Bow_Down_To_Your_Flagship

As far as I can tell, I simply posted my thoughts on a thread with an issue that I find of great interest. That's obssesive, yet following me around the web in some lame attempt to discredit me is not.For the record, whatever this board might think of my views on higher education, I have never in my life posted anything racist. What's really ironic is that I'm about as far left on matters of race and civil rights as you can get, yet I have someone from Miami of all places attempting to discredit me on issues of race.FWIW, I did pose on their board as one of their alumni. I went over there honestly to discuss our last game and received their usual superiority complex, so I created the alumni character and forced them to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to take an honest look at how their beloved boarding school really compares to other universities in the state. Maybe that's racism in their book. I will cop to being an anti-Miamite. Given the massive ego of the Miami mentality is it any wonder that they can't deal with a lowly "aggie" getting over on them for nearly a year and now have to follow me from thread to thread spewing their racist b.s. to discredit me. Just remember, you might hate and disagree with the higher education policies that I support, but I do so because I honestly believe that is what will make a stonger overall system. Your brethren in Oxford look so far down their noses at the rest of the MAC and Ohio public schools that they don't even want to be part of any system. Their sense of self-entitlement and ridiculous superiority complex has them constantly whining that they should be a private university. They're apparently too special to even be affiliated with Akron and the rest. Keep that in mind when judging who does and doesn't look down at your school.

Laughable. I'm the one being accused of Communism. What you propose above sounds mightily along the lines of, "from each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs." Oh, it's so unfair that Ohio State has 23 National Academies members on its faculty and we have none. Force some of them to relocate to Akron.BTW, you can't, by state mandate and Leninist central planning, force faculty to relocate from a USN&WR tier-1/AAU member university to USN&WR tier-4/non AAU universities. They'll just leave for another AAU university and take their research funding with them. Then again, the position of the regional colleges has nothing to do with what's best for the state and everything to do with their narrow institutional egos and delusions of challenging the throne. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's supportive editorial on the subject summed it up perfectly, "These goals are attainable if institutions can put the state's broad interests ahead of their individual desires. Their leaders should know that we -- and the state officials who control their purse strings -- will be watching closely."As for being afraid of these "up and coming" universities, they've been chasing Ohio State for a century, and what have they accomplished. Hell, even when we had a governor in office for twenty years who forcibly dumbed down Ohio State and leveled the playing field, they still couldn't catch up. They're no closer to AAU membership than they were when Rhodes first took office in 1962. They're no closer to USN&WR's top tier than they were when the rankings started in 1983. Miami just dropped 7 spots in the new rankings. OU has dropped 14 in the last three years. The rest are no closer to digging themselves out of the third or fourth tiers than they've ever been. All that they've done is waste millions of taxpayer dollars that could have been better spent subsidizing undergraduate tuition and funding the one university in Ohio that has a realistic chance of providing Ohio with a Berkeley or a Michigan Again, The Plain Dealer is right on the mark.

With no quality considerations? Just go around the state in a round-robin cutting programs ? Shutter our top 20 chemistry, physics, business or political science programs so that UT or OU can keep an insignificant program? Shutter programs at the state's only public AAU university in order to keep lesser regarded programs open elsewhere. Ohio State's policy has always been that they will put their programs on the table if regional/pork-barrel politics are taken out of the decision making process.As to the flagship question. Yes, Ohio State was founded as a land-grant college--a designation that Miami and OU fought tooth and nail to get. There, however, were many reasons why they were passed over making Ohio the only Great Lakes state that founded a new university as its land-grant institution rather than designating an existing college. If you really want to understand the detailed history of why Ohio State was founded and what its purpose was meant to be, I suggest that you do a little research. In any case, the matter was settled with the Eagleson Bill of 1906, which designated Ohio State as the state's flagship university and barred Miami and OU (and eventually Can't State and BG) from offering doctoral education or conducting basic research, and it was confirmed with Ohio State's 1916 election into the Association of American Universities.

Okay then, no more midgets.You must concede that all Universities in the state should then be turned into equal sized non-midgets. OSU should have to give up a lot of it's programs, and many of the smaller Universities should get new ones, and the state can pay each one equally for their equal number of programs.If you don't agree to this, then you are obviously using this program to protect Ohio State from the growing 'midgets', because you obviously do not want to create a "system" of universities for the betterment of the state. No, I do advocate a system for the betterment of the state. Not one that spreads resources around equally and with no quality considerations simply because of pork barrel politics and the regional colleges' institutional egos.Fund Ohio State properly to compete against the top 10 public universities in the country. Let the Akrons and OU's of the state keep those graduate and research programs that have a national reputation and bring value to the state but shut down the one's that don't. Then, use those savings for two areas: 1) better funding for the remaining graduate/research programs that have a national reputation and can make a difference for the state and 2) better funding for the undergraduate subsidy in order to lower our ridiculously high tuition rates.As for the socialist, "to each according to his needs" model, it's unworkable for the simple reason that Ohio's system does not operate in a vacuum. With very few exceptions, Ohio State does not recruit from the same faculty pool as the other state universities. You, by government mandate, shut a program down at Ohio State and reopen it at Bowling Green or Akron or UT, and that National Academy of Sciences member does not relocate to a USN&WR tier-4/non-AAU member school. He leaves the state for Ann Arbor. Madison or another AAU school and takes his millions in research funding with him. That. however, is the crux of the matter. The most ardent partisans of the regional schools don't care about the state as a whole. They just simply want to continue their vain attempt to turn themselves into Ohio State no matter how costly or how damaging to the state's overall interests. You're fond of analogies, so here's one. This isn't Pee Wee football. Not everybody gets equal playing time. If you're mature enough to accept your proper role, you play a productive role on the team. If you're going throw a tantrum because--despite what all the coaches say about your talent level--you don't get to be the starting quarterback that 's just too bad.

A better analogy is Michigan, Wisconsin or California. Western Michigan is not allowed to compete with Michigan. UW-Stout is not allowed to compete with UW-Madison, and Chico State is not allowed to compete with Berkeley.Those states run rational, ordered higher education systems, and is it any surprise that not only are their flagship universities higher ranked than Ohio State but they also have lower, across the board tuition rates than Ohio's irrational redundant mess. What you call competition, I call 12 bitter midgets grabbing at our ankles and preventing us from properly carrying out our role.Ohio State isn't afraid of competition, but its competition is not within the state. Again, the state can have only one flagship university, and not everybody can be it. The decision was made in the 1860s that Ohio State would be that school. For all the regional schools to get their panties in a bunch because they don't get to play flagship is too frickin' bad. It's time to move on. With that being said, I am moving on.

Mass mediocrity would not be good for the Ohio consumer. Maybe Berkeley and UCLA should give up their graduate programs to the Cal State schools. It makes no sense, but hell it would sure make those schools feel better about themselves. A better way, and one that Ohio State has proposed in the past, is doing away with weak graduate programs based on an outside evaluation from academics in the relevant fields. For instance, line up those 9 doctoral programs in history, let a group of historians evaluate the programs and keep the three strongest. I'd have no problem with such a solution.BTW, Ohio State's programs are funded at the same level as any other public university, and we recieve the same undergraduate subsidy for an enrolled Ohio resident as every other university.Also, you're ignoring the historical record. Ohio State was founded to be the state's comprehensive flagship university. It was written into Ohio law in 1906 (Eagleson Bill). Under Jim Rhodes, every regional college felt free to attempt to usurp this role--even former municipal universities that had recently been saved from bankruptcy by being folded into the state university system. What Fingerhut and Strickland are doing represents a return to the historical norm not to mention a wiser more responsible use of the Ohio taxpayer's money.

OMG, you are soooo right. Market forces be DAMNED!For that matter, lets pass laws so that only one restaurant for 25 miles can serve steaks! I'm sure the prices for steak will go DOWN DOWN DOWN! And with all that lack of competition, I'm sure they will work just as hard to make sure those steaks are sizzlin good! YumThis has NOTHING to do with the consumer, and everything to do with consolidating resources for one school and protecting them from the other growing universities in the state. Your analogy is ridiculous. What we have in Ohio is multiple steakhouses that suck but are the result of pork barrel politics and stay open because they are propped up with government funding. Let the market take over and weed out the weak and unnecessary.Ohio State has no need to be protected from the regional colleges. We've been an AAU member since 1916. We're the highest ranked public college in the USN&WR undergraduate rankings. Our graduate schools of law, medicine, engineering and business as well as doctoral programs in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, history, political science, psychology and sociology are all ranked among the top 35 in USN&WR's graduate rankings. We have over twenty National Academies of Science and Engineering members on faculty as opposed to the 1 (Engineering Academy member at UC) at all the other Ohio public universities combined. We attracted more research funding last year (650 million dollars) than every other public university in the state combined. Our 2.2 billion dollar endowment is more than every other public university in the state combined.No, we have no need to be protected from the likes of Can't State or the Oxford Country Day School. This is all about stopping guys like Louis Proenza from ripping off the Ohio taxpayer, so that he can run around pretending there's no fundamental quality difference between Akron and Ohio State. Never mind the fact that he would have abandoned you people in a minute and crawled down I-71 on his hands and knees just to get an interview for our presidency.

Nobody is saying that Akron (or any of the other regional colleges) should lose those programs that have a national reputation and bring real value to the state, but in a world of limited higher education resources, every university should not be allowed to add on unnecessary, redundant graduate and research programs in some vain attempt to turn itself into Ohio State. I think Akron is a fine university and one that serves an important role in NE Ohio, that doesn't mean that it has a right to appropriate the role for which Ohio State was founded. The problem with Jim Rhodes is that he was around for so long that many Ohioans came to view these "everyone is equal" policies as the norm rather than the break with history that they truly represented.Do you really think that such a competitve system is good? That funding 9 history Ph.D programs is proper when Ohio can't properly fund undergraduate education to the point that it's subsequently ranked 47th among the states for affordable college tuiton? All so Louis Proenza can puff up his chest and say, "there's no difference between us and Ohio State." I'll venture that even the most loyal Can't State, OU or UA alums care far more about how much it'll cost to send their kids to school there than they do about unnecessary graduate programs, and that is why Strickland will succeed with these changes.The Plain Dealer, in their editorial on the subject, put it perfectly. It's time for the state's colleges to put the overall needs of the state ahead of their own narrow institutional egos.

Please. The man's a clown. In one minute, he arrogantly boasts about "setting the pace" for the Governor's higher education system and in the next takes a childish cheap shot at the university that Strickland and Fingerhut have already formally designated as the system's "flagship." Considering that Fingerhut personally helped recruit Gordon Gee to leave Vanderbilt and take a 300K paycut to come back to Ohio State, who do you think is going to "set the pace" on these changes?Proenza represents the tired and failed higher education policies of the Jim Rhodes era where every university felt free to try and turn itself into a mini-Ohio State. That's why Ohio funds 9 Ph.D programs in history (despite 6 of them being ranked in the bottom third nationally), why Ohio funds 5 law schools (despite being a huge annual net exporter of law school graduates), why Ohio funds 6 medical schools (more than California). While Ohio State has pretty much laid those policies to rest over the last quarter century, their last, lingering vestiges are about to formally be snuffed out by Ted Strickland and Eric Fingerhut.Akron is not, nor will it ever be, Ohio State. Care to compare undergraduate admissions? Undergraduate rankings? Association of American Universities membership? Graduate rankings? indicators of faculty quality such as National Academy members and Guggenheim Fellows? Proenza can spout his delusional "no quality differences" schtick all he wants, but he only makes himself look foolish.

Yes, Ohio State is nothing but another state school. It's no different than Akron or OU or BGSU . You listen too much to that nonsense that your president spews. The fact is that we know, he knows and you know that he'd crawl to Columbus on his hands and knees and toss the salad of every Ohio State trustee just to get an interview for our Presidency.So toss out the rankings. Toss out the faculty quality (to name two examples: National Academy of Sciences and Engineering members on faculty Ohio State-20; all other Ohio public schools-1/more Guggenheim Fellows on faculty at Ohio State than all other private and public universities in the state combined). Toss out the differences in admissions standards. Toss out the 2 billion dollar endowment (quality costs money, boys). Believe what you want to believe.

Look, any NCAA appearance would have been akin to a baby seal clubbing: i.e. quick, painful and ultimately tragic. You've been spared that senseless pain so that you might focus all your simple "chimp-like" attention on vicariously celebrating a far more important matter--the glorious NCAA run of your flagship institution. As Ohioans, you are given the opportunity (no, the honor) of vicariously rooting for the state's flagship university in all its endeavors and glorious achievement.--rejoice as we take our #1 ranked team into the NCAA's--take pride in our Big Ten women's team as they enter NCAA play--thrill to our likely NCAA championships in fencing and synchronized swimming and likely strong runs in gymnastics, lacrosse and wrestling--marvel at our soaring admissions selectivity. Why right now, they're crying on the Miami board about 3.7 high school students ending up in Oxford as their safety school after being rejected by the flagship--drop to your knees in gratitude at the 650 million dollars in research funding that the flagship brought into the state last year--stand in awe of our 2 billion dollar endowmentChins up, Zippies; you got chearin' to do!Bow Down To Your Flagship!Bow Down To The One You Serve!