Dave in Green

According to Wikipedia, The Center for Measuring University Performance rankings are highly regarded within the academic community: MUP's advisory board includes among others: Lloyd Armstrong, University Professor and Provost Emeritus, University of Southern California Arthur M. Cohen, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles Gerardo M. Gonzalez, University Dean, School of Education, Indiana University Roger Kaufman,Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology and Learning,Florida State University Richard H. Stanley, Senior VP and University Planner, Arizona State University

Amazing what a little arm waving can accomplish against the NBA's MVP and best pure shooter. You'd think the other Cavs could wave their arms even better than that overrated little Aussie. Curry In Half Court Vs. Dellavedova/All Other Cavs Guarding Him Points: 0/17 FG: 0-8/4-10 3-Pt FG: 0-5/2-7 Turnovers: 4/1

This is a great discussion because there's a lot of mutual respect being shown for the opinions of others and there is more focus on making points than scoring points. Addressing some of the points made in previous posts, if there's one thing I think we all agree on it's that words and marketing alone will not dramatically transform UA. The plan to make UA live up to the brand is the most important part of the equation, and I hope more details will continue to come out in the coming months. As for Dr. Scarborough's Cleveland address, it was obviously modified to specifically address issues that had been made public prematurely. In fact we don't know exactly how his address would have been worded if there weren't already public protests about what people thought was happening. Ideally it would have been the opening round of a slow rollout that would have begun educating the public about UA's future direction without getting them all stirred up about a possible name change that may or may not have happened sometime in the future. And, yes, the public outcry started right here on ZipsNation with this post made by a forum member who had previously identified himself as a longtime UA faculty member. His exact purpose in making this isn't totally clear as he has elected not to participate in the discussion since dropping the bomb. But the conversation it started was picked up by the media, with cleveland.com even quoting directly from the ZipsNation discussion. If the OP's intent was to stir up public opposition by revealing just one tiny element of a grander plan, it was certainly a successful strategy.

Thanks for the clarification. But I still have questions about this: I thought we had already agreed that the marketing roll out had been short-circuited by a premature mention on this forum that resulted in an ABJ expose story and a subsequent protest over a plan that hadn't been fully developed. If you disagree with that please say so and let's discuss further. As for 18th century ideas, some are still valid. Isaac Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation in the 16th century and they're still valid. Not all that's old is bad and not all that's new is good, and I question when anyone argues otherwise.

Maybe I'm a little slow, but I still don't get this. Everything should be all about assisting students be more successful in life. This is why most people pay lots of money to go to college. Strategic initiatives, attracting professors, expanding into new areas, etc., is all related to assisting students be more successful. Anyone in the business world would be disappointed to learn that endowment per student is not generally tracked. To take an extreme example, would you rather be at a school with 10,000 students and $1,000,000,000 in endowments or 100,000 students and $1,000,000,000 in endowments? All other factors being equal, at which of those two schools is each student individually going to benefit the most from endowments? I would also question the assumption that this is nothing more than a name (polytechnic) and a marketing strategy. Have you spent as many quality hours with Dr. Scarborough as you say you have with the ASU President? If not, how would you know that there isn't a bigger plan behind the name and marketing than the little you've picked up on the internet? I could understand if, for example, you were in the business of selling consulting services to universities and you had done business with ASU that you would naturally be inclined to hold that up as a model. But in that case full disclosure would require that you disclose that you are in the business of convincing others that they are less likely to be successful if they don't pay for your professional advice.

I agree with those who don't get this: Isn't this equivalent to saying that if you get enough poor people together that their combined wealth will match a single rich person? But that doesn't mean that each of the poor people will live as comfortably as the single rich person. Universities use endowments to assist students. The greater the endowments the more students can be assisted. But the more students the thinner the assistance is spread. Endowments generally come from successful people who've accumulated more wealth over their lives than most. Ideally you'd want your university to turn out lots of financially successful people with strong ties to their alma mater. Higher education endowments can also come from businesses who see their investment paying dividends to their business. A polytechnic university by definition should be more attractive to business by turning out students with skills valued by business. For those who've said UA needs to do a better job of getting the polytechnic message out, check out the updated UA website.

But Yedlin made the headline in this story.

Yedlin didn't make the story in the historic U.S. victory over the Netherlands, but he managed to get his name prominently featured in the photo.

zip-O-matic and LosAngelesZipFan, I've enjoyed reading your posts on higher education over the years. You both appear to have a fair amount of knowledge about and interest in the subject. You have slightly different takes on various aspects, and your discussion brings out points that are interesting to me. By the way, for those who weren't aware, there are two UA students on the UA Board of Trustees. While they're non-voting members, they nonetheless represent the student POV and have access to the same detailed information that voting members of the BoT use to make their decisions about UA actions. They would have better knowledge about the thinking behind the polytechnic thing than any of us, so it would be interesting to know what their thinking is. Their names are Garrett E. Dowd and Matthew R. Hull, so if anyone on here knows either of them you might want to engage them in a discussion on their polytechnic thoughts.

Good speed and good grades.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Bevo+Francis

The democratic process in 1925 produced a name (Zippers) for UA athletic teams synonymous with BFGoodrich galoshes. Zippers had to be changed after it became embarrassingly obvious that the term came to mind every time a man stepped up to a urinal. There was no democratic process in 1950 when AD Red Cochrane autocratically changed the official name from Zippers to Zips.

Not trying to ruin your fun, just trying to protect your reputation as an astute businessman who knows the difference between big spending and big profits. Some people don't realize that your constant digs at tOSU are all in fun and not to be taken seriously, so I wanted to give you a chance to set the record straight.

Skip, the argument that tOSU spends too much on athletics isn't going to resonate with Governor Kasich as tOSU's athletic department is one of a handful that generates a substantial profit. The USA Today study shows that tOSU's athletic department generates revenue of $145,232,681 vs. $113,937,001 in athletic expenses.

Once again I have to point out that these changes at UA are not materializing out of thin air but are coming from the very top -- the Governor's office in Columbus. The headline says it all: Kasich warns colleges to cut the fat, or else

This one caused a commotion, too.

Skip, as I posted earlier in this thread, Governor Kasich has publicly criticized Ohio universities for not having a culture of risk-taking. Ohio's Governor appoints members to the UA Board of Trustees, the university's governing body. Follow the chain of command and you begin to understand why UA is becoming more willing to take risks. The important consideration is that any risks taken be well planned to produce positive consequences and not done recklessly.

Heck, in 1925 UA was a Major Pioneer in boldly naming its athletic teams after rubber overshoes. Polytechnic is a walk in the park compared to the pioneering spirit UA displayed in adopting the name Zippers.

The Purdue situation appears to be different from the others with a single college within the university being given the polytechnic name rather than the whole university. Similarly, Virginia Tech is different in being formally known as Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. I suppose this all fits in with the fact that there is no hard and fast definition of a polytechnic university that perfectly fits all. Since an institute is not necessarily a university, institute should never be considered for use in any description of UA, which needs to be known as a state university. Americans have their own take on the English language, which of course derives from England, so the confusion of polytechnic with technical, technology, technological, etc., is understandable. Going strictly by American dictionaries, the primary definition of poly is a prefix meaning "many" and the primary definition of technic is "technique." So a literal American translation of polytechnic should clearly be many techniques. By the way it turns out that Texas Tech is irrelevant to the conversation as it has never in its history been called a polytechnic anything but began life as Texas Technological College. I'm already beginning to feel a little smarter after studying up more on the subject.

Measuring movement of the needle would be the responsibility of the Zips Athletic Department. They're allocated budget by UA like any department within any large business. They're responsible for reporting results back to executive management to prove that the money they've been allocated is producing effective results. Without access to the numbers being measured and internally reported there's no way for outsiders to accurately gauge results.

At the most basic level a university's success can be measured by academic excellence and economic health. Both of those can be measured against other universities. The State of Ohio has its own set of measurements on which it bases economic support for public universities, but that can change with different administrations. Others have assorted measurements so that different schools can claim success by different standards. It's always a moving target. I can tell you one thing for sure. No matter where UA is 5 or 10 years from now there will be different opinions on its level of success right here in this forum as different people cite different measurements to prove their opinions.

Skip, I never expected you or anyone else to stop giving their opinions on a forum where everyone is free to state their opinions. I think we all agree that polytechnic is a hard sell even though UA already fits the definition of a polytechnic university. Maybe we need to get Neil deGrasse Tyson involved. He does a pretty good job of explaining black holes in a plain English way that people without scientific backgrounds can understand. Heck, he even convinced the public that Pluto is not the 9th planet in our solar system but a mere planetoid.

True. And it also doesn't mean that a selected path is a bad one. Truth be told, a lot of the time we don't really know for sure whether a selected path is good or bad until we actually try walking down that path. The best estimates are usually made by the smartest people with the best judgment and access to the most comprehensive data. We can only guess how the polytechnic path is going to turn out in the long run. If those making the decision did their homework and intelligently weighed all the pros and cons, that's about all we can ask for.

I was going to ask if anyone knew what the "RINE UP!" meant until I realized that was a Z and not an N.