HoustonCajun, I considered including a "research" list with ULL at #1. Instead, I lumped that into "academics." Broken down that way, it's close, but I give Tech the edge based on USNWR and based on their CUSA membership. (That's an athletic designation, but I also think CUSA looks pretty hard at academics).

Overall, we agree that you're getting a raw deal overall, particularly with respect to the name issue. Nobody else wants to be U of L...,they just want to bogart the name and I can't countenance that.

(12-01-2012 11:20 AM)BuzDawg73 Wrote:  

(12-01-2012 10:19 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 10:29 PM)BuzDawg73 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 07:51 PM)HoustonCajun Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 07:41 PM)BuzDawg73 Wrote:  You need to leave the "University or "University of" out of your use of Louisiana. So, no UL, anywhere.

Why not just let it go? It has no impact on La Tech.

This is one of my main gripes about your name issue. It all comes across so innocent doesn't it. Meanwhile it has been made perfectly clear by your fanbase what your main motivations are with this crusade. The benign aspect is you have an inferiority complex and you think this makes you look better than an "at whatever" university. But, the other side of the coin is more insidious. You lie about just using Louisiana for athletics, yet it took no time at all for you to use it for everything in the University. You are flying that name for academics, and are bragging about being "THE" University of Louisiana, and by default the flagship of the UL system. You hope to parlay the name into better state funding and advantages for research dollars, etc. The use of the name is absolutely illegal and everyone in the state knows this. You also know there is not a flagship for the UL system, and if there were it would be Tech. (Just to remind you the president of the UL system said publicly we are the leader of the system.)
So, don't try to say this has no impact on Tech or the other schools in the UL system. We have no intention of allowing this charade to flourish and will never refer to you as UL until it becomes your legal name. We are pretty certain the legal issues will resolve themselves, as our legislators are being made aware of what you are doing. You would be better off embracing who you are, because this issue derails every single discussion about your accomplishments.

"

As far as using "U of LA" outside of the sports world, I've seen little of that, and when it happens it's probably innocent. The people making funding decisions are well aware of the existence of every university in the state, and of their strengths and weaknesses.

Andre, do I have to go dig up some of your previous posts where you completely prove my assertion? Also, call up a ULL academic dept. and see how they answer the phone. ULL has to put the Lafayette on their correspondence, and they do. The use of Louisiana for sports is such an obvious attempt to have people think you are the University of Louisiana. In other words let's trick people into calling us what we want. You are not Texas, Nevada or any of the other schools you like to name who leave the city off their name. Difference is they are flagship schools. The rest of the schools use their city designation. LSU is the flagship school of Louisiana. ULL is not.
And, once again a thread about why ULL should get into CUSA is derailed by the name issue. This is not serving you well.

No, you create a continuation of the name issue by calling us other an what we request. You don't call Fresno State - Cal State Fresno, you don't call Nevada - Nevada Reno, Charlotte - UNC Charlotte. They don't use their official, legal names, but you perpetuate this issue regarding Louisiana. And, why does LA Tech call itself the "Flagship of North Louisiana"? We do not claim to be the Flagship of the UL System and only a handful of exuberant fans call us The University of Louisiana. You will never see the university do that. Tech has always proclaimed its superiority over all other schools in the state and you have always tried to maintain separation. Your insecurity of Louisiana achieving success is obvious and hopefully readers on this board can see through that.

(12-01-2012 11:38 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(12-01-2012 11:20 AM)BuzDawg73 Wrote:  

(12-01-2012 10:19 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 10:29 PM)BuzDawg73 Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 07:51 PM)HoustonCajun Wrote:  Why not just let it go? It has no impact on La Tech.

This is one of my main gripes about your name issue. It all comes across so innocent doesn't it. Meanwhile it has been made perfectly clear by your fanbase what your main motivations are with this crusade. The benign aspect is you have an inferiority complex and you think this makes you look better than an "at whatever" university. But, the other side of the coin is more insidious. You lie about just using Louisiana for athletics, yet it took no time at all for you to use it for everything in the University. You are flying that name for academics, and are bragging about being "THE" University of Louisiana, and by default the flagship of the UL system. You hope to parlay the name into better state funding and advantages for research dollars, etc. The use of the name is absolutely illegal and everyone in the state knows this. You also know there is not a flagship for the UL system, and if there were it would be Tech. (Just to remind you the president of the UL system said publicly we are the leader of the system.)
So, don't try to say this has no impact on Tech or the other schools in the UL system. We have no intention of allowing this charade to flourish and will never refer to you as UL until it becomes your legal name. We are pretty certain the legal issues will resolve themselves, as our legislators are being made aware of what you are doing. You would be better off embracing who you are, because this issue derails every single discussion about your accomplishments.

"

As far as using "U of LA" outside of the sports world, I've seen little of that, and when it happens it's probably innocent. The people making funding decisions are well aware of the existence of every university in the state, and of their strengths and weaknesses.

Andre, do I have to go dig up some of your previous posts where you completely prove 2 assertion? Also, call up a ULL academic dept. and see how they answer the phone. ULL has to put the Lafayette on their correspondence, and they do. The use of Louisiana for sports is such an obvious attempt to have people think you are the University of Louisiana. In other words let's trick people into calling us what we want. You are not Texas, Nevada or any of the other schools you like to name who leave the city off their name. Difference is they are flagship schools. The rest of the schools use their city designation. LSU is the flagship school of Louisiana. ULL is not.
And, once again a thread about why ULL should get into CUSA is derailed by the name issue. This is not serving you well.

I'm really not much of a ULL fan. The only ULL game I've ever been to was the one where Coach Bower let his backup QB score 4 rushing TDs.

I'm just telling you my perspective as a (mostly) objective observer. I think the name issue is ridiculous. I don't see why ULL is fundamentally different from Texas, Nevada, or any number of other schools. Even more absurd is the notion that Tulane (an institution to which I personally am far more connected than I am to ULL) should get to keep the "U of LA" designation in its back pocket... in case it decides not to be Tulane any more? That really embarrasses me; ULL is a poor school just trying to help a poor area. Tulane must be completely morally bankrupt to engage in that sort of thing.

The whole thing is pretty surreal to me. I think y'all need to go skip some stones across a duck-filled pond and think about what's really important in life

UL is not a poor school trying to help a poor area. Lafayette/Acadiana is the wealthiest and fastest growing area of Louisiana and UL's growth and push to athletic and academic prominence is tied to that. As I stated before, we were held back athletically by a dinosaur President who is no longer in office. It is a new day for UL and our potential is untapped, perfectly illustrated by our 40,000 fans at the N. O. Bowl last year, a record that we will break this year. Our fans are clamoring for a winning program and one that competes at a higher level, which is why we seek CUSA.

And, btw, we were awarded the University of Louisiana name in 1984 and have a graduating class under that name. It was unanimously passed by the then State Board of Trustees. LSU then claimed the Board did not have authority to change the name, only the legislature. However, that same board approved name changes to UNO from LSUNO and Louisiana Tech University from Louisiana Polytechnic Institute. Yet, ours was challenged and we finally lost a 1 vote political battle in the State Supreme Court after years of legal battles. But, we were the only school impacted. All of that also paved the way for the now UL System which has benefitted all universities. The University of Louisiana is our rightful name that we will ALWAYS seek to retain. We may not currently be able to use University of Louisiana without "at Lafayette" academically, but there is NOTHING legally to prevent us from using Louisiana athletically.

(12-01-2012 12:02 PM)DrBox Wrote:  

(12-01-2012 11:38 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I'm just telling you my perspective as a (mostly) objective observer. I think the name issue is ridiculous. I don't see why ULL is fundamentally different from Texas, Nevada, or any number of other schools. Even more absurd is the notion that Tulane (an institution to which I personally am far more connected than I am to ULL) should get to keep the "U of LA" designation in its back pocket... in case it decides not to be Tulane any more? That really embarrasses me; ULL is a poor school just trying to help a poor area. Tulane must be completely morally bankrupt to engage in that sort of thing.

The whole thing is pretty surreal to me. I think y'all need to go skip some stones across a duck-filled pond and think about what's really important in life

Tulane told ULL long ago that they could use U of Louisiana. Tulane's not the one stopping them. The state legislature is.
40 years ago, ULL was on the academic level of McNeese. Dr Authement, whom ULL fans love to pound on, took that school and transformed it into a research university. Yea, he stayed too long. Poor school? Many of their students may be poor (which public school doesn't have poor students) but Lafayette has more upper-middle class wealth per capita than any parish in the state. It's replete with oil money. Lafayette has arts, culture, great living - you hear the story from the ULL fans - and they are right. ULL just hasn't been able to harness that money - and it's tough when that oil money comes from grads of OU, UT and LSU. But that's why ULL hasn't achieved what they see as their potential - not harnessing the resources in their own back yard. It's not Tulane, it's not La Tech (they get one vote for things like conference expansion) "holding them back".
But it has almost 20K students (and rising), the tuition is cheap, and they now can assess a student fee. But here's the problem - you assess $300 a year, times 20K students, and that's only $6 million, about what they get right now without it. It works a lot better when you have 40K students.

You are correct in much of what you said. UL was the first school outside of LSU to be named a University. Dr. A moved our university to a much higher level academically, but at the complete expense of athletics. Check our history. 20 years ago, we were beating teams like E. Carolina, Memphis, USM, Fresno State, Rice and Tulane. When we beat nationally ranked Texas A&M in 1996, we thought that was the impetus we needed to move our program to another level. But, he cut our budget and we never recovered. He is gone and our new President has a different mindset. He understands that athletics, and particularly football, is our "window to the world", which is why moving to a better conference is so important. The money in Lafayette is not just OU, UT and LSU. Our alums have money. The major bank Presidents in Lafayette are all UL alums and they are leading the financing of our Master Plan for Athletics. But, we need to make a move from the Sun Belt Conference to excite our fan base. Just look at the 40,00 at last year's bowl. We will have a 50,000 seat stadium in the near future. We need this to show people it is not business as usual under Dr. A. Then, watch this university take off.

This thread is proof of why the Louisiana College at Lafayette doesn't deserve to be in the CUSA and deserves to be peers with Idaho.

(12-01-2012 11:27 AM)EdisonDoyle Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 05:39 PM)eager eagle Wrote:  Then, about 3-4mo ago the Board of Regents decided to ALLOW the state universities to let their students decide whether or not they want to initiatate or implement student athletic fees.

Okay - so they can use student fees to finance athletics. That's what Houston did to finance its $200 million or whatever in proposed facilities adjustments. A lot of schools use them. The CEOs of these schools should love this so that they can stop diverting academic money into athletics and strengthen both sides of the university.
When are the votes?

Up until 2-4mo ago (est) the Board of Regents specifically disallowed the universities to charge a student athletic fee. I dont know the exact reason for that but have been told by some that there might be a more or less moral implication since the taxpayers pay for the TOPS program which pays the tuition for in state students who qualify (most do) so if its trying to help the students financially then who or how can one justify charging them for athletics which is not a mandatory part of ones education.

So, instead of letting the schools charge athletic fees the Regents allows them to transfer money out of the state appropriated general fund to cover the annual losses in their athletic programs. This transfer has been up to and even excedes $8mil at La Tech and just about as bad as others.

However, the Regents has now decided to let them begin charging student athletic fees but ONLY after a vote of approval by the student bodies. None, to my knowledge, has held a student athletic fee vote that I am aware of. People in some circles state they Regents are cushioning and preparing to wean the school athletic depts from the general fund transfers which would be a huge help to the universities in this age of overall university budget cuts.

(12-01-2012 01:34 PM)eager eagle Wrote:  However, the Regents has now decided to let them begin charging student athletic fees but ONLY after a vote of approval by the student bodies. None, to my knowledge, has held a student athletic fee vote that I am aware of. People in some circles state they Regents are cushioning and preparing to wean the school athletic depts from the general fund transfers which would be a huge help to the universities in this age of overall university budget cuts.

I understand that. But it's not like the Regents requires the presidents to make general fund transfers. So why haven't the Presidents scheduled votes on fees, so that they can, effectively add $6 million or so to their academic programs and let the student fee take care of their athletics?
Heck, half the students are on TOPS (that's a real problem in La; the standards are so low, that the taxpayers end up paying full tuition for too many students). TOPS actually takes money away from the schools.

(12-01-2012 12:05 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  HoustonCajun, I considered including a "research" list with ULL at #1. Instead, I lumped that into "academics." Broken down that way, it's close, but I give Tech the edge based on USNWR and based on their CUSA membership. (That's an athletic designation, but I also think CUSA looks pretty hard at academics).

Overall, we agree that you're getting a raw deal overall, particularly with respect to the name issue. Nobody else wants to be U of L...,they just want to bogart the name and I can't countenance that.

Tech is Tier 1 under USN&WR. Last year, the University of Houston was Doctoral 1 and was not Tier 1 under USN&WR because it is based on subjective criteria. Keep this in mind, the Princeton Review lists the top 377 academic universities in the country. The only schools in CUSA that are on that list are Rice, Tulane and Tulsa. LA TECH Is not included. Louisiana is. With Tulane leaving, if we were admitted, that would leave only Rice, Tulsa and Louisiana in the top 377. Academics should also be an important part of this.

Cajuns' academics are fine. They stack up well in Carnegie, too.
La Tech has a much more mature football program. They won more and for more years and did it in a tougher league for a longer period of time. That's why they are in as a small market team. ULL needs to show that it is "Hudspeth-proof" and that will take time and money. Good to hear you have the bankers set up. That should help a lot.
On a side-note, there is a reason that La Tech,ULL and UNO are the 3 top public universities after LSU. They developed their academics. Katrina absolutely destroyed UNO long-term because its enrollment took a massive hit and it hasn't recovered. UNO always played good basketball back, even back when they were LSUNO. They attracted quality coaches. But the budget crunch got to them in the late 1990s, their coaches would stay 2 years, and that was that. (heck Buzz Williams coached there and left for a Marquette assistant job; what a move).

Seriously, are we talking academics now?

Seriously. Give it up.