[Husker] Nebraska's Hidden Agenda

[Mike Jaixen]

The Omaha World-Herald reported this today, and it's a story that I've heard several times this week. It's becoming clear that Nebraska's impending move to the Big Ten benefits the academics at UNL, and based on this story, I'm wondering if the academic benefits don't matter more into the decision making than the athletic benefits. In fact, based on this, I'm not sure the Big XII could offer Nebraska ANYTHING to stay if the Big Ten would accept Nebraska as a member.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100609/NEWS01/706099919#big-ten-scores-off-the-field-too

Some quotes:


Simply associating with the Big Ten could pull up UNL's academic
reputation, making it easier to attract top students and win federal
research grants, several professors said.
But there are also concrete ways UNL could be improved by a move to the Big Ten.
Chief
among those is the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a group of
the Big Ten universities and the prestigious University of Chicago,
which doesn't play NCAA Division I sports. The CIC leads a slew of
collaborations between its members.
The group shares more than 60
specialized undergraduate classes. For example, students at Michigan
can easily take a foreign language course not available at Michigan but
offered at Minnesota, said Thomas Sullivan, the University of
Minnesota's provost.
It shares a fiber-optic network that drives
down the cost of computing, and a Google partnership will eventually
result in the complete digitization of each Big Ten university's
library.
The CIC also makes it easier for doctoral students and
university researchers at various Big Ten schools to partner, said
Barbara Allen, director of the CIC — research collaborations that bring
in some of the gigantic federal grants that every university wants.

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Here's what happened at Penn State:

In 1990, when Penn State joined the conference, the university's
professor salaries were lower than those of their new counterparts.
Penn State also brought in fewer top-notch students and fewer federal
research dollars than many other Big Ten schools, said Nichols, the
former faculty president.
Now the college is virtually
indistinguishable from other Big Ten schools. It collected and spent
some $400 million in federal research money in 2008 — the 15th highest
total in the country — and was rated the 15th best public university in
the country last year.
Professor salaries have increased. So has
the quality of faculty hires, incoming students and virtually every
other measurable characteristic, Nichols said.
“I think at Penn State we said, ‘Well, we're a Big Ten university now. Let's act like one,” he said. “It raised the bar.”

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The way I read this article, there is absolutely nothing the Big XII could do to retain Nebraska if the Big Ten called.  No amount of TV revenue, nor moving the football championship game to Lincoln, nor moving the basketball tournaments to Lincoln.  Not even sacrificing Bevo for the Huskers training table would do the trick.


 Mike Jaixen
http://huskermike.blogspot.com
http://www.cornnation.com