I was wondering about this and stumbled on this Nebraska document from 2010 that had the AAU rankings for existing members and possibly prospects. We are 40th. There were only 6 schools ranked ahead of us that weren’t members at the time and 3 of those have since joined (Georgia Tech, Boston College and Dartmouth).
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...eview.html
(08-03-2022 09:32 PM)UABGrad Wrote: [ -> ]I was wondering about this and stumbled on this Nebraska document from 2010 that had the AAU rankings for existing members and possibly prospects. We are 40th. There were only 6 schools ranked ahead of us that weren’t members at the time and 3 of those have since joined (Georgia Tech, Boston College and Dartmouth).
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...eview.html
Yes, this was a clear goal during Dr. Garrison's tenure. Since her departure, I don't recall anyone in a leadership position even acknowledging that the organization exists. At the time they were really heavy on the idea UAB was the highest ranked university in NIH funding that was not a member. In fact, at the time in question UAB outranked several AAU members
The biggest thing holding UAB back from membership back then was the west side of campus. Undergraduate admission standards were low and so was the graduation rate. I think that has improved, but it's too little too late. The competition has gotten better faster than UAB. The improvement/ascension of UAB has barely kept up with the pace of inflation. Just look at how many of UAB's peers from the early days of C-USA have passed us by. They've done it across the board, not just in athletics
Now we have an administration that is happy for UAB to be second or third fiddle. Happy to have everything that doesn't report to the Dean of the School of Medicine to be an afterthought. Just good enough not to be an embarrassment, but nothing to be proud of on its own
Yes, UAB aspired at one point to be a member of the AAU, among many other transformational goals that never happened
Fire Ray Watts