Dave in Green

At least one old A-Roo lives on.

Use of the Z was on the rise before Dr. Scarborough arrived, you know, back in the good old days when folks in Akron didn't know the difference between a polytechnic and a prophylactic.

‘Loud Fest’ moves from Akron’s Rubber Bowl after police concerns

From Dr. Scarborough's presentation yesterday, Z is forever:

LosAngelesZipFan, I finally had a chance to read Dr. Scarborough's entire speech, and it's certainly filled with facts and ideas worth considering. I see where some of his statements fit right in with what you've been saying: Merger is always an option to be considered in financially troubled industries, and there's no question that higher education in general is facing increasingly tough economic challenges. When mergers occur in the business world the stronger usually absorb the weaker. So before any UA supporters lobby for a quick merger of NEO universities, it would be prudent to ensure that UA is the strongest of the schools being considered for merger. I see that as Dr. Scarborough's initial move in a chess game of Ohio higher education that will take years to play out. Merger could very well be a future consideration. But the most important issue right now is to move UA closer to the top of the potential merger food chain.

Thanks for those links, Balsy. I knew a little about MOOCs, but the pros and cons presented in those articles expanded my knowledge. I found the following paragraph to be the most interesting in the pro- and anti-MOOC articles: The negative point above that many apply but few finish is no surprise to me. Since the cost of computer-based instruction is so much less than traditional classroom instruction it's easier to blow it off and drop out without thinking you're blowing a ton of cash. Importantly, the lower cost allows more people to try without great financial risk. The positive point above that both groups learned about the same but those who took a mix of computer-based and classroom instruction learned faster than those who took only traditional classroom instruction was surprising. The most important takeaway for me is that it was a mix of computer-based and classroom instruction and not all computer-based. In other words, I don't see MOOC as a revolutionary replacement for classroom instruction but simply another evolutionary teaching tool to augment the traditional university experience. MOOC needs to be kept in perspective as one of many tools of higher education that's still in its early stages of implementation and hasn't yet been fully optimized.

Not only would a 30-second clock shift the Zips offensive strategy at least slightly, strict enforcement of defensive rules would also force a shift to rely more on offense as the Zips would be forced to back off on defense to avoid fouling everyone out. It's absurd that the women play with a 30-second clock while the men lag behind with a 35-second clock.

Just because no one comments on your post doesn't mean it wasn't read and appreciated. You bring a unique perspective to ZipsNation, as each of us do. Be comfortable in saying what you believe to be right regardless of what others say or don't say.

Also covered by Crain's Cleveland Business and local NPR. Glad you were there to give us the objective view from the unbiased OU perspective, jupitertoo.

Zach and Keener, the obvious reason why UA has elected to try to market something that most people don't understand is because that is what UA has quietly become over the years without advertising it and probably not even being aware of it. This all came out of Dr. Scarborough's review of the state of the business at UA which all good CEOs perform when they first take over running any business. You encourage input from all the various constituencies as well as external sources to do a level set of who we are, where are we going and what's the best way to get there. It's pretty obvious that the answer that came out of all of this was that UA met most of the standards of a polytechnic university without fully realizing it or taking advantage of it. The options at that point were to deliberately move away from being a polytechnic university, keep on doing what you've been doing without mentioning that it was largely polytechnic, or embracing the concept and taking advantage of being the most polytechnic university in the state of Ohio. Dr. Scarborough answered that question today when he said “We’re staking a claim to polytechnic path to becoming a great public university — one that survives and thrives in the future of higher education." He added that the greatest risk is to be “perceived as a generic public university, with limited reach, no clear identity, struggling to survive and likely to fail. Instead, we’re going to be Ohio’s great polytechnic university. Distinctive. Better. Different.”

Skip, you've been right all along to question how the perception of a polytechnic university will affect UA moving forward. It's pretty clear that no one posting on ZipsNation over these past few weeks understood anything about it, including me. I graduated from a polytechnic university and never paid any attention to the true mean of polytechnic until this controversy blew up. Now that I've done a little homework I see that there are points that differentiate a polytechnic university that are worth pursuing. I guess I'd have to say it's pretty much a done deal now. Dr. Scarborough's presentation drew a standing ovation at the Cleveland City Club, and I think the message is likely to be well-received by the Ohio business community and government. So I think those of us who want the best for UA should do our best to understand that a polytechnic university is much different than a technical institute and help try to educate others. Really, the controversy offers a great opportunity to set the record straight. It drew a lot of attention to a situation that would otherwise have flown under the radar. So it makes sense to take advantage of the attention the controversy has drawn to educate everyone and set the record straight.

Pretty straightforward.

Good one, g-mann17. That helps explain a little more. A more precise analysis would include such things as quality of opponents in various years, days of the week when games were played, weather for each game, etc., etc. While these would all have some influence, the home games with Can't plus the 3-game ticket packages would account for a good percentage.

Not that much closer to BJ's home than Akron. Maybe this is the Eastern Florida State College connection: Former Titan Nyles Evans Joins Men's Basketball Coaching Staff

The Can't numbers certainly appear to account for a good portion of the much higher average attendance in alternating years when the game is played in Akron. But there must also be other factors involved. 16,832 = average attendance in odd-numbered seasons when Can't game is played in Akron 10,530 = average attendance in even-numbered seasons when Can't game is played in Can't 6,302 = average attendance difference

i know a lot of people who don't know UA athletic teams are known as the Zips. They'd probably also be confused by that odd-looking animal head.

If we let our imaginations run wild we can clearly see conspiracies and coverups lurking all around us. But you have to admit it's pretty creative of Dr. Scarborough to announce the nation's second only center for choreography with the sole purpose of deceiving the public into believing he doesn't plan to eliminate the arts at UA and turn it into a purely technical institute.

As I recall we already discussed this before. I remember saying I would favor UA and Can't exploring sharing resources in non-competitive areas such as accounting, facilities management, security, etc. I'd leave sports out of early discussions as it's a highly emotional competitive area. The debate over which school would give up football could result in bloodshed.

I agree. That's why it's important to differentiate between a technical institute and a polytechnic university. A technical institute would never dream of launching only the second center for choreography in the nation as Dr. Scarborough announced today. A polytechnic university can embrace both the sciences and the arts.

Not quite the same. The University of Texas-Brownsville was originally founded as an extension of Pan-American University at Texas Southmost College. Later Pan-American University joined the University of Texas System and became UT-Pan-American. So the merger of UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan-American into a renamed University of Texas Rio Grande Valley simply continued the ties the two schools have had since UT-Brownsville was founded as an extension of Pan-American University.

So how does this fit in with the theory that a polytechnic UA would ditch the arts?

LosAngelesZipFan, I like that you're trying to think out of the box. Your background post above had some interesting thoughts. The only one I'd question is the one about you thinking the re-branding is wholly inadequate to the challenge. Since you don't know the full plan any more than any of the rest of us, I don't see how you can leap to that conclusion. That's why in my last post I said that Dr. Scarborough should release more details on the plan as soon as possible so that we can all make more informed assessments. As for combining UA and Can't, the one thing I think that would surely accomplish is to double the number of protestors. Seriously, if thousands are already protesting changing UA's name to include a polytechnic reference, how do you think they'd react to including a Can't reference? More to the point, do you have any examples of university mergers on this scale and what the results were? Certainly if there were examples of successful mergers benefiting all, that would be a powerful argument in favor of giving this concept more consideration. On the other hand if it's never been done and the expected results are purely speculative, the odds of NEO being the first to test the waters are pretty slim.

There's a lot we don't know yet. That's why there's so much speculation, which is a natural byproduct of having insufficient data to perform an accurate analysis. Under the circumstances it's not unexpected for many who care the most about UA to be concerned about potential negative effects. The best way to address these concerns is for Dr. Scarborough to release more details about the overall plan as soon as possible.

Governor Kasich is encouraging more entrepreneurship at Ohio universities. I give these students credit for trying to organize a fun event, even though they appear to lack the resources or experience to produce a polished one. Actually the SariniaLilli.com site is pretty well done. Reading a little deeper into that site you learn that Sarina and her sister are working hard to overcome family difficulties: