[Husker] Views from Big 10 country

[Theodore Heise]

Great points, thanks.  I don't disagree that the remark I quoted is 
borderline inappropriate.  It rankled a bit with me, but the rest of 
the articles seemed more balanced.  It was probably a mistake to 
pull that single quote out like that.

Also, if I understand the rankings you provided, they're limited to 
one field of study.  You probably also should factor in the local 
view that IU has pretty good reputations in music, journalism, and 
chemistry.  My observation has been that there's a tendency toward a 
bit of snobbishness in this regard, so that may be at play.

Ted (Bloomington resident)



> In the recently released rankings of US PhD programs by the 
> National Research Council, Nebraska's computer science program 
> ranks well ahead of Indiana's.  The NRC released two rankings, 
> Survey-Based and Regression- Based.  Here is the combined ranking 
> for the 12 Big 10 computer science programs 
> [http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/computer-science]:
>
> 11 Illinois
> 16 Wisconsin
> 18 Michigan
> 20 Michigan St.
> 29 Penn St.
> 31 Purdue
> 32 Nebraska
> 36 Minnesota
> 40 Ohio St.
> 53 Northwestern
> 63 Indiana
> 85 Iowa
>
> Incidentally, in the Big 12, only Texas (#23) has a higher ranked 
> computer science program.  Next in the Big 12, after Nebraska, is 
> Texas A&M (#45).
>
> What is the IU Chancellor's point or purpose in making this 
> statement? Overall, one might ask, if Nebraska is not comparable 
> to Indiana, then is Indiana comparable to Illinois or Wisconsin or 
> Michigan or Minnesota? It is particularly notable that this 
> comment is from the Chancellor of what likely would be either the 
> lowest or next to the lowest ranked university in the Big 10.  I 
> suspect that the IU Chancellor might not like to use the same 
> definition for "comparable" in comparing IU to other Big 10 
> universities.  Perhaps, he really rather likes having Nebraska 
> bump Indiana off the bottom of the Big 10 academic rankings.
>
>> The local Bloomington, Indiana paper had a couple of articles on 
>> Saturday about Nebraska coming to the Big 10--mostly with a view 
>> toward academics.  One comment was as follows:
>>
>> "Nebraska is not a comparable institution, academically, right 
>> now," says Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis, university chancellor at 
>> Indiana University and, for 15 years, the chairman of the CIC. 
>> "But if they experience what they experienced at Penn State, this 
>> will be very good for Nebraska."
>>
>> Another comment indicated that Nebraska would soon be 
>> contributing equally.  All in all, the views seemed reasonable.
>>
>> If you would like a copy of the articles, let me know and I'll 
>> send the scan.
>