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SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next decade

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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby AfricanMustang » Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:55 am

tristatecoog wrote:Dobbs' mother retired from United Parcel Service (UPS) as a region manager in corporate human resources and his father is a senior vice president for Wells Fargo bank. Not too shabby.

Between 1983 and 2007, SMU never ranked in the top 50.
https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2017 ... 1983-2007/

A&M ranked as low as #48 in 2002. It spent much of the past decade no better than tied with SMU.

Which universities have performed quite a bit better than SMU since 1995? Northeastern is a specific example but their sports are terrible. USC is another example. They were in the low 40s from 1995-2000 and have ranked #21-27 since 2007.


Alec Pierce is pretty nonchalant about all he’s accomplished as a student at the University of Cincinnati.

Completing a challenging five-year engineering degree in less than four years? Yup. Gaining national attention as a wide receiver on the Bearcats football team? Cool. Prepping for the NFL Scouting Combine after graduating this December? Nice.

Pierce came to UC after graduating from Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn outside Chicago. He excelled on the football field in high school, but he also found success in other sports. His team won a state championship in volleyball and he set records in relays and the triple jump on the track team. His speed and agility — and vertical — have served him well as a wide receiver for the Bearcats.

Pierce comes from a family of athletes. His dad played football and his mom played volleyball, both for Northwestern University. Older brother Justin played basketball for University of North Carolina and younger brother Caden is committed to play basketball at Princeton.

Math and science always came easily to Pierce and in high school he discovered a passion for physics. He was set on studying mechanical engineering in college, so UC’s highly regarded College of Engineering and Applied Science and top five-ranked co-op program hit the mark.

“UC offered me late in the recruiting process. I didn’t know much about it until I came on an official visit,” Pierce said. “It was a good atmosphere, the guys on the team are great and engineering is a great program, so UC had everything I was looking for.”

https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2021/1 ... field.html
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby AfricanMustang » Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:38 am

AfricanMustang wrote:
tristatecoog wrote:Dobbs' mother retired from United Parcel Service (UPS) as a region manager in corporate human resources and his father is a senior vice president for Wells Fargo bank. Not too shabby.

Between 1983 and 2007, SMU never ranked in the top 50.
https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2017 ... 1983-2007/

A&M ranked as low as #48 in 2002. It spent much of the past decade no better than tied with SMU.

Which universities have performed quite a bit better than SMU since 1995? Northeastern is a specific example but their sports are terrible. USC is another example. They were in the low 40s from 1995-2000 and have ranked #21-27 since 2007.


Alec Pierce is pretty nonchalant about all he’s accomplished as a student at the University of Cincinnati.

Completing a challenging five-year engineering degree in less than four years? Yup. Gaining national attention as a wide receiver on the Bearcats football team? Cool. Prepping for the NFL Scouting Combine after graduating this December? Nice.

Pierce came to UC after graduating from Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn outside Chicago. He excelled on the football field in high school, but he also found success in other sports. His team won a state championship in volleyball and he set records in relays and the triple jump on the track team. His speed and agility — and vertical — have served him well as a wide receiver for the Bearcats.

Pierce comes from a family of athletes. His dad played football and his mom played volleyball, both for Northwestern University. Older brother Justin played basketball for University of North Carolina and younger brother Caden is committed to play basketball at Princeton.

Math and science always came easily to Pierce and in high school he discovered a passion for physics. He was set on studying mechanical engineering in college, so UC’s highly regarded College of Engineering and Applied Science and top five-ranked co-op program hit the mark.

“UC offered me late in the recruiting process. I didn’t know much about it until I came on an official visit,” Pierce said. “It was a good atmosphere, the guys on the team are great and engineering is a great program, so UC had everything I was looking for.”

https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2021/1 ... field.html


In high school, Ryan Royer was sure of two things: he wanted to play college football and he wanted to be an engineer. Undeterred by the hard work that both of his passions required, Royer is now entering his final year as a linebacker for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and he will earn his mechanical engineering degree this spring.

A love for football runs in the family. Royer’s younger brother plays for Brown University (where he is also majoring in engineering) and his father played for Ohio State.

Royer’s interest in engineering grew from his aptitude for math and the four-year pre-engineering program offered at his high school, Hilliard Davidson, located outside of Columbus.
“The program in my high school is top notch and I fell in love with engineering after my freshman year. I was like, alright this is pretty cool, I know I want to be an engineer at 15 years old. I don't have to worry about any of the stresses that come with picking a major in college,” he said.

And when it came time to choose a college, UC rose to the top of the list — for the football program and for the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2021/0 ... ering.html
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby orguy » Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:55 pm

Great profile. Some of these student athletes are amazing. Not only do they have incredible time management skills but it appears many have outstanding high school backgrounds in Math and
Science which helps them once they arrive on campus.

UC does have a good E school. Neil Armstrong spent the last years of his life teaching Aerospace Engineering there.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby SoCal_Pony » Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:49 pm

MV pony wrote:Thinks? Next decade? Memphis expects to reach it this year. What has Turner really done at SMU during his tenure? I'm asking about positive things. I already have a long list of negatives.


Memphis just achieved R1 status.

Yes, we are a decade (minimum) behind schedule.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby CBpony » Thu Dec 16, 2021 4:28 pm

Baylor just received it as well. We are slugs
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby deucetz » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:04 pm

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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby tristatecoog » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:11 pm

https://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/new ... tatus.html

"In 2021, U of Memphis made a request for the state of Tennessee to support a $50 million research endowment fund, to sustain and accelerate research growth."

It helps to have state support and also to have a medical school. While Memphis doesn't have one, similarly ranked Texas Tech does.

Schools are only able to move up to R1 status every three years and only three schools moved up this year.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby deucetz » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:26 pm

While what you stated is true, UTSA, Baylor and Memphis do not have a medical school.

SMU should be able to address this with our new Moody graduate school, but SMU should have emphasized our lack of research long ago. Our alums can’t act like SMU is better than many Texas based colleges and universities, without being able to back it up with higher US News rankings and designations like this by Carnegie.

At the same time, lower research activity does not mean our academics are bad. Williams College and Amherst aren’t R1, but they have better academics than most of R1 universities. The issue is SMU is trying to be a research university, and we are failing to meet the highest standards as a research university. All of our aspirational schools that are private universities have the designation of R1. SMU isn’t attracting enough serious research professors or grant dollars. We need new leadership and board that has a vision to improve SMU academics, endowment, student experience, and sports. Again, SMU has failed to leverage being in Dallas and our proximity to Fortune 500 corps.

365 Sports Podcast discuss how academics help P5 in football below:
https://youtu.be/v7l8GbRXR38
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby orguy » Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:13 pm

deucetz wrote:While what you stated is true, UTSA, Baylor and Memphis do not have a medical school.

SMU should be able to address this with our new Moody graduate school, but SMU should have emphasized our lack of research long ago. Our alums can’t act like SMU is better than many Texas based colleges and universities, without being able to back it up with higher US News rankings and designations like this by Carnegie.

At the same time, lower research activity does not mean our academics are bad. Williams College and Amherst aren’t R1, but they have better academics than most of R1 universities. The issue is SMU is trying to be a research university, and we are failing to meet the highest standards as a research university. All of our aspirational schools that are private universities have the designation of R1. SMU isn’t attracting enough serious research professors or grant dollars. We need new leadership and board that has a vision to improve SMU academics, endowment, student experience, and sports. Again, SMU has failed to leverage being in Dallas and our proximity to Fortune 500 corps.

365 Sports Podcast discuss how academics help P5 in football below:
https://youtu.be/v7l8GbRXR38


Research activity is what the school needs to increase in the US News rankings. The only rankings
that count frankly. Science and Engineering have never been popular majors at SMU simply b/c they are rigorous and difficult. If SMU wants to be taken seriously then it will have to address this. Too many kids major in Business or Communications arts because they are easy relatively speaking. If SMU desires Tier 1 status the path is clear. To increase Research dollars flowing into the University it must attract more academically motivated students who can handle the demands of these majors.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby deucetz » Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:53 pm

orguy wrote:
deucetz wrote:While what you stated is true, UTSA, Baylor and Memphis do not have a medical school.

SMU should be able to address this with our new Moody graduate school, but SMU should have emphasized our lack of research long ago. Our alums can’t act like SMU is better than many Texas based colleges and universities, without being able to back it up with higher US News rankings and designations like this by Carnegie.

At the same time, lower research activity does not mean our academics are bad. Williams College and Amherst aren’t R1, but they have better academics than most of R1 universities. The issue is SMU is trying to be a research university, and we are failing to meet the highest standards as a research university. All of our aspirational schools that are private universities have the designation of R1. SMU isn’t attracting enough serious research professors or grant dollars. We need new leadership and board that has a vision to improve SMU academics, endowment, student experience, and sports. Again, SMU has failed to leverage being in Dallas and our proximity to Fortune 500 corps.

365 Sports Podcast discuss how academics help P5 in football below:
https://youtu.be/v7l8GbRXR38


Research activity is what the school needs to increase in the US News rankings. The only rankings
that count frankly. Science and Engineering have never been popular majors at SMU simply b/c they are rigorous and difficult. If SMU wants to be taken seriously then it will have to address this. Too many kids major in Business or Communications arts because they are easy relatively speaking. If SMU desires Tier 1 status the path is clear. To increase Research dollars flowing into the University it must attract more academically motivated students who can handle the demands of these majors.


Correlation does not imply causation.

US News Report and research are two separate topics. Increased research does not cause an increase US News ranking--or else Baylor, UTSA, and Memphis would be ranked higher than SMU. US News is broken up between National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges. National Universities are defined as "National Universities offer a full range of undergraduate majors as well as master's and doctoral degrees. In many cases, they place strong emphasis on research and receive federal money to support their research endeavors," while Liberal Arts College are defined as "National Liberal Arts Colleges emphasize undergraduate education. To be included in this category, colleges must award at least 50% of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines, such as languages and literature, biology and life sciences, philosophy, cultural studies and psychology." Williams and Amherst are highly ranked Liberal Arts Colleges, but National Universities rankings are considered more prestigious of the two rankings.

Our low US News National University ranking is because SMU doesn't focus on the ranking methodology. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-c ... e-rankings . Compared to our aspirational schools, SMU has a poor graduation and retention rate, social mobility, undergraduate reputation, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources per student, average alumni giving, and graduate indebtedness.

We need to increase both the US News ranking and research to improve. I agree Science and Engineering should increase. Instead of fountains and parking garages, we should have built more science and engineering buildings. Parking should have gone across 75, while land was cheap. Students could have just taken an SMU shuttle on campus.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby SMU Pom Mom » Fri Dec 17, 2021 11:58 pm

UNLV is a relatively new school, with no academic reputation, and no money. I went back to school for a masters a few years ago and not a day went by without hearing about the Top Tier Initiative. These folks were relentless. In the last ten years they expanded graduate programs, started a med school, increased research output, got their first US News ranking, and in 2018 got the R1 designation. Also, they did this while the Board of Regents was actively working against them for political reasons. Here is how they did it. Not all of it is relevant to SMU's circumstances, but there are some good ideas here that SMU should take to heart.

https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi ... blications
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby orguy » Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:04 pm

Different dynamics at a school like UNLV. SMU is private. Not to excuse the Board and Turner
though. Not likely these folks change their approach anytime soon or study another private
institutions model for improving our US News ranking. Until Turner is gone and the board is
composed of more hardcore academic types instead of car dealers things will remain the same
as the slide continues.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Sun Dec 19, 2021 7:21 pm

There’s no excuse except we all know Turner runs the show and there seems to be no level of expectations set upon him with regards to our rankings or research status.
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby ponyboy » Tue Dec 21, 2021 8:56 pm

How does research help us accomplish our mission?
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Re: SMU thinks can reach Carnegie R1 status in the next deca

Postby Mustangs_Maroons » Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:05 pm

I think research is absolutely key to having SMU accomplish its mission of being a top tier academic university. We need a budget to attract top-ranked professors, that in turn attracts top-ranked graduate students and top-caliber UG students, our rankings will go up because our peer perception increases, the more research one has increased the overall reputation of the school, we’ll get more students interested in the university which means we can be more selective and the retention rates increase and acceptance rates decrease. Over time we’ll get more federal funding grants and this will help maintain our momentum. It is absolutely vital for our academic mission - which should be the most important mission. We can do much better and we need to do much better. Dallas and the metroplex need a top-tier academic institution - every other major metro area has it.
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