(07-03-2019 02:34 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-03-2019 02:24 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  

(07-03-2019 07:54 AM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  

(06-22-2019 09:05 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Scenario 2

ACC
Pod 1: Boston College, Miami-FL, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
Pod 2: Virginia Tech, Florida State, Virginia, Wake Forest
Pod 3: Georgia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina, Duke
Pod 4: Kansas, Missouri, Louisville, Vanderbilt

SEC
Pod 1: Florida, Georgia, NC State, South Carolina
Pod 2: Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee
Pod 3: LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas
Pod 4: Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas

Same schedule structure as I described earlier.

Being that the SEC would lose Vandy, I would think that they'd want to get another private would would fit the conference culture and not lose them money in the process. I think TCU to replace Vandy could do the trick. Alternatively, Rice might be picked if they could make a serious commitment to athletics. Rice could make UT feel more at home with having the three Texas AAU schools in the same conference.

ACC
Pod 1: Boston College, Miami-FL, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
Pod 2: Virginia Tech, Florida State, Virginia, Wake Forest
Pod 3: Georgia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina, Duke
Pod 4: Kansas, Missouri, Louisville, Vanderbilt

SEC
Pod 1: Florida, Georgia, NC State, South Carolina
Pod 2: Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee
Pod 3: LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Pod 4: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Rice or TCU, Texas


If I'm Disney, this is something I would seriously consider. The ACC gaining three AAU schools, including two flagships and another school that fits in with the public ivies in the East. They'd lose a school that is redundant in one state. The SEC gets to add the two bell cows in the West and one state school in the East, plus have an ability to tie up some loose ends academically.

If the networks are going to play chess with universities, we will have become a sad state of affairs. College football is slowly losing it's soul, selling out for money, and it is sad to watch. Schools are now allowing alcohol into college games in an era where we are stunned by binge drinking and needless deaths of students. Most of these kids are gullible teenagers. Nothing like leading by example. Seems like a total sellout to me, just to boost declining attendance. What else does higher education do for profit? I hope CFB survives this nonsense but I have serious doubts.

They hand out easy grades for dumbed down courses to make mommy and daddy proud which helps with donations.

They turn out kids who have no social skills, can't problem solve, and who respond to a challenge with anger and frustration because of it.

They turn out kids who can't handle criticism, can't admit they are wrong, and who deny responsibility for their own mistakes and blame others for their errors and problems because they've been pampered and praised when it wasn't deserved.

The Universities are becoming, if they haven't already become, just another business venture where the money serves the instructors, instead of the instructors serving the students. And where corporate influence is beginning to impinge academic freedom. But as long as our schools field successful athletic teams, matriculate Buffy and Jody to make mommy and daddy happy, and can give next year's 3% COLA to the faculty, then all is well.

Universities have definitely become more corporate, but it's not the rank-and-file faculty that benefit, quite the opposite. I mean sure, if you're a Nobel Prize winner, then Stanford might throw $400k a year at you to try and lure you from Yale, but that's not typical faculty.

Most faculty at R1 institutions now live under regimes where accrediting agencies and administrators dictate a lot course content, from the design of syllabi to the choice of textbooks. Whereas faculty used to have a lot of freedom in these areas, now Marketing experts insist on "uniformity" and "standardization" so as to communicate the "school brand". Money is squeezed to the limit by tax-cutting legislatures. Faculty are under the gun to publish lots of papers that nobody reads in journals nobody reads. Salaries are stagnant or have been cut, traditional pension plans have been phased out in favor of riskier 401Ks, tenure-track positions have dried up in favor of low-paid adjuncts, and tenure itself has been weakened or eliminated. They call the last thing "post-tenure review", LOL.

These trends have been going on for almost 20 years, and the advent of online education has exacerbated all of them.

I'm not whining - I got in to academia before many of those things I listed hit, and have been grand-fathered in without many of them affecting me. And even if they were, I admit it still beats the hell out of 99% of jobs that other people are doing. I love my job so much I wouldn't quit even if I won a $100m powerball jackpot.

But especially for new hires, it ain't what it used to be.