CSNbbs

My brothers, my sisters,

I will try to keep this brief and on one point. I have received instant messages asking permission to quote or link other posts I have made; for Gene’s sake, take anything you need to further our cause. I’m surely not writing these for my amusement.

I’d like to look at the U.S. News and World Report ranking of U.S. medical schools. There are other rankings, but with minor exceptions they’re going to be similar to these (2014 Research). Here’s the link:

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandre...int=98fd08

Of the 42 medical schools ranked higher than UAB, 20 of them are attached to schools that play football in Power-Five (the old BCS) leagues. Seven of them are part of the Ivy League. One (Chicago) is a former football power and still a member of the Big Ten’s academic consortium, and another (Johns Hopkins) belongs to the Big Ten for lacrosse and the academic consortium.

None of the other 23 schools are attached to institutions in Group of Five (the old Non-BCS) football conferences; you have to dip down to #54 (Temple) for one of those. A few play lower-division football.

What does this prove? Well, it’s a pretty shallow analysis but I think the numbers are so overwhelming that a shallow analysis is plenty:

Big-time college football does not impede the excellence of medical schools. If anything, big-time college football correlates WITH medical school excellence.

Let me repeat that: big-time college football and medical school excellence GO TOGETHER.

How is it that these schools manage to have both a good medical school and a good football program?

That’s no mystery: medical schools do not turn a profit. The UABSOM is not a “cash cow” for the University of Alabama System (those who claim such are confusing it with the UAB hospital system). They instead require hefty subsidies, and a vibrant undergraduate program can generate those subsidies. That’s how many of the universities listed have accomplished this feat.

But how do they establish and maintain a vibrant undergraduate program? By providing an attractive experience, in terms of both facilities and campus life. And that obviously includes college football. Big-time college football.

To further the excellence of the medical school, cutting football is, as they say, contra-indicated. If the goal is to build an excellent medical school, UAB Football needs greater investment, not less.

The numbers do not lie. Disbanding football and degrading undergraduate education are steps highly unlikely to result in medical school excellence. The UABSOM with whither if this path is taken. That’s not my opinion, that’s what the numbers indicate.

The numbers do not lie. Excellence in football correlates to excellence in medicine.

Bravo! Could it not be posited that UAB's decline in med school ranking correlates with its relative decline in athletic profile, vs former conference mates Louisville, TCU, UCF, etc?

(11-24-2014 09:24 PM)FNblazer Wrote: [ -> ]Bravo! Could it not be posited that UAB's decline in med school ranking correlates with its relative decline in athletic profile, vs former conference mates Louisville, TCU, UCF, etc?

Absolutely. Look at the rise of Louisville (from whence Carol Garrison came to UAB) and UCF. Both were mediocre universities barely deserving of the name. Louisville had a national reputation for its academic crapulence, and now they're in the ACC. UCF was little more than a bloated four-year juco and now they're climbing the research rankings and will likely overtake UAB in the next couple of years.

Why?

Because of something Carol Garrison, for all her arrogance, intuitively understood: a university rises and falls as a whole. Most of those universities with power football + power medicine are also AAU members. They are the whole package. Garrison knew this and tried to build the whole package.

All the BOT-bashing over sports and favoritism overshadows their truly disastrous record of stewardship of the entire system. They're not building one great university at the expense of two others: they've built a bloated, pretty much unplanned Ego Monument at UAT that can only survive financially by recruiting massively out of state. I sort of doubt the framers of the Alabama Constitution, racist scum that they were, intended to fund the University of Texas at Tuscaloosa. But that's what we have.

Football, medicine, undergraduate studies. They go together in a university. Let's look at the Webster's definition of that word:

An institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees; specifically: one made up of an undergraduate division which confers bachelor's degrees and a graduate division which comprises a graduate school and professional schools each of which may confer master's degrees and doctorates.

Louisville and UCF rose as comprehensive universities. Garrison got it.

(11-25-2014 07:58 AM)58-56 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-24-2014 09:24 PM)FNblazer Wrote: [ -> ]Bravo! Could it not be posited that UAB's decline in med school ranking correlates with its relative decline in athletic profile, vs former conference mates Louisville, TCU, UCF, etc?

Absolutely. Look at the rise of Louisville (from whence Carol Garrison came to UAB) and UCF. Both were mediocre universities barely deserving of the name. Louisville had a national reputation for its academic crapulence, and now they're in the ACC. UCF was little more than a bloated four-year juco and now they're climbing the research rankings and will likely overtake UAB in the next couple of years.

Why?

Because of something Carol Garrison, for all her arrogance, intuitively understood: a university rises and falls as a whole. Most of those universities with power football + power medicine are also AAU members. They are the whole package. Garrison knew this and tried to build the whole package.

All the BOT-bashing over sports and favoritism overshadows their truly disastrous record of stewardship of the entire system. They're not building one great university at the expense of two others: they've built a bloated, pretty much unplanned Ego Monument at UAT that can only survive financially by recruiting massively out of state. I sort of doubt the framers of the Alabama Constitution, racist scum that they were, intended to fund the University of Texas at Tuscaloosa. But that's what we have.

Football, medicine, undergraduate studies. They go together in a university. Let's look at the Webster's definition of that word:

An institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees; specifically: one made up of an undergraduate division which confers bachelor's degrees and a graduate division which comprises a graduate school and professional schools each of which may confer master's degrees and doctorates.

Louisville and UCF rose as comprehensive universities. Garrison got it.

THIS! A great post that should be emailed to everyone!

And a follow up question for anyone : What is the most prestigious university in the USA that does NOT have a football team ?

I'll hang up and listen.

Trustee Paul W. Bryant Jr. agrees:

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11...rtune.html

Bryant joined the Alabama board of trustees in 2000. Dorms were shabby, and buildings were run-down, Bryant recalls. The once-triumphant football team won three and lost eight that year. Bryant and Moore got to work. The key to reviving the university was football, Bryant says. The public — and wealthy donors — would get behind a program that included making the Crimson Tide a winner again. “It’s hard to explain if you’re not from here, but if football isn’t doing well, the whole state is in a funk,” Bryant says.

Wow. That quote should be widely circulated and probably used as an email signature too.

(11-26-2014 12:27 AM)BirminghamBound Wrote: [ -> ]Wow. That quote should be widely circulated and probably used as an email signature too.

+1 Somebody tweet to Brando & Scarbinsky.

Yeah, I was looking over this the other day. It's really ironic how PBJ was the main person behind a fundraising campaign for Alabama's athletic programs, but won't allow UAB to build anything due to fiscal responsibility. UA can go into 220 million dollars of athletic debt as of 2011, but we are not allowed to invest in small facility upgrades in regards to the single best money sport in college athletics. They want us to break even every year, but they don't want us to invest in the one thing that would allow us to break even in college athletics.

(11-25-2014 09:56 AM)BlazerPhil Wrote: [ -> ]And a follow up question for anyone : What is the most prestigious university in the USA that does NOT have a football team ?

I'll hang up and listen.

Looking for prestigious universities that have NO football or Division II and III?

(11-26-2014 01:10 AM)Blazeramo Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-25-2014 09:56 AM)BlazerPhil Wrote: [ -> ]And a follow up question for anyone : What is the most prestigious university in the USA that does NOT have a football team ?

I'll hang up and listen.

Looking for prestigious universities that have NO football or Division II and III?

Swarthmore college * shut down but has had one in years past
Caltech * shut down but has had one in years past
Wellesley college * it's a women's college

Yes I used google. No I hadn't really heard of those schools but they appeared in a top 50 list of U.S. prestigious schools.

US News College Edition has numerous national universities in their top 100 that do not have Division I football--Cal Tech, MIT, Emory, and Johns Hopkins, being four of the highest ranked; however, I think they all have D III ball.