is probably next in line, followed by Cincy and Utah among publics. Miami and Yeshiva among privates. Brandeis in in danger, perhaps Rice and Oregon, but probably just Brandeis. AAU is sitting at 60 US schools and two Canadian. It probably isn't going to ever add more than two to that total, if that. I highly doubt it ever goes over 65 total. It may never go beyond its current 62.

(03-20-2013 04:14 PM)KnightChris Wrote:  So is UConn now an AAU school??? If not, can we edit the thread title?

I vote for "UCONN wishes that they were an AAU school, but the ACC doesn't care"

UConn's potentiall AAU membership is sort of like a potential job applicant graduating from colelge. If they are applying for a job that requires you to be a college graduate, graduating college does not automatically get them the job: it just means they now meet the minimum criteria to get the job. That would be similar to UConn and the Big Ten. Getting into the AAU, if they did, doesn;t automatically get them in: otherwise Kansas and Missouri would have been in. It just means they are an eligible candidate when it comes to look at expansion again.

The ACC values academics but I don't think AAU status matters at all. If the ACC were expanding and there was a tie between 2 schools, I don't think AAU status would be the tie breaker.

(03-20-2013 05:04 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  UConn's potentiall AAU membership is sort of like a potential job applicant graduating from colelge. If they are applying for a job that requires you to be a college graduate, graduating college does not automatically get them the job: it just means they now meet the minimum criteria to get the job. That would be similar to UConn and the Big Ten. Getting into the AAU, if they did, doesn;t automatically get them in: otherwise Kansas and Missouri would have been in. It just means they are an eligible candidate when it comes to look at expansion again.

Also a state flagship. Also gets BTN into New England. Also allows B1G to flank NYC on 2 sides.

Those are strong reasons to think the Big Ten would want UConn, IMO.

That is my though as well, Hokie Mark.

(03-20-2013 06:14 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  The ACC values academics but I don't think AAU status matters at all. If the ACC were expanding and there was a tie between 2 schools, I don't think AAU status would be the tie breaker.

The ACC had the chance to take UConn over UL and didn't. UConn was clearly the stronger academic school (nothing personal Cards fans), a fact of which the ACC was well aware. AAU status would not have made any additional difference.

WRONG - AAU Status DOES matter to certain ACC schools:

I think we expanded with the 4 best athletic programs out there, who's talking academics?!?! This is including a pool of WVU, Rutgers, and Maryland!

(03-20-2013 09:31 PM)esayem Wrote:  I think we expanded with the 4 best athletic programs out there, who's talking academics?!?! This is including a pool of WVU, Rutgers, and Maryland!

Let's see... we get Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Louisville.
That's hard to argue.

Also, let's not forget that the AAU is a sorority of schools, and has a great deal in common with other sororities & fraternities.

Nobody's saying that there are any of those schools who are undeserving of their excellent reputations, but the AAU organization itself is a self-perpetuating group. There are many criteria that make for excellence, and some of these criteria are not reflected in AAU standards.

Did Syracuse & Nebraska lose their membership because their standards are lower now than they were when they were AAU members? No, but their getting voted out (or however that actually happens) came as a result of specific emphases that Syracuse & Nebraska didn't share with the rest of the membership.

So the AAU isn't the be-all and end-all of academic academic excellence. It's just a well-known organization.

(03-20-2013 10:21 PM)Cardinals Wrote:  So the AAU isn't the be-all and end-all of academic academic excellence. It's just a well-known organization.

And no one ever heard of it before the Big Ten started to expand and it became a buzz word in expansion. Same for the CIC, no one knew or cared about it until the Big Ten lunks started tossing that around during expansion frenzies. The vast majority have no freakin' clue what it is or does either and they look like total morons trying to talk about it. Just go to the realignment board and look at any thread that discusses it. It's like dweebs at a Star Trek convention trying to sound intelligent in a conversation about sports.

And no, definitively, UConn is in no imminent danger of being invited to the AAU.