(04-19-2017 09:23 PM)nzmorange Wrote: (04-19-2017 10:18 AM)MplsBison Wrote: Glad you now understand that research is a critically important factor for being added to conferences like the Big Ten and PAC, and to a lesser extent the rest of the P5 (would have said the ACC too, but high research adds like Pitt are offset by low research adds like Syracuse).
1. Yup. The ACC was too busy educating students. After all, *sonebody* has to work in management
2. Ahhhh, the desperate personal attack.
You **still** have yet to put forth a coherent argument as to why research matters to a meaningful degree in the context of collegiate athletics. But you have, however slung several personal attacks and admitted that research at one school doesn't impact another.
3. My position is that research doesn't matter for conference affiliation. The B1G made a big deal about the CIC and AAU because research is the vaguely academic-sounding metric where the B1G excels. Therefore, it's s natural sales pitch to increase school pride. But at the end of the day, it has zero/very close to zero impact on the vast majority of student's educations, and one school's research prowess has virtually no impact on the research prowess of its conference mates. That truth extends beyond just conference affiliation to other organizations as well.
Every conference overplays the areas where they excel - as does virtually every organization on the planet. It's easy to score free points from people who drink the look aid by blurring causation and correlation.
And before you get high and mighty and start pounding your chest about <insert B1G school name here>'s research numbers, the B1G is good at research because it consists of HUGE state schools w/ mostly mediocre academics. The fact that they're big matters because they can spread the cost of research over a wide student base. The fact that they're public matters because public schools are far more likely to have mission statements that involving bettering the lives of state residents (vs the students) because the residents who shelled out tax dollars for the school want the highest RoI possible. And having a mission statement that focuses on bettering the lives of state residents is conducive to research because innovation is the result of research, and it leads to better goods and services and therefore more happiness amongst the general population. And lastly, being at least mediocre means that the schools aren't chronically under-funded.
The fact of the matter is that most students learn the most from on the job training after they graduate. And ignoring that learning, most students learn the most in school from text books (which are the same everywhere - from Harvard to the <insert terrible school here>) and from classmates. research doesn't play a huge role for a number of reasons, one of which being that you can't teach cutting edge concepts to students who have yet to understand the basics. It would be like building a house by starting w/ the roof (vs the foundation).
Of course you are spot on about nearly everything except I don't necessarily agree with everything in your last couple of paragraphs.
Undergrad research is more and more important at the undergrad level, in all fields, but especially in the sciences which are typically research disciplines to begin with. Most learning takes place in a lab in these fields where concepts taught in classrooms can be applied and truly begun to be understood. This is true at both the undergrad and graduate level. Many of these research oriented fields, like in the biological sciences, really need to be pursued at the graduate level too if you want to avoid hitting a professional ceiling very quickly, which means you better have some research experience when applying to grad school.
Large state schools aren't necessarily leaders in R&D though. Part of that has to do with established STEM graduate and professional schools with research focuses like med and engineering. It's not like there aren't elite private schools that are research leaders like Duke, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cal Tech, CMU, and JHU. Nor are all large state schools research leaders: UCF, USF...pick any from most of the SEC. Although, I would agree that being a large state school with public subsidization lend to having a larger faculty so that you can bring in more research $ to begin with. But you need established professional graduate level stem schools with a critical mass of externally funded researchers. Places like BC, ND, and Syracuse will never appear at the top of research lists because of the lack of professional and graduate research schools. They just don't have the number of research faculty to make it atop those lists. That's why it is important to know what methodologies these lists and rankings use when actually trying to compare institutions. It is often, very often, an apples and oranges comparison.
Otherwise, you are absolutely correct. Athletic affiliation doesn't mean squat for any of this and all schools and conference play up what they excel out whether directly related or not. It's basic marketing.
Anyone suggesting being in one athletic conference over another helps them in their institution's research endeavors clearly is either intentionally being misleading for the sake of hyperbole or narrative, or is entirely or willfully ignorant of the process of conducting and funding research in academic settings.