Edit: tl;dr: Its not that Big Ten Presidents are opposed to academic slumming itself. They are opposed to the headaches that
being seen to be engaged in academic slumming are likely to bring.
As Nebraska showed, if they can do the academic slumming while avoiding the headaches, they are fine with that.
(06-21-2014 02:34 PM)He1nousOne Wrote: (06-21-2014 09:37 AM)BruceMcF Wrote: (06-20-2014 09:33 PM)He1nousOne Wrote: If the problem of finding homes for everyone in the Big 12 could be solved, I have no doubt that the Presidents of the Big Ten would sign on for Oklahoma.
Seems likely the Presidents of Wisconsin and That School Up North wouldn't, not unless it was part of a package deal to get Texas.
they signed off on Nebraska despite being major proponents of pushing Nebraska out of the AAU.
What relevance does that have to the fact that no stink would be raised about it back in Madison or Ann Arbor? What the general run of the mill academic would know when Nebraska was admitted was that Nebraska was an AAU member.
Its not like those two Presidents actually
mean any of that stuff about academic integrity ~ they are academic politicians, and are every bit as inclined to be self-interested dissemblers as any other kind of politician. Its that they are the Presidents of academic snob
universities, and they would very strongly rather not face the political uproar if they vote in a school that the faculty believe to be slumming because of football success.
As far as Nebraska getting kicked out, it was the insiders who would have known, and they made sure to get Nebraska admitted before the run of the mill academics would catch wind of the fact that Nebraska was about to get kicked out.
Quote: They have already shown they will make exception for major brands and Oklahoma is a major brand. We are not likely to agree on this and I do believe that Nebraska is evidence in my corner, not yours.
Except they haven't shown any such exception. The CIC was always about acting as a pretense of academic respectability ... and even when they sacrificed the reality with Nebraska (as all Universities that aim to compete on a high level in sports sacrifice the reality of academic respectability repeatedly), they clung to the pretense.