Big Ten Academic Alliance: is it real or fluff?

[Eagleton96]

A lot has been made of the Big Ten Academic Alliance as an advantage to schools joining the B1G. But what is it really? I was curious (as someone that worked in a research center at Rutgers and other places) what it really amounted to. I always suspected that the answer is not much. Or at least, less than it would seem given all attention paid to it.

So I dug in a little and looked. The short answer is that I think it's just not a big deal in terms of actual research or money, and it's mostly about prestige and branding at this point.

So what does the Alliance offer:

- Reciprocal library agreements. - All big schools have these. Prior to the Big Ten Rutgers had similar agreements with Princeton, Columbia, and a bunch of other schools already.
- Coop purchasing agreement. - Rutgers was already part of a number of state and national purchasing coops that has as much purchasing power as the Alliance.
- Training courses for academic administrators. - OK, but not a big deal.
- Some other data sharing agreements. - Again, lots of researchers and universities share data. In academia you have to share data anyway.
- Opportunity to collaborate on research and grants. - Rutgers and all the big research universities, and any good research lab or professor, collaborate with whomever they want, whenever they want, based on who the best researchers are. They form teams based on who they want to work with, and who the people are that have the big famous publications. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the Alliance would ever change any decision on who researchers collaborate with on their projects.

So there is nothing here that I can see that Rutgers didn't already have. Does anyone with some first hand experience have anything they can add to this?

I think that the Big Ten is going to be positioning itself as the elite academic alternative to the SEC. And I think that's really smart as prestige is everything to a university. But in terms of big dollars flowing from the Academic Alliance that outweighs sports considerations, I'm not seeing it yet.

 

[ecojew]

I'm quite sure that several people who post here will be able to explain this in detail and I hope that they will do so. But my impression has been that RU's access to research funding has improved greatly as a result of being part of the CIC, in addition to getting the Rutgers Medical School back.

 

[RUforlife]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the B1G Academic Alliance includes founding member of the B1G the University of Chicago. That is a nice school to be associated with academically.

 

[Eagleton96]

I'm quite sure that several people who post here will be able to explain this in detail and I hope that they will do so. But my impression has been that RU's access to research funding has improved greatly as a result of being part of the CIC, in addition to getting the Rutgers Medical School back.

I don't think we got the med school back due to the CIC. That was a political decision in the works for decades. RU was already getting gobs of money and was a top R1 university. So I'd need some explanation as to how/why we were able to get more funding due to the CIC. But you can have prestige without being in the CIC. Top schools do well, and most of them are not in the CIC.

 

[Scarlet16E]

Your probably right. Mostly marketing. But it sounds good.

 

[Eagleton96]

I'm quite sure that several people who post here will be able to explain this in detail and I hope that they will do so. But my impression has been that RU's access to research funding has improved greatly as a result of being part of the CIC, in addition to getting the Rutgers Medical School back.

Did a little more digging. In terms of research dollars, it was consistent at RU with around 450 million a year until RU merged with UMDNJ in 2013-2014. Then it jumped to about 650 million a year just because the UMDNJ money was now on Rutgers' books. But I'm not seeing any bump from membership in the Big 10. https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd

And adding to that, I looked at Maryland. They joined at the same time, and didn't have any new medical school merger. Their research dollars did not jump when they joined the B1G.

 

[Plum Street]

Academics mean nothing.

 

[HeavenUniv.]

I would think the Big 10 Cancer Consortium is a very big deal.

 

[Eagleton96]

I would think the Big 10 Cancer Consortium is a very big deal.

I can see some real benefit here. They can pool their hospitals to help recruit clinical trial participants etc. This one seems real.

 

[brgRC90]

There would seem to be a possible benefit that's harder to quantify and that's connections. How many talented people who go to great schools like Michigan or Northwestern that hardly ever heard of Rutgers before will now look at it for grad school, collaborations or other connections that might not have taken place before? You can never get enough publicity and name recognition.

 

[mdk01]

Perhaps overstated, but extant

 

[ScarletDave]

The option to take a semester or year at another Big Ten school is huge. While it’s difficult for say Medical or Engineering since the course requirements at the higher levels are so tight, it’s still doable. The benefit of being an engineer at Rutgers taking a year of working in the laboratories at Purdue or Illinois, or being in the theater arts program at Michigan and taking a year at Mason Gross, are massive. Huge, underrated aspect of the Big Ten academic alliance

 

[Eagleton96]

There would seem to be a possible benefit that's harder to quantify and that's connections. How many talented people who go to great schools like Michigan or Northwestern that hardly ever heard of Rutgers before will now look at it for grad school, collaborations or other connections that might not have taken place before? You can never get enough publicity and name recognition.

I don’t think it’s much if any difference. Everyone in a field knows exactly who the top programs and researchers are. Doesn’t matter if it’s Princeton or Rutgers or Wichita State. The programs are ranked, the number of publications measured and ranked, the research dollars counted etc. I went to the Bloustein school for policy and planning. Everyone in the field nationally knows it’s a top 5 grad program in planning.

 

[Eagleton96]

The option to take a semester or year at another Big Ten school is huge. While it’s difficult for say Medical or Engineering since the course requirements at the higher levels are so tight, it’s still doable. The benefit of being an engineer at Rutgers taking a year of working in the laboratories at Purdue or Illinois, or being in the theater arts program at Michigan and taking a year at Mason Gross, are massive. Huge, underrated aspect of the Big Ten academic alliance

I agree it’s nice. It’s still not the major dollars everyone talks about. And Rutgers already had reciprocal agreements for courses with Princeton, NYU, Columbia, and probably many others.

 

[RUTGERS95]

huge benefit, one that is not fully realized by students or alumn.

 

[Plum Street]

The option to take a semester or year at another Big Ten school is huge. While it’s difficult for say Medical or Engineering since the course requirements at the higher levels are so tight, it’s still doable. The benefit of being an engineer at Rutgers taking a year of working in the laboratories at Purdue or Illinois, or being in the theater arts program at Michigan and taking a year at Mason Gross, are massive. Huge, underrated aspect of the Big Ten academic alliance

Is this option available to athletes ? Since athletics is the whole point of the Big Ten

 

[srru86]

and it's mostly about prestige and branding at this point.

Don't you think that is important?

In the very competitive race to earn major research grants you might want to assume the scientists and grant givers are entirely objective in their decisions. But they are human too. Big name researchers at big name schools get the lion's share of the money.

You don't think highly sought after potential faculty members aren't aware of the "street cred" (I know the academicians would never admit to thinking that way) of the institution and colleagues recruiting them as evidenced by their ability to score big research funding?

It's all about who you hang with, are you at the cool table, or lower down the hierarchy. Academics is more like the middle school lunch room than they like to think. Except the researchers are vying for tens of millions of dollars.

I'd say our membership in the Alliance is very valuable in direct benefits and priceless in secondary effects.

 

[NotInRHouse]

A lot has been made of the Big Ten Academic Alliance as an advantage to schools joining the B1G. But what is it really? I was curious (as someone that worked in a research center at Rutgers and other places) what it really amounted to. I always suspected that the answer is not much. Or at least, less than it would seem given all attention paid to it.

So I dug in a little and looked. The short answer is that I think it's just not a big deal in terms of actual research or money, and it's mostly about prestige and branding at this point.

So what does the Alliance offer:

- Reciprocal library agreements. - All big schools have these. Prior to the Big Ten Rutgers had similar agreements with Princeton, Columbia, and a bunch of other schools already.
- Coop purchasing agreement. - Rutgers was already part of a number of state and national purchasing coops that has as much purchasing power as the Alliance.
- Training courses for academic administrators. - OK, but not a big deal.
- Some other data sharing agreements. - Again, lots of researchers and universities share data. In academia you have to share data anyway.
- Opportunity to collaborate on research and grants. - Rutgers and all the big research universities, and any good research lab or professor, collaborate with whomever they want, whenever they want, based on who the best researchers are. They form teams based on who they want to work with, and who the people are that have the big famous publications. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the Alliance would ever change any decision on who researchers collaborate with on their projects.

So there is nothing here that I can see that Rutgers didn't already have. Does anyone with some first hand experience have anything they can add to this?

I think that the Big Ten is going to be positioning itself as the elite academic alternative to the SEC. And I think that's really smart as prestige is everything to a university. But in terms of big dollars flowing from the Academic Alliance that outweighs sports considerations, I'm not seeing it yet.

Were we forced out of the local library agreement with Princeton, Columbia etc? That would be pretty petty just for joining the B1G.

 

[NotInRHouse]

To me there is intrinsic prestige and even athletic benefit when there's no real laggard school in the conference besides perhaps Nebraska. Every other school is AAU and in the USNWR top 100. It shows emphasis on academics that the other conferences don't have.

 

[mdk01]

Academics is more like the middle school lunch room than they like to think.

Ouch! But hilarious and on point.

 

[Eagleton96]

Were we forced out of the local library agreement with Princeton, Columbia etc? That would be pretty petty just for joining the B1G.

It's been a long time since I was staff or student at Rutgers so I don't know. But I assume it's still there.

 

[HeavenUniv.]

Even though Nebraska is at the bottom of the Big Ten, they are still ranked number 306 in the world ahead of other schools that some would consider “better.” Rutgers is the number 50 university in the world. The Big Ten schools are far ahead of the SEC schools in overall rankings.

 

[Eagleton96]

Don't you think that is important?

In the very competitive race to earn major research grants you might want to assume the scientists and grant givers are entirely objective in their decisions. But they are human too. Big name researchers at big name schools get the lion's share of the money.

You don't think highly sought after potential faculty members aren't aware of the "street cred" (I know the academicians would never admit to thinking that way) of the institution and colleagues recruiting them as evidenced by their ability to score big research funding?

It's all about who you hang with, are you at the cool table, or lower down the hierarchy. Academics is more like the middle school lunch room than they like to think. Except the researchers are vying for tens of millions of dollars.

I'd say our membership in the Alliance is very valuable in direct benefits and priceless in secondary effects.

I do think it's important. Not so much in terms of actual ability to get research dollars. But in terms of general academic prestige of the institutions in the league I think it's a pretty big deal.

There are many top institutions outside of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Many many more outside it than are in it. So many that it doesn't matter. Between the Ivy league, MIT, CIT, top Pac 10 schools, and on and on. Universities and researchers are adept at teaming up with the other relevant players in each field, they don't need a sports conference to tell them who to work with. Similarly, large funders really don't care about a sports conference affiliation. If researchers at RU are forming a team to go for a huge grant, they will look at Stanford, Princeton, or wherever based 100% on academic issues and 0% on who is in the Big 10. I feel confident of that. Ok, maybe it's 99%/1%.

Similarly, top academics will have no problem going to UNC, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, as opposed to Rutgers or Illinois. Rutgers was known as a good R1 university prior to the Big Ten. Nothing really has changed.

Where I do think it makes a difference is if the Big Ten really tries to differentiate itself with the SEC as being the academically elite alternative. The SEC become the party schools to the Big Ten's "good schools". That's less about research dollars and more about student recruitment and general prestige, which is huge for colleges.

 

[srru86]

Where I do think it makes a difference is if the Big Ten really tries to differentiate itself with the SEC as being the academically elite alternative. The SEC become the party schools to the Big Ten's "good schools". That's less about research dollars and more about student recruitment and general prestige, which is huge for colleges.

That's very true also.

 

[RUTGERS95]

It's been a long time since I was staff or student at Rutgers so I don't know. But I assume it's still there.

It was when I was teaching in the Grad Program last (5yrs ago)

 

[MidwestKnights]

A lot has been made of the Big Ten Academic Alliance as an advantage to schools joining the B1G. But what is it really? I was curious (as someone that worked in a research center at Rutgers and other places) what it really amounted to. I always suspected that the answer is not much. Or at least, less than it would seem given all attention paid to it.

So I dug in a little and looked. The short answer is that I think it's just not a big deal in terms of actual research or money, and it's mostly about prestige and branding at this point.

So what does the Alliance offer:

- Reciprocal library agreements. - All big schools have these. Prior to the Big Ten Rutgers had similar agreements with Princeton, Columbia, and a bunch of other schools already.
- Coop purchasing agreement. - Rutgers was already part of a number of state and national purchasing coops that has as much purchasing power as the Alliance.
- Training courses for academic administrators. - OK, but not a big deal.
- Some other data sharing agreements. - Again, lots of researchers and universities share data. In academia you have to share data anyway.
- Opportunity to collaborate on research and grants. - Rutgers and all the big research universities, and any good research lab or professor, collaborate with whomever they want, whenever they want, based on who the best researchers are. They form teams based on who they want to work with, and who the people are that have the big famous publications. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the Alliance would ever change any decision on who researchers collaborate with on their projects.

So there is nothing here that I can see that Rutgers didn't already have. Does anyone with some first hand experience have anything they can add to this?

I think that the Big Ten is going to be positioning itself as the elite academic alternative to the SEC. And I think that's really smart as prestige is everything to a university. But in terms of big dollars flowing from the Academic Alliance that outweighs sports considerations, I'm not seeing it yet.

It starts from the fact that these are all big (very big) public research universities, most of which are the land grant schools of their state. So they have similar missions and responsibilities, have similar institutional profiles, similar research profiles, and are among the top universities in the world. It's a grouping of peers that have built trust over time. It starts there.

Then you get into the budget dollars and cost savings.

Then the research collaborations --- the BIG AA has a common data infrastructure open only to members that allows high speed data transfers and common administration of a backbone that connects all the members. So yeah different labs, centers, and professors could partner with UCLA and Princeton (and do), but there would be additional costs associated with building out the data infrastructure(s) that supports each individual research project. For big projects like the cancer consortium, it allows for common protocols and administration as well as ease of use and data/info sharing.

Grants & Research Funding come next. In addition to research dollars from peer-reviewed grants, there are always funds awarded directly from foundations and the federal government to support various projects and establish various centers. Give the collective size and reputation of the BIG AA schools, they can often successfully lobby and negotiate for these indirect funds, which may not always be measured as research or grant allocations.

The BIG schools all lobby together in D.C. Traditionally Rutgers and Princeton partnered and shared an office in D.C. Now Rutgers runs with the BIG dogs and it is apparently night and day in terms of when, how quickly, and whose doors open. Rutgers has the added benefit now of doing government affairs with the Ivy League (through Princeton) and the BIG 10. For Rutgers and NJ that's a unique advantage no one else has.

Administrative and leadership development. The BIG works collectively to develop people and capacity for administration and leadership: https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/pur...mic-alliance-academic-leadership-program.html

Students and Faculty: Exchanges, shared classrooms and credits and so forth. For instance Indiana will teach online courses in Tibetan open to students at other schools, Rutgers might teach Hebrew or Hungarian, Wisconsin or Michigan will teach Persian. Students at schools that don't offer these languages can take them through the BIG schools that do.

Alumni: TBD. But generally outside the BIG region and big cities like NYC, the schools alumni group together a bit and run joint career fairs and the like.

 

[rufancoe00]

FWIW, Faculty in the engineering school that I have had discussions with say that there is much more collaboration between the Big Ten engineering programs than they had prior to joining and many have seen it as a big plus

 

[Eagleton96]

FWIW, Faculty in the engineering school that I have had discussions with say that there is much more collaboration between the Big Ten engineering programs than they had prior to joining and many have seen it as a big plus

Good data point. Thanks.

 

[djrc89]

It’s interesting. Seems like some of these southern schools are becoming way more popular and way more selective. I know a ton of kids who apply to Clemson and Georgia etc and can’t get in. You’d think that would correlate to academics

 

[srru86]

It’s interesting. Seems like some of these southern schools are becoming way more popular and way more selective. I know a ton of kids who apply to Clemson and Georgia etc and can’t get in. You’d think that would correlate to academics

Funny why kids pick a school. When I used to be a non-academic employee at a NJ State college I asked a kid who was a real leader and star on campus why she picked the school (assuming she had other options like RU and others). Her response was "In the newly built dorms I only had to share a bathroom with one other person".

 

[Eagleton96]

Funny why kids pick a school. When I used to be a non-academic employee at a NJ State college I asked a kid who was a real leader and star on campus why she picked the school (assuming she had other options like RU and others). Her response was "In the newly built dorms I only had to share a bathroom with one other person".

Georgia and Clemson are both good schools generally comparable to Rutgers and other Big Ten schools.

 

[Scarlet Jerry]

I’m working on a project about Rutgers, and I went to Princeton two years ago and was able to get a library card just by showing my Rutgers library card. It’s an alumni card because I graduated over 30 years ago.

I also live in New York State, which allows me to get a New York Public a library card. That trumps any other university library card when it comes to accessing research collections!

Scarlet Jerry

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

it is a big deal for RBHS for Rutgers.