Dave in Green

This is the part that a lot of people are overlooking. They're repeat offenders who got caught red-handed again, and instead of fully cooperating with the investigation they tried to stonewall it. Some are arguing that the punishment is too harsh and some are arguing that it's too light, which likely means that it's about right.

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Amateur hour. One bad incident is all it takes.

You've asked this question a couple of times in a couple of different threads. I suspect you haven't been following some of the statements that have come out of Columbus. Well, not really Columbus, because Ohio Governor John Kasich actually made the following comments at the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington, D.C. It's not unreasonable to think that Governor Kasich has privately made this clear to Dr. Scarborough and other university presidents. This is what the guy who's ultimately responsible for Ohio's public university system, which includes UA, thinks. The guy who Dr. Scarborough has to deal with is, in fact, demanding change, or else. So it seems to me that Dr. Scarborough has been asked to make a change, and he's trying to do what he believes to be the most appropriate change that will benefit UA within Ohio's public university system. But, as Governor Kasich points out, some at Ohio universities are averse to change and will likely protest against change. That's where we stand right now. If no change is forthcoming from individual universities, it's within the power of the Ohio Governor and State Legislature to make changes on their own.

Looks like we have a parallel discussion going. Since this one's in the basketball forum and the other is in the more appropriate general UA & campus discussion, I'm going to confine my remarks to the other discussion and not repeat here what I've already said there.

Polytechnic derives from the Greek word polytekhnos: polys "many" + tekhne "art" = "skilled in many arts." In classical Greek mythology, Tekhne was the goddess of art and craft.

I enrolled at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute and got my degree from Louisiana Tech University because the school changed its name in the middle of my time there. I started as a business major and took elective courses that got me interested in philosophy, so I switched to a philosophy major. Then I took an English literature course taught by a well-known author which caused me to change majors again to English. Then I took a basic journalism class and started writing for the school newspaper, which caused me to switch once again to a major in journalism, where I finally earned my degree. The point about all of the above is that my four different majors at this polytechnic school were all non-technical. The four professors who had the greatest impact on my life were in economics, history, English literature and journalism. I spent many hours after classes sitting in the offices of these four professors learning as much or more than I did in class. I received an exceptionally well-rounded education at a polytechnic school that set me up for a successful professional career in which I never had a problem getting a non-technical job.

Dr. Scarborough's formal statement made it clear that he believes in many ways that UA is already a polytechnic university that just hasn't billed itself as such. If you believe as he does that UA already has "many polytechnic programs, approaches and strengths" in place, then sweeping changes would not be required to position UA as Ohio's Polytechnic University. In other words, what Dr. Scarborough and UA's Board of Trustees are proposing is to leverage the strengths that UA already has in place.

Dr. Scarborough's paid job is to study all the available options for UA's future and make the best choice based on his own personal knowledge and experience combined with all the input he can get from all of the university's various constituencies. He's completed his due diligence and, with the blessings of the UA Board of Trustees, elected to take the polytechnic option as the best hope for UA's future within the constraints of Ohio's public university ecosystem. Maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong. But his odds for success are much higher than for anyone who hasn't done due diligence and is just basing their opinion on general feelings.

Skip, I don't consider it an attack when someone disagrees with me. IMHO Dr. Scarborough was simply giving a commonly used set of characteristics applicable to most polytechnic universities. University of Wisconsin-Stout, Wisconsin's Polytechnic University, uses a similar description, part of which is shown below:

Skip, if you read the portion of the statement below that Dr. Scarborough released earlier this week, the part I bolded indicates that he has no intention of diminishing the arts and humanities at UA:

Dr. Scarborough mentioned Florida Polytechnic University as an example. Looking a little closer at that model, it appears that the state of Florida legislated it into existence with Governor Rick Scott's enthusiastic blessing. Governor John Kasich and the Ohio Legislature have many similarities with their Florida counterparts in terms of putting higher education under a magnifying glass and implementing fundamental changes such as creating a public polytechnic university. Just looking at the first few paragraphs in the Wikipedia entry on FPU brings up a few interesting points that I've bolded below:

I suspect that this is the heart of the tough message that Dr. Scarborough received from our government representatives in Columbus. In other words, we're talking about independent survival mode for many Ohio universities. Adding the polytechnic tagline to the existing UA name and turning the school into a true polytechnic university makes a lot of sense from that point of view. It clearly differentiates UA from other Ohio universities struggling for greater identity and ultimately survival. There are typically no more than one or two polytechnic universities per state and those states that don't have them are in the process of creating them. An important element of a polytechnic school is the part about being connected with industry. Industry connections generate industry funding, and proper funding is critical to UA's future as an independent university. Industry support will be looked on favorably by state government, so it's likely this plan already has tacit approval from Columbus. The biggest hope when Dr. Scarborough was selected as UA President was that his financial and business background would result in a plan to put the school on solid economic footing in a tough, changing economic environment. This appears to be the plan he and the Board of Trustees have come up with after getting input from all of the school's constituencies. All we know so far are some generalities. It's the fine details and execution that will make or break this plan.

Virginia Technical Institute and State University is a mouthful of a formal name. They could have made it even better by adding The at the beginning.

I agree that anyone caught breaking rules should be appropriately penalized. Comparing cheating in sports to cheating the speed limit is a perfectly valid comparison in the context of pointing out that all of those who weren't caught doing it are not necessarily innocent.

Faulty logic. Only one guy/team was caught. No telling how long they were doing it without getting caught and no telling how many others have been doing it without getting caught. It's like saying the only motorist who was ticketed for exceeding the speed limit on a certain day on a certain highway was the only one speeding and everyone else was driving within the speed limit.

Rebranding is nothing more than a new marketing strategy. I'd be shocked if that's all Dr. Scarborough had to announce. Here's how Wikipedia defines rebranding:

Right on the city/campus border has always made the most sense to me. But a true downtown arena has to be about much more than Zips basketball. The focus on Zips basketball is what killed the proposed city arena. Any future plan needs major tenants that appeal to a greater percentage of the voting public.

Yes, I'm aware that most major sports leagues aside from the NBA and MLB enjoy some degree of tax-exempt status and that the NFL has benefited from it since 1942. Professional sports that generate billions of dollars were not what lawmakers had in mind when tax-exempt status was first proposed for non-profit organizations. But thanks for sharing the Roger Goodell quote. Anyone who makes $40+ million a year running a non-profit tax-exempt organization is obviously worth listening to.

As the story I linked to earlier explained, the NFL's continuing tax-exempt status was based on political interests. For example, in 1966 Louisiana Senator and Chairman of the Finance Committee Russell Long received a promise from the NFL to have a team added in his state (New Orleans Saints) in return for Long rewriting Statute 501©(6) to read:

The problem is that the NFL League Office never legitimately qualified as a tax-exempt non-profit organization. A legitimate trade organization must “further the industry or profession it represents" to qualify as a tax-exempt non-profit. The NFL League Office competes against other professional football organizations (ask anyone who worked for the USFL, XFL, etc.) and not for the benefit of professional football in general. Each of the 32 NFL teams "donates" more than $1 million apiece every year just to pay the NFL League Office CEO's $40+ million salary with a primary purpose of keeping the NFL brand from being challenged by other professional football organizations. This inequity represents one of the few things that citizens of widely varying political beliefs (conservative, liberal, libertarian, tea party) can agree on. The NFL was smart to give up this political favor before it was rightly taken away from them. It was a point of resentment with the general public, whether or not they understood the technicality that it was just the league office and not the whole NFL.

How's this for a simple explanation?

Way too much focus on a possible name change when structural changes are the real game changers. But if it stimulates public conversation about what everyone thinks the former Buchtel College should put more or less emphasis on in the future, it's serving its purpose.

No surprise.

No mystery at all about the NFL's motive. Congress has been investigating the league's handling of concussions and domestic violence and using the threat of revoking the NFL's tax exempt status as leverage. The NFL's highly paid attorneys and accountants have figured out a way to make just as much money without the tax exempt status. By voluntarily giving it up, they eliminate Congressional leverage and score points with the public, which wonders how on earth a money-minting sports giant doesn't have to pay taxes while ordinary citizens do.