Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[sparcboxbuck]

OK - so I start a totally legal "get rich quick" scheme, where the only one getting rich at all is me. I decide that I want to donate money to cancer research. I know that Zurp State University is well-respected in its cancer research. (Maybe I researched it, somehow.) Do I care that they're in the Big Ten, or the PAC-12? Or whatever conference they're in? I'm not donating to the entire conference. Or am I? Do people donate to the conference for cancer research? I know that there's a lot more research than just cancer research, so maybe I should expand and use more than just cancer research. How about robotics research and vehicle safety research and deep sea exploration research and alternative fuels research.

I'd suppose that most of the research money would be coming from the government or corporations. But even so, are they donating to the AAU or the UAA or whatever it's called? Are they donating to the Big Ten? Or are they donating to individual schools?

And let's say you're all right. It's a "monster, independent of the athletics". Can it be separated from the athletics? Can we have, say, a "Big Ten Academic Conference" and a "Big Ten Athletic Conference"?

No, but when you donate to ZSU, say a member of the BTAA, you’re donating to a school that participates in and encourages open collaboration with the best minds across the system. And by collaborating they not only have opportunities to advance the sciences at a more rapid pace, but by working together they cooperatively can prioritize research investments that are most likely to be fruitful while minimizing wasted investment.

It’s like having a Tier I research and in many cases five or six Tier I research institutions combined for the advancement of their respective sciences.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

OK - so I start a totally legal "get rich quick" scheme, where the only one getting rich at all is me. I decide that I want to donate money to cancer research. I know that Zurp State University is well-respected in its cancer research. (Maybe I researched it, somehow.) Do I care that they're in the Big Ten, or the PAC-12? Or whatever conference they're in? I'm not donating to the entire conference. Or am I? Do people donate to the conference for cancer research? I know that there's a lot more research than just cancer research, so maybe I should expand and use more than just cancer research. How about robotics research and vehicle safety research and deep sea exploration research and alternative fuels research.

I'd suppose that most of the research money would be coming from the government or corporations. But even so, are they donating to the AAU or the UAA or whatever it's called? Are they donating to the Big Ten? Or are they donating to individual schools?

And let's say you're all right. It's a "monster, independent of the athletics". Can it be separated from the athletics? Can we have, say, a "Big Ten Academic Conference" and a "Big Ten Athletic Conference"?

As an individual donating to an endowed fund, you're donating to whatever school you choose to support. For corporations and government agencies, research grants are, however, increasingly based on consortia of several universities. In that sense, the BTAA does matter as it helps Big Ten schools coordinate on grant writing along with utilizing various resources among the schools. It's not everything, but it can be the difference in getting additional Big Ten schools involved in a project of which the lead campus is B1G. And that's why it's important to not dilute the "brand" of what being a Big Ten university means nationally.

 

[Zurp]

No, but when you donate to ZSU, say a member of the BTAA, you’re donating to a school that participates in and encourages open collaboration with the best minds across the system. And by collaborating they not only have opportunities to advance the sciences at a more rapid pace, but by working together they cooperatively can prioritize research investments that are most likely to be fruitful while minimizing wasted investment.

It’s like having a Tier I research and in many cases five or six Tier I research institutions combined for the advancement of their respective sciences.

As an individual donating to an endowed fund, you're donating to whatever school you choose to support. For corporations and government agencies, research grants are, however, increasingly based on consortia of several universities. In that sense, the BTAA does matter as it helps Big Ten schools coordinate on grant writing along with utilizing various resources among the schools. It's not everything, but it can be the difference in getting additional Big Ten schools involved in a project of which the lead campus is B1G. And that's why it's important to not dilute the "brand" of what being a Big Ten university means nationally.

I'll buy that. So, if I understand it correctly, I donate to school X, a member of the Big Ten. They work closely with some group at School Y, or maybe multiple groups at multiple schools. They share data, ideas, whatever. And they share BECAUSE they're members of the Big Ten? I guess I find that part a little odd. "Don't talk to the goobers at Donkey Kong University, they're not in our conference." "But they're on the verge of a breakthrough! Maybe our data could help them create the stripper robots that put the Japanese to shame." "I don't care! Don't talk to them!"

And, so now I'm the CEO of Zurp Enterprises (sorry - I'm not very creative in naming schools/companies/etc.). I'm financially interested in selling these stripper robots, so I want one of these schools to create one for me. Maybe that's a bad example, because I'd probably have an R&D department for that. Or maybe not. Maybe I had a research grant that went to the Big Ten, and they're my R&D department. So, I donate $14 to the Big Ten. And let's say each of the 14 schools has a department capable of doing this. Each gets $1. Of course, that $1 isn't going to do anything except buy them a candy bar. But I really donated $1.4M. So each got $100,000. Is that right? And now they all work their asses off and work together to do my bidding (whatever that may be). But then stupid ol' Penn State just bought 100,000 candy bars. So I'm a little grumpy about that, and I'll think twice about donating money to the Big Ten next time. And that makes the Big Ten grumpy, because they like my money. So they scold Penn State and tell them not to buy candy bars with my money anymore. And if this goes on enough, they boot Penn State out of their little club, and Penn State doesn't get ANY more money from the Big Ten. And, say the Big Ten lets in University of Cincinnati, and ORD laughs at the Big Ten for being idiots. And I think, "I'm Mr. Smarty-Pants enough to know that that was a bad idea by the Big Ten, and now I'm DEFINITELY not going to give any money to the Big Ten." Is that what you meant by "diluting" the "brand"?

If I'm still not getting it, sorry.
But if I AM starting to get it, then I still don't see why we can't have an athletic-only conference, and an academic-only conference. The corporations and whatever would be donating to the academic conference, while we still get to see some good football games within the athletic-only conference.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I'll buy that. So, if I understand it correctly, I donate to school X, a member of the Big Ten. They work closely with some group at School Y, or maybe multiple groups at multiple schools. They share data, ideas, whatever. And they share BECAUSE they're members of the Big Ten? I guess I find that part a little odd. "Don't talk to the goobers at Donkey Kong University, they're not in our conference." "But they're on the verge of a breakthrough! Maybe our data could help them create the stripper robots that put the Japanese to shame." "I don't care! Don't talk to them!"

And, so now I'm the CEO of Zurp Enterprises (sorry - I'm not very creative in naming schools/companies/etc.). I'm financially interested in selling these stripper robots, so I want one of these schools to create one for me. Maybe that's a bad example, because I'd probably have an R&D department for that. Or maybe not. Maybe I had a research grant that went to the Big Ten, and they're my R&D department. So, I donate $14 to the Big Ten. And let's say each of the 14 schools has a department capable of doing this. Each gets $1. Of course, that $1 isn't going to do anything except buy them a candy bar. But I really donated $1.4M. So each got $100,000. Is that right? And now they all work their asses off and work together to do my bidding (whatever that may be). But then stupid ol' Penn State just bought 100,000 candy bars. So I'm a little grumpy about that, and I'll think twice about donating money to the Big Ten next time. And that makes the Big Ten grumpy, because they like my money. So they scold Penn State and tell them not to buy candy bars with my money anymore. And if this goes on enough, they boot Penn State out of their little club, and Penn State doesn't get ANY more money from the Big Ten. And, say the Big Ten lets in University of Cincinnati, and ORD laughs at the Big Ten for being idiots. And I think, "I'm Mr. Smarty-Pants enough to know that that was a bad idea by the Big Ten, and now I'm DEFINITELY not going to give any money to the Big Ten." Is that what you meant by "diluting" the "brand"?

If I'm still not getting it, sorry.
But if I AM starting to get it, then I still don't see why we can't have an athletic-only conference, and an academic-only conference. The corporations and whatever would be donating to the academic conference, while we still get to see some good football games within the athletic-only conference.

Not really. You'd invite numerous universities to write grant proposals to do the research on your stripperbots. Now, say your R&D department, after reviewing all the proposals, picks tsun as the lead university in the study but also determines that it would be best if the research was collaborated among three universities, and your other finalists were Washington, UCLA, Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio State. As lead researcher, tsun is going to have some say in who the other two are and there's a chance that if the competition is close that BTAA affiliation would be enough to push Wiscy and Ohio State over the top. As for inviting the juggalos into the conference, would it weaken the reputation of the other schools? Probably not. I doubt anyone looks at tsun, Wiscy, Ohio State or Purdue any better or worse than they did before the Corn were invited in. It's probably just a very peripheral thing that would make it marginally harder for tsun to get Ohio State and Wiscy in on the stripperbot project over UCLA and Washington.

But of course we know that tsun's real first choice would be Texas because everyone in Ann Arbor thinks that UT is exactly like tsun.

 

[OHSportsFan]

I'll buy that. So, if I understand it correctly, I donate to school X, a member of the Big Ten. They work closely with some group at School Y, or maybe multiple groups at multiple schools. They share data, ideas, whatever. And they share BECAUSE they're members of the Big Ten? I guess I find that part a little odd. "Don't talk to the goobers at Donkey Kong University, they're not in our conference." "But they're on the verge of a breakthrough! Maybe our data could help them create the stripper robots that put the Japanese to shame." "I don't care! Don't talk to them!"

And, so now I'm the CEO of Zurp Enterprises (sorry - I'm not very creative in naming schools/companies/etc.). I'm financially interested in selling these stripper robots, so I want one of these schools to create one for me. Maybe that's a bad example, because I'd probably have an R&D department for that. Or maybe not. Maybe I had a research grant that went to the Big Ten, and they're my R&D department. So, I donate $14 to the Big Ten. And let's say each of the 14 schools has a department capable of doing this. Each gets $1. Of course, that $1 isn't going to do anything except buy them a candy bar. But I really donated $1.4M. So each got $100,000. Is that right? And now they all work their asses off and work together to do my bidding (whatever that may be). But then stupid ol' Penn State just bought 100,000 candy bars. So I'm a little grumpy about that, and I'll think twice about donating money to the Big Ten next time. And that makes the Big Ten grumpy, because they like my money. So they scold Penn State and tell them not to buy candy bars with my money anymore. And if this goes on enough, they boot Penn State out of their little club, and Penn State doesn't get ANY more money from the Big Ten. And, say the Big Ten lets in University of Cincinnati, and ORD laughs at the Big Ten for being idiots. And I think, "I'm Mr. Smarty-Pants enough to know that that was a bad idea by the Big Ten, and now I'm DEFINITELY not going to give any money to the Big Ten." Is that what you meant by "diluting" the "brand"?

If I'm still not getting it, sorry.
But if I AM starting to get it, then I still don't see why we can't have an athletic-only conference, and an academic-only conference. The corporations and whatever would be donating to the academic conference, while we still get to see some good football games within the athletic-only conference.

Where do I place my donation for these stripper bots? Before EOY please.

 

[Zurp]

Not really. You'd invite numerous universities to write grant proposals to do the research on your stripperbots. Now, say your R&D department, after reviewing all the proposals, picks tsun as the lead university in the study but also determines that it would be best if the research was collaborated among three universities, and your other finalists were Washington, UCLA, Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio State. As lead researcher, tsun is going to have some say in who the other two are and there's a chance that if the competition is close that BTAA affiliation would be enough to push Wiscy and Ohio State over the top. As for inviting the juggalos into the conference, would it weaken the reputation of the other schools? Probably not. I doubt anyone looks at tsun, Wiscy, Ohio State or Purdue any better or worse than they did before the Corn were invited in. It's probably just a very peripheral thing that would make it marginally harder for tsun to get Ohio State and Wiscy in on the stripperbot project over UCLA and Washington.

But of course we know that tsun's real first choice would be Texas because everyone in Ann Arbor thinks that UT is exactly like tsun.

OK. So in your example, why does BTAA (what does that stand for?) make Michigan fight in favor of Ohio State and Wisconsin? Why do they care? Does the BTAA have goons who come in to rattle cages at schools who don't tow the party line?

 

[jwinslow]

OK. So in your example, why does BTAA (what does that stand for?) make Michigan fight in favor of Ohio State and Wisconsin? Why do they care? Does the BTAA have goons who come in to rattle cages at schools who don't tow the party line?

you're asking why they do things that keep the pipeline of billions of dollars flowing ?

Or whether they need a hit squad to inspire them to cash in constantly on those research contracts ?

Both are pretty odd questions.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

OK. So in your example, why does BTAA (what does that stand for?) make Michigan fight in favor of Ohio State and Wisconsin? Why do they care? Does the BTAA have goons who come in to rattle cages at schools who don't tow the party line?

It doesn't make them fight for other schools. It's just that through the btaa there are certain collaborations and shared resources that occasionally will weigh in other Big Ten schools' favor. There's no rule that says if tsun thinks Washington and ucla are the best partners they can't lobby in that direction.

It does help to a degree. Perhaps not as much as some think, but that's no reason to dilute it with a bunch of unworthy schools.

 

[Zurp]

you're asking why they do things that keep the pipeline of billions of dollars flowing ?
Or whether they need a hit squad to inspire them to cash in constantly on those research contracts?

No - in the example, TSUN already had whatever money I'm granting. Or my corporation. Or whatever. But ORD brought up that we probably don't want to put all of it on one school, so we decided to have TSUN be the "lead" researcher, and pick two other schools to share the money. He says that Michigan is going to try to convince me to use other BTAA schools. I was trying to understand why TSUN would care which two schools. Rather, why they'd push me toward BTAA schools.

It doesn't make them fight for other schools. It's just that through the btaa there are certain collaborations and shared resources that occasionally will weigh in other Big Ten schools' favor. There's no rule that says if tsun thinks Washington and ucla are the best partners they can't lobby in that direction.

It does help to a degree. Perhaps not as much as some think, but that's no reason to dilute it with a bunch of unworthy schools.

thanks for explaining all of this. I may never actually understand it, though. I'm probably too far removed from the research and academic scene.

 

[jwinslow]

No - in the example, TSUN already had whatever money I'm granting. Or my corporation. Or whatever. But ORD brought up that we probably don't want to put all of it on one school, so we decided to have TSUN be the "lead" researcher, and pick two other schools to share the money. He says that Michigan is going to try to convince me to use other BTAA schools. I was trying to understand why TSUN would care which two schools. Rather, why they'd push me toward BTAA schools.

this time. Next time you're hoping a different B1G school in that role would return the favor and keep the money in the family (maybe for you, maybe PSU, etc).

Your question is backwards, it's not "what's stopping me from shunning BTAA partners and choosing Stanford" but rather "if both options are good why not continue the mutually beneficial partnership" ?

It's also beneficial to have an arsenal of elite research schools working together.

 

[Zurp]

this time. Next time you're hoping a different B1G school in that role would return the favor and keep the money in the family (maybe for you, maybe PSU, etc).

Your question is backwards, it's not "what's stopping me from shunning BTAA partners and choosing Stanford" but rather "if both options are good why not continue the mutually beneficial partnership" ?

It's also beneficial to have an arsenal of elite research schools working together.

Ahh - we'll be nice to them if they be nice to us. Fair enough. I'll buy that.

 

[jwinslow]

Ahh - we'll be nice to them if they be nice to us. Fair enough. I'll buy that.

Zurp: But I hate those guys!

BTAA: How about ten million dollars?

Zurp: Done!

 

[kujirakira]

The B1G is more than just the athletic side of things, athletics is just the most well-known and publicized part of the conference. Being a member in athletics also means being part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (formerly the CIC). The exceptions to this are the associate members for athletics, Johns Hopkins (lacrosse) and ND (hockey).

EDIT: I'm fairly certain the PAC has something similar to the BTAA, and I would guess that the ACC does as well. I want to say the SEC has some kind of academic thing too, but...well, its the SEC. Pretty sure the Big XII has nothing, because I'm sure Texas would object if they couldn't rule that too.

I dont know about PAC, but ACC doesnt have. SEC started something a few years back but their collection of Unis just isnt competitive in that realm, nor are their States very interested in ed, nor a culture of collaboration.

OK - so I start a totally legal "get rich quick" scheme, where the only one getting rich at all is me. I decide that I want to donate money to cancer research. I know that Zurp State University is well-respected in its cancer research. (Maybe I researched it, somehow.) Do I care that they're in the Big Ten, or the PAC-12? Or whatever conference they're in? I'm not donating to the entire conference. Or am I? Do people donate to the conference for cancer research? I know that there's a lot more research than just cancer research, so maybe I should expand and use more than just cancer research. How about robotics research and vehicle safety research and deep sea exploration research and alternative fuels research.

I'd suppose that most of the research money would be coming from the government or corporations. But even so, are they donating to the AAU or the UAA or whatever it's called? Are they donating to the Big Ten? Or are they donating to individual schools?

And let's say you're all right. It's a "monster, independent of the athletics". Can it be separated from the athletics? Can we have, say, a "Big Ten Academic Conference" and a "Big Ten Athletic Conference"?

Few grants go to just 1 institution today.
Keep in mind the money is Federal Grants too... there's an aspect of 'sharing the wealth' under Federal rules. There are some Unis that do very well focusing on Private grants (UGA comes to mind) but that's a niche.

B1G unis all have a century-long culture of major scientific research. Major advancements in Nuclear and Medical among others. Elite professors bring in elite Grad assistants.
There's cooperation outside B1G network too, but the culture and known quality is there to cooperate across the 'academic alliance'.

Tldr version - Big10 was originally started up as a Public* Midwestern rival to Private Ivy League monopolizing federal research grants in late 19/early 20th century.
AAU is a 'whose who' of Research Universities. Almost like a national version of Big10. Its' mission is lobbying Federal Gov for more grants - the rich get richer. The 60some AAU members utterly dominate the grant scene.


*Northwestern and Chicago are the only Private members

 

[kujirakira]

It doesn't make them fight for other schools. It's just that through the btaa there are certain collaborations and shared resources that occasionally will weigh in other Big Ten schools' favor. There's no rule that says if tsun thinks Washington and ucla are the best partners they can't lobby in that direction.

It does help to a degree. Perhaps not as much as some think, but that's no reason to dilute it with a bunch of unworthy schools.

I think it's more organic. Like football recruiting ... it's about people and relationships. My sister worked at Indiana for awhile, a lightweight in the academic alliance, and cant count how many (then) CIC conferences she went to. Part of it was that she was working within library system (an archive collection), which is one of the major shared resources ... but these people network A LOT.
Your own academic career is also very typical. 4yr degree from 1 Big10 institute, post-grad degree from a 2nd Big10 institute. Those relationships are so intertwined it's hard to parse them all out. Start digging into the players behind any major research project and you'll find a Professor who has degrees from Northwestern and Purdue working at Illinois and collaborating with another Professor at Wisconsin that he knew from Purdue. And shipping his own BS kids to Ohio State fellowships with more collaboration.
It's hard to quantify the value and influence of Human Relationships... but if that Michigan department has the option of collaborating with some faculty from UW-Seattle they've never met or UW-Madison who they've worked with before, studied with, met at numerous conferences for years and trust ... I think we know who they're going to pick most of the time.

Of course this also only works if UW-Madison is just as high quality as UW-Seattle. At this point, I doubt it'd matter if we added another weak academic school (such as OU) ... but there's definite worth in UVA, UNC, GTech in my mind (UNC's cheating notwithstanding =/ ). Even though they're weak athletically. Personally, I'm partial to GTech... though I don't like the idea of playing a dedicated option school every single year and the potential for something like @PSU-MSU-@GTech-@scUM scheduling.

 

[Mariotwins]

I think it's more organic. Like football recruiting ... it's about people and relationships. My sister worked at Indiana for awhile, a lightweight in the academic alliance, and cant count how many (then) CIC conferences she went to. Part of it was that she was working within library system (an archive collection), which is one of the major shared resources ... but these people network A LOT.
Your own academic career is also very typical. 4yr degree from 1 Big10 institute, post-grad degree from a 2nd Big10 institute. Those relationships are so intertwined it's hard to parse them all out. Start digging into the players behind any major research project and you'll find a Professor who has degrees from Northwestern and Purdue working at Illinois and collaborating with another Professor at Wisconsin that he knew from Purdue. And shipping his own BS kids to Ohio State fellowships with more collaboration.
It's hard to quantify the value and influence of Human Relationships... but if that Michigan department has the option of collaborating with some faculty from UW-Seattle they've never met or UW-Madison who they've worked with before, studied with, met at numerous conferences for years and trust ... I think we know who they're going to pick most of the time.

Of course this also only works if UW-Madison is just as high quality as UW-Seattle. At this point, I doubt it'd matter if we added another weak academic school (such as OU) ... but there's definite worth in UVA, UNC, GTech in my mind (UNC's cheating notwithstanding =/ ). Even though they're weak athletically. Personally, I'm partial to GTech... though I don't like the idea of playing a dedicated option school every single year and the potential for something like @PSU-MSU-@GTech-@scUM scheduling.

Go to Pods and stick them with the Pedsters Maryland and Rutgers