(06-05-2023 03:21 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 01:47 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 12:00 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 09:38 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(06-04-2023 02:38 PM)OdinFrigg Wrote:  All these universities are urban types. Latino undergraduate enrollment figures have extensively increased during recent years.

Georgia Tech was the last, traditional deep south university admitted, and they are in very cosmopolitan Atlanta.

While I am confident AAU uses established and fairly rigorous criteria and preferences in their academic evaluations, I don’t view acceptance decisions are void of political influences and biases. It is foremost a lobbying group for acquiring federal, corporate, and foundation grants. While the top universities are members, I would not view their list of members are “better” than ALL the schools not included. In that context, some caution is needed with the labeling. Several schools have dropped AAU membership, and reasons were not due, as a driving force, to becoming academically inadequate. Most of it relates to changing priorities and finances.

Using AAU as an athletic membership determinant, is not based on the AAU having assessed the quality and scope of their athletic programs. They may have looked at athletic expenditures as it comparatively relates to what is spent on research, instruction, and community services; but, that’s about it in terms of athletics itself.

Universities with viable medical and engineering schools already in the pipeline of receiving lucrative research grants, have an advantage as AAU candidates.

The thing that is odd to me about the political/lobbying angle is that FSU is far, far, far stronger politically than USF. And FSU is a top tier research university, the downside being that its medical school is practice-oriented instead of research-oriented. FSU is easily justifiable as an AAU member based on its non-medical research, and the academic standing of most departments is significantly better than USF.

Basic research is overwhelmingly about tapping into Federal spending. Looking at rankings of university R&D expenditures…

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

In absolute $$ R&D expenditures:
USF ranked between 41 - 77 during the past decade.
FSU ranked between 75 - 94 during the past decade.

FSU is clearly not “far, far, far stronger” at Federal lobbying. The only unbiased measure of strength is the ability to win Federal research grants. At least over the past decade, USF has been much more successful by the most important metric.

Federal research grants are not an indicator of lobbying strength. Federal research grants are awarded based on anonymous peer review. The AAU, in fact, specifically discounted Congressionally-directed appropriations when they devalued agriculture research funding, which led to the ejection of Nebraska.

If this is a political power play, it is a play to strengthen AAU influence on policy at a time that research universities are under siege in many states. FSU has many times the political muscle that USF has. So if it is a politically-directed strategy, then it is quite a poor one. If it's simply about the AAU bringing in the biggest dollar schools and some political horse-trading that went on as a result, then they achieved that.

Ehh?? My perspective on AAU politicking is much broader than how you’re describing lobbying.

The machinations inherent State and local government operations isn’t the top priority for the AAU. No doubt that in terms of state spending throughout Florida, Tallahassee-based leaders have more influence than their counterparts in Tampa. But the AAU isn’t actively favoring members whose universities are located in Richmond or Harrisburg or Albany or Sacramento.

The AAU is headquartered in Washington D.C. because it’s primarily trying to advocate for more Federal spending in R&D. The best advocates for more funding are the universities with the highest R&D expenditures…UCF has had a greater commitment to R&D in each of the past 10 years.

If by lobbying you mean getting Congress to appropriate more funds for research grants, then that's still FSU. Again, the ability of researchers to get anonymously peer-reviewed grants is unrelated to the political strength of a university.

(06-05-2023 03:17 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 02:41 PM)GreenFreakUAB Wrote:  Tweet regarding the 'cut list' for the AAU this go-round...

yep REALLY close for the Blazers... we have MONDO medical research, but it seems like that is not as big of a factor as one would think... we are building a new STEM/Engineering complex as we speak, and with that, more research $$$ on that side should result... perhaps next time...

Cougar fans in Houston have told me they're next. Yet I don't see them on that list.

The AAU looks like they added everybody who was "close", all of the schools on the outside looking in this time need to redouble their efforts if they want to make the cut next time. UH is currently in the 63-85 range in ARWU, which fits in nicely with all of the schools claiming to be "close but not quite in this time".

(06-06-2023 12:05 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 05:59 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 12:28 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 09:22 AM)bluesox Wrote:  If the big 10 schools had the pull to get ND in the AAU why wouldn’t they bring back Nebraska, they have a lot of research spending compared to some candidates. The AAU would probably be better off getting a little bigger by adding about 10-20 more schools...I mean there are a lot of good schools in the pool that could add to their lobbying effort

I think Perlman ensured that Nebraska is never getting back into the AAU.

Nebraska's problem is UNMC, pure and simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University...cal_Center

They are very unlikely to try to build a competing hospital on UNL campus.

But the AAU apparently will not consider UNMC when auditing for criteria, even though the school is part of the University of Nebraska System.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University...ka_System.

So Nebraska is likely always going to be outside looking in.

It was said to be both the overreliance of the agricultural sciences and the med school metrics. I think the public materials available from Nebraska (including responses from the AAU) are worth a look just because, though.

How Nebraska was removed is/was pure trash. First, bombard university presidents with ballots under the door, then extend the deadline to ensure the 2/3 vote was met, because they didn't have it at first.

(06-05-2023 11:09 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I do think geographic representation matters a lot to the AAU.

They told Nebraska it didn't.

If you use the Mason-Dixon Line and the mountain ranges as geographic boundaries, then the AAU does have fairly balanced representation.

Northeast - 20 members (mainly privates; includes Pitt & CMU)
South - 16 members (balanced between privates and publics)
Midwest - 16 members (skews publics)
West - 18 members (heavily publics)