(12-09-2017 01:34 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(12-08-2017 12:37 PM)ProfScott Wrote:  

(12-08-2017 02:34 AM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(12-07-2017 09:13 PM)RunnerBall Wrote:  

I follow UH athletics very closely but don't have any insider-type connections that would give me insights into UH's voting tendencies or influence on other Big West conference members.

Nonetheless I'm pretty confident UH would oppose adding GCU or NMSU to the conference. In GCU's case the issue would be institutional incompatibility stemming from GCU's for-profit status and poor academic credentials. In NMSU's case the issue would be travel; Honolulu to Las Cruces is a tough road trip.

I think UH would be fine with the Big West expanding to 12 with any academically respected university in Washington, Oregon or California with direct air service to and from Honolulu. Seattle would be acceptable, as would Portland State or Sac State if football were not an obstacle.

Numerous times people have mentioned GCU's poor academic credentials on this site. Would someone please provide documentation for this? As I understand it, the average incoming GPA for students at GCU is around 3.4 with a very high graduating rate. In terms of online, I admit this is lower. However, all universities that start increasing their online presence tend to have a lower GPA and graduation rate for their non-traditional online students. It is the nature of the beast that these career students come and go. If we only compare apples to apples (traditional campus based students) how are GCU's academic credentials any different? Documentation please. Thanks.
Also please do not provide data that is 5+ years old. GCU is not the same university it was even 5 years ago. There are now 19,000+ students attending on campus. 5 years ago (2012) it was only about 4,000. In five years we have added state of the art STEM programs, improved the number and quality of full-time faculty, and raised the incoming GPA every single year. All while increasing enrollment tremendously.

In fairness, GCU is fully accredited and is a doctorate-granting university. The comment that GCU has poor academic credentials is based on its low ranking among institutions classified as National Universities by U.S. News & World Report and on its lack of reported research spending.

Seven current and future Big West members and GCU are among the 300 institutions included in the National University rankings for 2018. The notable difference is that all seven of the Big West schools are Tier 1, that is, they are among the top 230 and have been been given specific individual rankings as follows:

37 UC Santa Barbara
42 UC Irvine
42 UC San Diego
46 UC Davis
124 UC Riverside
159 UH Manoa
202 CSU Fullerton

GCU by comparison is Tier 2, which means it is among the bottom 70 universities for which individual rankings are not disclosed.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ran...iversities
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/gra...rsity-1074

With respect to research spending, an important metric for determining the academic prestige of doctoral universities, all 11 of the Big West's current and future members are in the upper half of the 899 U.S. colleges and universities identified by the National Science Foundation as having spent at least $150,000 on research in 2016. Six of the 11 spent over $100 million and are ranked as follows:

7 UC San Diego
27 UC Davis
67 UC Irvine
77 UH Manoa
98 UC Santa Barbara
127 UC Riverside

The remaining five spent between $5 million and $100 million and are ranked as follows:

280 Cal Poly
289 CSU Long Beach
290 CSU Northridge
322 CSU Bakersfield
384 CSU Fullerton

GCU on the other hand is nowhere to be found on the list.

https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?...ce&ds=herd

GCU does tout on its website that the Carnegie Foundation has classified it as a "Doctoral - Moderate Research Activity" university. However a close reading of the Carnegie Foundation's criteria for assigning classifications reveals that this label is applied to any university that grants at least 20 doctorates per year but for which research spending is comparatively low or indeterminable.

http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/me.../basic.php

Thanks! Your information here is helpful since it defines what the UC schools determine as academically sound institutions, namely the US News and World Report. I 100% agree that GCU is not yet one of those institutions since we are in the infant stages of our doctoral programs and in doing major research. We are also predominantly a teaching institution and not a research institution. However, I would also 100% disagree that the measurements used by US News and World Report are what defines a quality education, especially at the undergraduate level.