This is a good topic that has been buzzing around in my head, but I remember you only hinted at it a few times JR. So, with inspiration from you, I'd like to do a deep dive on this topic. The AAU, as prestigious as it is, has two major flaws: one, it expels universities for conducting research beneficial to their state, and two, universities with really good credentials are often left out becauae they don't focus on medical research, which is the AAU's main focus right now.

I say that it is past time for a rival to be set up that would focus on overcoming the AAU's flaws, but would be very much a prestigious organization to join. I had considered the ORAU-Oak Ridge Associated Universities, but unlike the AAU, the ORAU is an extension of the Department of Energy, and therefore couldn't really "rival" the AAU, because the AAU is a private organization, to the best of my knowledge. So, it stands to reason that a competitor must be a private organization as well. I

As for a gatekeeping metric into this new organization, I would propose using ARWU rankings and maybe rankings from the National Academies also (NSF, NIH, etc.)

So, is my idea incredibly dumb or is there some merit to it?? I appreciate the views, but I'd like some comments!!

(05-01-2025 10:21 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  So, is my idea incredibly dumb or is there some merit to it?? I appreciate the views, but I'd like some comments!!

The key phrase here is "freedom of association."

Competitors do exist, but they're not really competitors. Each grouping serves a somewhat different function and some purposes overlap, but there's nothing preventing schools from being a part of multiple organizations. Schools are free to join whatever association/consortium they want or free to set parameters for whom they will partner with.

The AAU has a lot of power because its members schools are very powerful. Their intent is to concentrate Federal funding by leveraging that power in the group's favor. There's really nothing to be done about that and it's not inherently a bad thing.

There are really only 2 things that concern me about higher education in the US. 1) Many universities effectively abandon the core mission because they are so focused on self-perpetuation that their decisions and actions are focused on pumping money through and little else. 2) Ideological domination that quashes dissent or otherwise unreasonably interferes in the debate of ideas and discovery of truth.

I think the 2nd problem is actually a direct result of the first. It's ironic that college campuses are filled with quasi-Communist professors who primarily act in their own self-interest to ensure they have a job and are paid well. It's not ironic that they use government and public-funded mechanisms to do so as many such people have no skillset that could be marketed outside of serving a profession in which its economic value is arbitrarily determined and is highly dependent on the institution's ability to acquire public dollars for their uses.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It seems many administrators have long ignored the academic abuses of their employees because it hasn't hurt the bottom line and rocking the boat might impair the institution's ability to self-perpetuate. There are limits to the tolerance obviously...see some of the political fights we've recently seen even at super wealthy and connected Ivy League schools.

This also isn't to say that many professors, research programs, and institutional goals aren't good. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that the schools' singular desire to generate dollars undermines some aspects of their mission.

Anyway, that's a general problem in academia and doesn't really relate to the AAU specifically because they all do it.

(05-03-2025 07:31 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(05-01-2025 10:21 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  So, is my idea incredibly dumb or is there some merit to it?? I appreciate the views, but I'd like some comments!!

The key phrase here is "freedom of association."

Competitors do exist, but they're not really competitors. Each grouping serves a somewhat different function and some purposes overlap, but there's nothing preventing schools from being a part of multiple organizations. Schools are free to join whatever association/consortium they want or free to set parameters for whom they will partner with.

The AAU has a lot of power because its members schools are very powerful. Their intent is to concentrate Federal funding by leveraging that power in the group's favor. There's really nothing to be done about that and it's not inherently a bad thing.

There are really only 2 things that concern me about higher education in the US. 1) Many universities effectively abandon the core mission because they are so focused on self-perpetuation that their decisions and actions are focused on pumping money through and little else. 2) Ideological domination that quashes dissent or otherwise unreasonably interferes in the debate of ideas and discovery of truth.

I think the 2nd problem is actually a direct result of the first. It's ironic that college campuses are filled with quasi-Communist professors who primarily act in their own self-interest to ensure they have a job and are paid well. It's not ironic that they use government and public-funded mechanisms to do so as many such people have no skillset that could be marketed outside of serving a profession in which its economic value is arbitrarily determined and is highly dependent on the institution's ability to acquire public dollars for their uses.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It seems many administrators have long ignored the academic abuses of their employees because it hasn't hurt the bottom line and rocking the boat might impair the institution's ability to self-perpetuate. There are limits to the tolerance obviously...see some of the political fights we've recently seen even at super wealthy and connected Ivy League schools.

This also isn't to say that many professors, research programs, and institutional goals aren't good. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that the schools' singular desire to generate dollars undermines some aspects of their mission.

Anyway, that's a general problem in academia and doesn't really relate to the AAU specifically because they all do it.

Well, ATU, in a way it does all tie back into the AAU assessment criteria. A heavier consideration is given to the institutions which hire Ivy League professors to teach. Corporate and Foreign money have poured into the Ivy League to get to prospective students, get certain research done, or to have influence over those entities. The amount of important research foreign grad students have access to is inordinate and during COVID one studying gain of function viruses left the country with zip files heading back to China from an Ivy League school. The Anti-American sentiment espoused in their lecture halls is out of balance and unchecked in that the right of dissent and an opposing view are not permitted in way too many cases of which the anti-Israel sentiment was one case study to be investigated.

I don't see where the Ivy League grads on your faculty bonus points should have any part in AAU matters. It smacks of top-down control. And what you are seeing in the STEM emphasis are universities through more practical means, trying to shake off the heavy-handed influence of whacko liberal arts professors on faculty, selling an agenda as an education and stifling debate about matters where their stilted beliefs are the only permissible discussion. Science, math, and technology are seeking to break through the politics to remain unimcumbered by idealogy.

(05-03-2025 08:42 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-03-2025 07:31 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(05-01-2025 10:21 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  So, is my idea incredibly dumb or is there some merit to it?? I appreciate the views, but I'd like some comments!!

The key phrase here is "freedom of association."

Competitors do exist, but they're not really competitors. Each grouping serves a somewhat different function and some purposes overlap, but there's nothing preventing schools from being a part of multiple organizations. Schools are free to join whatever association/consortium they want or free to set parameters for whom they will partner with.

The AAU has a lot of power because its members schools are very powerful. Their intent is to concentrate Federal funding by leveraging that power in the group's favor. There's really nothing to be done about that and it's not inherently a bad thing.

There are really only 2 things that concern me about higher education in the US. 1) Many universities effectively abandon the core mission because they are so focused on self-perpetuation that their decisions and actions are focused on pumping money through and little else. 2) Ideological domination that quashes dissent or otherwise unreasonably interferes in the debate of ideas and discovery of truth.

I think the 2nd problem is actually a direct result of the first. It's ironic that college campuses are filled with quasi-Communist professors who primarily act in their own self-interest to ensure they have a job and are paid well. It's not ironic that they use government and public-funded mechanisms to do so as many such people have no skillset that could be marketed outside of serving a profession in which its economic value is arbitrarily determined and is highly dependent on the institution's ability to acquire public dollars for their uses.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It seems many administrators have long ignored the academic abuses of their employees because it hasn't hurt the bottom line and rocking the boat might impair the institution's ability to self-perpetuate. There are limits to the tolerance obviously...see some of the political fights we've recently seen even at super wealthy and connected Ivy League schools.

This also isn't to say that many professors, research programs, and institutional goals aren't good. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that the schools' singular desire to generate dollars undermines some aspects of their mission.

Anyway, that's a general problem in academia and doesn't really relate to the AAU specifically because they all do it.

Well, ATU, in a way it does all tie back into the AAU assessment criteria. A heavier consideration is given to the institutions which hire Ivy League professors to teach.

I actually didn't know that. Sounds like a jobs program that someone at Harvard came up with. I imagine most of the early members of the AAU were Ivy League schools.

One of my all time favorite quotes comes from Thomas Sowell:

"In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it."

(05-03-2025 08:42 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Corporate and Foreign money have poured into the Ivy League to get to prospective students, get certain research done, or to have influence over those entities. The amount of important research foreign grad students have access to is inordinate and during COVID one studying gain of function viruses left the country with zip files heading back to China from an Ivy League school. The Anti-American sentiment espoused in their lecture halls is out of balance and unchecked in that the right of dissent and an opposing view are not permitted in way too many cases of which the anti-Israel sentiment was one case study to be investigated.

I don't see where the Ivy League grads on your faculty bonus points should have any part in AAU matters. It smacks of top-down control. And what you are seeing in the STEM emphasis are universities through more practical means, trying to shake off the heavy-handed influence of whacko liberal arts professors on faculty, selling an agenda as an education and stifling debate about matters where their stilted beliefs are the only permissible discussion. Science, math, and technology are seeking to break through the politics to remain unimcumbered by idealogy.

One odd thing about holding China and specific institutions accountable for the COVID pandemic, the US will likely never take serious steps because we'd have to expose our own involvement in it.

But you are correct, there's absolutely no reason Ivy League professors should be given preference in that context. I would suggest the AAU alter its criteria, but there are probably far too many Ivy League graduates in positions of influence across the spectrum to even look at that. An excellent jobs program, indeed.

(05-01-2025 02:39 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  ....
I say that it is past time for a rival to be set up that would focus on overcoming the AAU’s flaws, but would be very much a prestigious organization to join.
....

Universities maintain and interact with a variety of cooperative associations and relationships. Your complete OP names a few. No need exists to create more associations just for the sake of having more associations. We might better ask why certain sports communities make a fetish of just one, when the students and scholars themselves do not.

The AAU is an association centred on particular areas of STEM research. Associations exist for university administrators, for tech schools, for research in physics, for poetry, for psychology and social work, for schools of performing arts, for law, for political science, for research in natural sciences, for medicine, for computer innovations, and everything uni editors do. Associations even exist for college athletics. (Imagine!)

There are accrediting organisations and publishing houses and informal co-ops. Universities maintain ‘sister school’ agreements across geographical and cultural distances to create better opportunities for students. These relationships—regional, national, and international, national, regional—grow ad hoc as opportunity and need interact in scholastic communities.

Associations exist because collegiality is the great strength of academia. For centuries it has enabled cooperative endeavour and the sharing of research. The boons include space telescopes, quality editions of Shakespeare plays, effective treatments for diseases, gripping new translations of Homer’s Odyssey, up-to-the-minute understanding of ocean currents, and this Internet we kill time on.

Thriving universities are a cultural strength. They represent at the same time a powerful domestic resource and powerful international export. Collegiality, academic freedom, open research, discovery sharing... these things work.
_____

For all that, the combination of research with education is fairly recent. Universities existed for centuries as educational institutions, but research became a big part of their mission thanks to a model pioneered in Germany in the 1800s. More about that fruitful development here:

Clara Collier: The Origin of the Research University (Asterisk Mag)

18th-century German bureaucrats didn’t invent the idea of making new contributions to human knowledge. Their great contribution was to institutionalize it: They created a system where original scholarship was rewarded by professional advancement.
....
(William Clark:) ‘Works of research usually provide a basis for further research and/or relate to other, related works in a complementary and supplementary manner. They add up to something positive.’ I like this as a definition of research. It is also very German. Specifically, I think it goes back to Immanuel Kant. Kant was very much not a cameralist. Instead, he argued that the philosophy faculty required independence—from the government as well as the ‘higher’ faculties of law, theology, and medicine—in order to carry out its real business: pursuing truth.

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/10/the-or...university


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