(09-19-2017 06:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 05:51 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One thing that does hurt, and badly. We spent $X million (admittedly a big hunk of it donated) for an EZF that was ballyhooed as what football needed to be competitive. Since then, the only noise football has made is a loud kerplop as it hit the bottom. The BOT is justifiably skeptical about additional commitments to football or athletics.

And from what I've heard from sources in the know, the annual operating cost of the EZF/Patterson Center is astronomical. It has significantly added to our annual expense burden.

Why didn't the total cost of the project come with a line item earmarked for an endowment that would distribute enough to cover the additional expenses? Or future maintainence for that matter? Those shouldn't be unexpected expenses.

(09-19-2017 06:40 PM)BufflOwl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 06:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 05:51 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One thing that does hurt, and badly. We spent $X million (admittedly a big hunk of it donated) for an EZF that was ballyhooed as what football needed to be competitive. Since then, the only noise football has made is a loud kerplop as it hit the bottom. The BOT is justifiably skeptical about additional commitments to football or athletics.

And from what I've heard from sources in the know, the annual operating cost of the EZF/Patterson Center is astronomical. It has significantly added to our annual expense burden.

Why didn't the total cost of the project come with a line item earmarked for an endowment that would distribute enough to cover the additional expenses? Or future maintainence for that matter? Those shouldn't be unexpected expenses.

Cost of facilities NEVER include ongoing costs once constructed and in operation. Obviously, academic buildings don't require the staffing, maintenance and support expenses that a training and rehab facility such as the Patterson Center does.

Anybody who ever stepped foot in the old football facility would not be complaining about the new football facility. The old place was a literal public health hazard.

Also, the Patterson Center really isn't that luxurious or expensive compared to what other schools are building.

It's nice and adequate and schools can't use facilities to negatively recruit against us, but compare it to what the upper echelon are building. No mini golf, no movie theater, no barber shop, no individual tv's, etc.

(09-19-2017 06:48 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 06:40 PM)BufflOwl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 06:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 05:51 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One thing that does hurt, and badly. We spent $X million (admittedly a big hunk of it donated) for an EZF that was ballyhooed as what football needed to be competitive. Since then, the only noise football has made is a loud kerplop as it hit the bottom. The BOT is justifiably skeptical about additional commitments to football or athletics.

And from what I've heard from sources in the know, the annual operating cost of the EZF/Patterson Center is astronomical. It has significantly added to our annual expense burden.

Why didn't the total cost of the project come with a line item earmarked for an endowment that would distribute enough to cover the additional expenses? Or future maintainence for that matter? Those shouldn't be unexpected expenses.

Cost of facilities NEVER include ongoing costs once constructed and in operation. Obviously, academic buildings don't require the staffing, maintenance and support expenses that a training and rehab facility such as the Patterson Center does.

At Rice or at every institution? And is that because there is some law or rule that doesn't allow it...or just because it hasn't been done that way before?

That seems like as obvious a thing to endow as scholarships and coaches salaries. And perhaps even easier to fundraise for. Regardless of the mechanism, I'm not really sure why these expenses wouldn't be accounted for in some budget as the building is being planned for. There might be a reason why though.

(09-19-2017 06:48 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Obviously, academic buildings don't require the staffing, maintenance and support expenses that a training and rehab facility such as the Patterson Center does.

Yikes -- only a humanities major could make that statement! :) Have you ever been in George R Brown Hall, Keck Hall, Brockman Hall, Dell Butcher Hall, just to name a few? There are single instruments that require a million a year just in maintenance contracts, and full-time PhD technicians just to operate them. Next time you're on campus, I would be happy to show you some of our research facilities and introduce you to the highly trained specialists who keep them running.

(09-19-2017 06:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 05:51 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  One thing that does hurt, and badly. We spent $X million (admittedly a big hunk of it donated) for an EZF that was ballyhooed as what football needed to be competitive. Since then, the only noise football has made is a loud kerplop as it hit the bottom. The BOT is justifiably skeptical about additional commitments to football or athletics.

And from what I've heard from sources in the know, the annual operating cost of the EZF/Patterson Center is astronomical. It has significantly added to our annual expense burden.

Rice has not made a practice of properly maintaining athletic facilities in the past.

(09-19-2017 09:30 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 06:48 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Obviously, academic buildings don't require the staffing, maintenance and support expenses that a training and rehab facility such as the Patterson Center does.

Yikes -- only a humanities major could make that statement! :) Have you ever been in George R Brown Hall, Keck Hall, Brockman Hall, Dell Butcher Hall, just to name a few? There are single instruments that require a million a year just in maintenance contracts, and full-time PhD technicians just to operate them. Next time you're on campus, I would be happy to show you some of our research facilities and introduce you to the highly trained specialists who keep them running.

Now I'm a humanities major? Sure, I double majored in Econ before going to b-school, but my primary major was Physics, one of only two at Rice (along with Chem E) that required a senior thesis to graduate. Having done my thesis at Argon Lab I'm well aware of the expensive instruments and machinery in many of the SE buildings, but I was trying to make a point in my response to Fizzy. I very much the funding for any of the new engineering buildings including anticipating funding the ongoing operation and maintenance of the instruments and equipment (though the purchase of those instruments and equipment were most likely included in the building budgets).

My point is that the ongoing operation, staffing and maintenance of the Patterson Center is a very significant incremental annual cost and, from what I've heard, much higher than originally anticipated and budgeted.

(09-19-2017 05:45 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 04:19 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 12:50 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 10:41 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  A P5 conference will not agree to carry our baseball team. They're all about football and megabucks.

So we end up with our teams scattered across various crappy conferences. How does that improve prospects?

Again, the Big 10 has Johns Hopkins as a lacrosse-only member, and there are other examples of sport-specific conference memberships. Remember, conference membership decisions are ultimately made by university presidents, not conference commissioners or athletic directors, and the JHU name carries substantial cachet with that group, as obviously would Rice. In any event, the bottom line reason JHU is in the Big 10 for lacrosse is that it gave the Big 10 an even number of lacrosse teams. Therefore, any conference that currently has an odd number of baseball teams would very likely welcome Rice to even out the scheduling logistics. The Big XII has 9 baseball teams at present. The Big 10 has 13. The Pac12 has 11. We could put our marquee sport in a premier conference and even if our other sports had to go to a "crappy" conference, hello, we're in CUSA already. Denver is nationally competitive in soccer and tennis and various other sports despite being in a "crappy" conference. For all I know we might be able to stay in CUSA without football or baseball. Invest in the program and you can make NCAA tournaments perennially in various sports no matter your conference - our baseball team proves that - and then maybe you upgrade conferences on a sport-by-sport basis later (as Denver has done with lacrosse). The point is, we need to think outside the box and explore all options.

Let me point out that Johns Hopkins is a poor example to use in this argument. The Blue Jays' presence in the Big Ten for lacrosse is in essence a historical accident. JHU is Division III for all sports except for men's lacrosse. The NCAA used to permit schools to have one sport in a different classification than the rest of its athletic program but discontinued that policy some years ago. However, schools like JHU who had taken advantage of that policy had those programs grandfathered in, so Blue Jays lacrosse can stay that way as long as it wants. So when the Big Ten admits JHU for lacrosse, the issue of where the rest of the Blue Jays' programs go is moot, because there are no other Division I programs at the school. By contrast, Rice has a full complement of Division I programs to consider.

The bottom line is fairly simple. Football provides about 85% of college athletics revenues in Division I. If you don't have football, you don't make money. Either Rice works on improving football and stays in Division I FBS, or it drops football and drops to Division III. Economically, these are the only two solutions that work.

As to your first paragraph: Apples and oranges. Nobody is talking about Rice splitting its sports between two different NCAA divisions, I am talking about Rice splitting its sports between two or more conferences, which is not restricted by the NCAA, and examples of which abound. Conferences are legal entities and can set their own requirements for membership, full or partial. Further, the reason the Big 10 admitted JHU for lacrosse is absolutely because they wanted an even number of teams as well as, if I recall correctly, the minimum number of teams to have the conference champion qualify for the NCAA tournament. If it hadn't been JHU, it would have been someone else from outside the Big 10. There have been rumors that the Big 10 might add Arizona State for hockey and start Big 10 hockey (currently Big 10 schools that have hockey are in some other hockey-specific conference).

The point that I'm making, referring to your first paragraph quoted, is that no P5 conference is going to invite any of Rice's athletic teams to participate in them if Rice isn't a full member of that conference. Johns Hopkins playing in a P5 conference in a sport is an exceptional circumstance which is not relevant to Rice's situation.

Quote:And I'm sorry, but your second paragraph makes less sense than your first. It will come as news to myriad football-less Division I schools that they can't be Division I. It will also come as news to all 300+ D-I schools that they have to "make money." Most schools spend more than their direct revenue and make up the difference with subsidies or student fees. It's essentially a loss leader for everyone except a select (albeit probably growing) number of P5 schools, but they're fine with this because athletic programs engender student engagement, alumni pride, and (hopefully) positive public goodwill, all of which redound to the university's benefit.

While it's never good to lose money, it's always better to lose less money than more money. It's been a while since I've read the Kinsey Report, but as I recall, one of its conclusions was that dropping football would in the end lose more money than it would save due to various knock-on effects. Keep in mind what I wrote previously: by far, most revenue to athletic programs comes from football, and most of the rest comes from men's basketball. Everything else, for the purpose of running an athletic program, is irrelevant. Baseball may be the marquee sport at Rice (and I'd argue that, in terms of accomplishments, in recent years it's been equaled if not surpassed by women's tennis), but the conference it and every other sport other than football or men's basketball is in, for the purpose of funding the athletic department, is meaningless.

To summarize: if Rice...
... were in a P5 conference, we'd lose money.
... were in a G5 conference, we'd lose more money.
... dropped football, we'd lose even more money no matter what conference we're in, unless it were Division III (maybe).

Quote:Also, we aren't in danger of being kicked out of FBS. The thing we got kicked out of was the P5. We can stay in the ghettoized G5 division of FBS in perpetuity as far as I can see as long as we keep trotting out a team, regardless of the number of empty seats they play before. There might be a minimum attendance requirement but that rule is in no danger of being enforced and if it were we'd just lie about the attendance or give away free tickets like we've done for decades.

I don't think the University is that concerned about "losing money." If it were, athletics would have been shut down long, long ago. They clearly are fine with spending at a certain level ($25MM/year in today's dollars) to have a Division I athletic department, just like they are fine with spending X dollars to have an English department at a certain quality level. I think arguments to get them to spend more would be heard if they could be convinced that there would be a suitable benefit to doing so, and I think an argument to get them to spend the same money but in a different way (e.g., without football) could also gain traction, but an argument that "we can't go on losing money like this" wouldn't make any sense to them because, clearly, we *can* and *have*. It is not "losing money" to them. It is an operating expense for a necessary function.

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that the English department as well as most other academic departments at the university are at least self-sustaining (if not, then why is tuition so high)? I also suspect that the administration considers the English and other departments as being core functions of the university moreso than athletics. You seem to be framing the administration's choice here as being between keeping football and dropping it to spend more on other sports, whereas the economics of the situation require that the administration's choice is actually between keeping football and dropping to Division III.

As an aside, I'll note that it is in fact possible that Rice could be kicked out of FBS, in a manner of speaking, but that's a discussion for another thread.

(09-19-2017 11:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  I very much [expect?] the funding for any of the new engineering buildings including anticipating funding the ongoing operation and maintenance of the instruments and equipment (though the purchase of those instruments and equipment were most likely included in the building budgets).

Generally not. Funding for a building may including utilities, basic structural maintenance, and initial fitting out (all of which are fairly high for research buildings), but particular instruments and research equipment are not part of the building. Research instruments are funded through research funds (mostly grants from one source or another) for a particular research purpose. Ideally the grant will provide not just for the fixed cost of the instrument, but also for ongoing maintenance for some period; for the salaries of the full-time technicians/operators needed; and for support of the graduate students and research scientists who will use it for research. The building provides the opportunity to do those things, but it doesn't pay for them. A new or renovated building is simply an opportunity (generally an absolutely essential one) to raise and spend more money for the cool stuff that can happen inside the building.

The funding for the Patterson Center did include "all the cool stuff" that can happen inside the building, but not the ongoing support of all that cool stuff.

(09-19-2017 12:35 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 12:07 PM)Hou_Lawyer Wrote:  The product on the field the last 10 years has diminished Rice's reputation.
If we have roughly 1,000 students enrolling every year then the football team would account for roughly 8% of that total. That is significant.

Your numbers are off. There are approximately 20 scholarship football players per class.

Just to cheer myself up, I'll point out that it's worthy noting that Rice student athletes have provided good reason to be proud of their off-the field behavior. We're quibbling about whether 2% or 8% of the Rice student body are on football scholarship, not whether 80% of the media citations for the university are in reference to potential felonies that were swept under the rug by the Waco police department et al.

Here's a list of DI - no football schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...l_programs

If we were in the upper midwest or northeast or west coast there would be much better conference options. Realistically, the Sun Belt would be our option. Or maybe being an island in the A-10.

So let's fix football and try and get in the AAC or MWC.

(09-20-2017 11:51 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Here's a list of DI - no football schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...l_programs

If we were in the upper midwest or northeast or west coast there would be much better conference options. Realistically, the Sun Belt would be our option. Or maybe being an island in the A-10.

So let's fix football and try and get in the AAC or MWC.

Not that it affects your point, but that list is either incomplete or its definition is ambiguous. For example, Dallas Baptist is missing.

The real problem with the EZF is that it was not built 30 years ago when it might have helped prevent the free fall Rice football has been in since then. We do not need the rec features mentioned since the players should be spending most of their time on football and studying. They can study game film in the main or position meeting rooms.

(09-19-2017 07:00 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Anybody who ever stepped foot in the old football facility would not be complaining about the new football facility. The old place was a literal public health hazard.

Also, the Patterson Center really isn't that luxurious or expensive compared to what other schools are building.

It's nice and adequate and schools can't use facilities to negatively recruit against us, but compare it to what the upper echelon are building. No mini golf, no movie theater, no barber shop, no individual tv's, etc.

(09-20-2017 12:03 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 11:51 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Here's a list of DI - no football schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...l_programs

If we were in the upper midwest or northeast or west coast there would be much better conference options. Realistically, the Sun Belt would be our option. Or maybe being an island in the A-10.

So let's fix football and try and get in the AAC or MWC.

Not that it affects your point, but that list is either incomplete or its definition is ambiguous. For example, Dallas Baptist is missing.

It was on the internet. It has to be true!

Seriously, if my reference/medical librarian wife knew I posted a wikipedia article as a reference, I'd be in a lot of trouble. :-)

(09-20-2017 08:35 AM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 11:18 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  I very much [expect?] the funding for any of the new engineering buildings including anticipating funding the ongoing operation and maintenance of the instruments and equipment (though the purchase of those instruments and equipment were most likely included in the building budgets).

Generally not. Funding for a building may including utilities, basic structural maintenance, and initial fitting out (all of which are fairly high for research buildings), but particular instruments and research equipment are not part of the building. Research instruments are funded through research funds (mostly grants from one source or another) for a particular research purpose. Ideally the grant will provide not just for the fixed cost of the instrument, but also for ongoing maintenance for some period; for the salaries of the full-time technicians/operators needed; and for support of the graduate students and research scientists who will use it for research. The building provides the opportunity to do those things, but it doesn't pay for them. A new or renovated building is simply an opportunity (generally an absolutely essential one) to raise and spend more money for the cool stuff that can happen inside the building.

"Indirect costs" added to research grants to pay for institutional and facilities operation and maintenance have long been a controversial topic. Each institution negotiates its own rate, which typically adds up to 70% to the amount of a research grant. There's talk, however, that the Trump administration would like to have the same rate for all universities, and slash it, possibly to as low as 10%.

(09-20-2017 12:03 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 11:51 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Here's a list of DI - no football schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...l_programs

If we were in the upper midwest or northeast or west coast there would be much better conference options. Realistically, the Sun Belt would be our option. Or maybe being an island in the A-10.

So let's fix football and try and get in the AAC or MWC.

Not that it affects your point, but that list is either incomplete or its definition is ambiguous. For example, Dallas Baptist is missing.

IIRC DBU is a D2 athletic department. Their only D1 sport is baseball. Like Johns Hopkins in lacrosse, no one lists them in the D1 programs.

(09-20-2017 02:27 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 12:03 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 11:51 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Here's a list of DI - no football schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...l_programs

If we were in the upper midwest or northeast or west coast there would be much better conference options. Realistically, the Sun Belt would be our option. Or maybe being an island in the A-10.

So let's fix football and try and get in the AAC or MWC.

Not that it affects your point, but that list is either incomplete or its definition is ambiguous. For example, Dallas Baptist is missing.

IIRC DBU is a D2 athletic department. Their only D1 sport is baseball. Like Johns Hopkins in lacrosse, no one lists them in the D1 programs.

OK, there is a technical definition of Division I which DBU does not meet even though it has a DI team. It is on the list of DII schools.

Thanks for the clarification.

(09-20-2017 01:50 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  "Indirect costs" added to research grants to pay for institutional and facilities operation and maintenance have long been a controversial topic. Each institution negotiates its own rate, which typically adds up to 70% to the amount of a research grant.

Yes indeed -- I hear about this constantly!
Although we are talking about slightly different things. The cost of procuring, maintaining, staffing, and operating a specific instrument to be used in a research project (which is all I meant to talk about) is not usually "overhead" in the university sense; it is generally a direct cost of the research, and is paid out of the portion of the grant that goes directly to the relevant department or center. The controversial part is that an additional percentage of the grant goes to "central" to cover the general overhead of having a research university -- in a sense to help pay for the cost of simply having smart faculty and students here in the first place who can do the kind of work that brings in grants. For government grants, the overhead percentage is generally set by regulation and everyone goes along with (not without complaint). For grants from other sources, overhead percentages vary widely.

(09-20-2017 01:47 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  Seriously, if my reference/medical librarian wife knew I posted a wikipedia article as a reference, I'd be in a lot of trouble. :-)

I'm imagining a "reference wife" ... seems fraught with peril.