(04-20-2015 11:03 PM)pueo99 Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 10:55 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 10:48 PM)pueo99 Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 10:44 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 10:41 PM)pueo99 Wrote:  - While the SIGs are important, Joe thinks having SIG contribution count towards the Owl Club benefits will hurt the overall department...and he stressed that most other big time programs did the same.

define "other big time programs" - UT? A&M? Michigan? Rice?

Yes, as well as most of the P5 schools. Joe said all had Owl Club equivalents which was the primary focus of athletic department fundraising (over and above the SIG equivalents).

my bad...should have added stanford....their entire athletic program is endowed...we are not...each program is left to fend for itself...not a healthy situation.

Yup, a $500MM athletic endowment, funded largely by two principal donors, but a very unique situation.

yep....definitely, not our situation...so to try and denigrate sigs at Rice seems self-defeating. Let people invest where they want to invest. RBI has been picking up a lot of costs that most university's (UT, A&M, Michigan) would automatically fund (maintenance), certainly not owl club funded.

Who's denigrating SIGs? I don't believe Dr. K is doing so, and he's certainly not saying so publicly. However, he feels strongly-- and with pretty good recent evidence-- that if donations to SIGs counted towards Owl Club benefits, it would greatly reduce Owl Club funding.

Also, while not the case under Greenspan, Dr. K has secured an increase in budgets so that "normal operating expenses" are now largely covered by the individual sports budgets, which most certainly was not the case previously.

I'm a big supporter of both the SIGs (I currently support the RBI Club, as well as womens tennis and MBB SIGs) and the Owl Club.

Someone remind me what a SIG is please.

Special Interest Group...the RBI club is the most successful one.

(04-21-2015 12:22 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  Someone remind me what a SIG is please.

(04-21-2015 12:30 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Special Interest Group...the RBI club is the most successful one.

I believe this term & acronym for a subgroup of narrow interest within a larger, related organization originated with the computing community, in particular the professional organization called the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), within which its first Special Interest Group was formed in 1961: SIGMAP (Special Interest Group: Mathematical Programming). ACM currently has 37 SIGs, but SIGMAP is not one of them. (I haven't found a history or timeline, but I suspect it might have divided into several more-specialized SIGs as the programming profession grew in size, complexity & specialities.)

(04-21-2015 02:38 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(04-21-2015 12:22 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  Someone remind me what a SIG is please.

(04-21-2015 12:30 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Special Interest Group...the RBI club is the most successful one.

I believe this term & acronym for a subgroup of narrow interest within a larger, related organization originated with the computing community, in particular the professional organization called the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), within which its first Special Interest Group was formed in 1961: SIGMAP (Special Interest Group: Mathematical Programming). ACM currently has 37 SIGs, but SIGMAP is not one of them. (I haven't found a history or timeline, but I suspect it might have divided into several more-specialized SIGs as the programming profession grew in size, complexity & specialities.)

This SIG was especially efficient:
http://gallery.lib.umn.edu/archive/origi...157d0a.jpg

(04-21-2015 02:38 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(04-21-2015 12:22 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  Someone remind me what a SIG is please.

(04-21-2015 12:30 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Special Interest Group...the RBI club is the most successful one.

I believe this term & acronym for a subgroup of narrow interest within a larger, related organization originated with the computing community, in particular the professional organization called the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), within which its first Special Interest Group was formed in 1961: SIGMAP (Special Interest Group: Mathematical Programming). ACM currently has 37 SIGs, but SIGMAP is not one of them. (I haven't found a history or timeline, but I suspect it might have divided into several more-specialized SIGs as the programming profession grew in size, complexity & specialities.)

I suppose it became more general of interest. Kind of like the General Interest Group: Engineering & Mechanics

Put t this way. If BYU and Notre Dame petitioned to join CUSA tomorrow, would you vote "no" to either? I wouldn't, and I doubt any sensible CUSA member would.

(04-22-2015 02:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Put t this way. If BYU and Notre Dame petitioned to join CUSA tomorrow, would you vote "no" to either? I wouldn't, and I doubt any sensible CUSA member would.

Theres a difference between BYU/ND and Liberty. A large difference.

The question is a false equivalence.

(04-22-2015 02:56 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 02:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Put t this way. If BYU and Notre Dame petitioned to join CUSA tomorrow, would you vote "no" to either? I wouldn't, and I doubt any sensible CUSA member would.

Theres a difference between BYU/ND and Liberty. A large difference.

The question is a false equivalence.

Are you speaking of the difference in revenue potential, or of the fact that Liberty is currently FCS not FBS?

(04-22-2015 03:16 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 02:56 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 02:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Put t this way. If BYU and Notre Dame petitioned to join CUSA tomorrow, would you vote "no" to either? I wouldn't, and I doubt any sensible CUSA member would.

Theres a difference between BYU/ND and Liberty. A large difference.

The question is a false equivalence.

Are you speaking of the difference in revenue potential, or of the fact that Liberty is currently FCS not FBS?

Both. Among several other large differences.

Nah, Liberty is actively anti-science, not trying to coexist; and they wouldn't have much use for Fr. Robert Barron.

But that has nothing to do with football. Or conference revenue.

(04-22-2015 05:32 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Nah, Liberty is actively anti-science, not trying to coexist; and they wouldn't have much use for Fr. Robert Barron.

But that has nothing to do with football. Or conference revenue.

Neither does ensuring that our players are well educated and actually students, yet that is paramount to us (as it should be). We maintain our standards because a Rice degree and Rice University stands for something.

Football and conference revenue are important, but they arent the only deciding factors.

(04-22-2015 05:48 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 05:32 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Nah, Liberty is actively anti-science, not trying to coexist; and they wouldn't have much use for Fr. Robert Barron.

But that has nothing to do with football. Or conference revenue.

Neither does ensuring that our players are well educated and actually students, yet that is paramount to us (as it should be). We maintain our standards because a Rice degree and Rice University stands for something.

Football and conference revenue are important, but they arent the only deciding factors.

"Maintaining our standards makes it necessary that we not associate ourselves with inferiors and those who believe differently..." I've seen that argument made, in other contexts... that kind of elitism has a dark side that has had no place at Rice in decades.

Besides, that ship has sailed. We've associated ourselves with schools with lesser standards - heck, we've even coexisted with UH - without sullying our reputation, and we'll go on doing so, if we want to stay in D1. Our conference mates have never prevented us from maintaining our standards.

(04-22-2015 02:56 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 02:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Put t this way. If BYU and Notre Dame petitioned to join CUSA tomorrow, would you vote "no" to either? I wouldn't, and I doubt any sensible CUSA member would.

Theres a difference between BYU/ND and Liberty. A large difference.
The question is a false equivalence.

I agree there are huge differences. But the point that was being made suggested opposition to all religious schools. The statement to which I was responding was, "I'm really not cool with Rice playing ND either." The question was posed for the purpose of clarifying that. In that context, not a false equivalence at all.

We already have scheduled two other religious schools - Baylor and Wake Forest. Are they objectionable? Would you want to be in the same conference with either of them? I think we would jump at the chance.

(04-21-2015 10:08 AM)Pan95 Wrote:  

(04-21-2015 12:14 AM)mrbig Wrote:  What a strange thread this evolved into!

Can you substantiate this statement of yours with proven observable facts or is this just your theory?

To quote a popular expression when I matriculated: "It is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer."

Only on this Board would we go down such a tangent!

(04-22-2015 09:13 PM)FBChE Wrote:  We already have scheduled two other religious schools - Baylor and Wake Forest. Are they objectionable? Would you want to be in the same conference with either of them? I think we would jump at the chance.

Scheduling those teams is one thing; being in a conference with them is another. For example, Stanford plays schools like Pepperdine and LMU on a regular basis. However, Stanford will never let them into the Pac 12.

Stanford has also taken a stand on for-profit institutions by refusing to play Grand Canyon Hedge Fund. I would hope that Rice would be willing to adopt similar policies with regard to for-profit "schools."

(BTW, Wake Forest is no longer a religious institution. Hasn't been for some time now.)

(04-22-2015 10:44 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  

(04-22-2015 09:13 PM)FBChE Wrote:  We already have scheduled two other religious schools - Baylor and Wake Forest. Are they objectionable? Would you want to be in the same conference with either of them? I think we would jump at the chance.

Scheduling those teams is one thing; being in a conference with them is another. For example, Stanford plays schools like Pepperdine and LMU on a regular basis. However, Stanford will never let them into the Pac 12.

Stanford has also taken a stand on for-profit institutions by refusing to play Grand Canyon Hedge Fund. I would hope that Rice would be willing to adopt similar policies with regards to for-profit "schools."

(BTW, Wake Forest is no longer a religious institution. Hasn't been for some time now.)

Wake Forest has no formal denominational affiliation (pretty sure it once did), however it still has a divinity school. Their medical school is tied to North Carolina Baptist Hospital, and together they comprise the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

I believe the current lack of affiliation reflects funding decisions either by the university or the state convention (or both), giving it autonomy/independence. Probably a good thing, but saying it is not a religious institution, while probably true at several levels and definitions, is also probably not 100% accurate.

What does the "C" in TCU stand for? The "M" in SMU?

Do the religious philosophies taught by either of those schools conflict with science?

Liberty is small time. That is why we don't want them. let them win a National Championship, and we would be happy to be in their conference, instead of not wanting them in ours.

Sole goal? That's the entirety of Liberty's curriculum?
Yeah, ummmm, ok. Put the pipe down and back away.