Perceived Differences Between Chicago and other Elite Universities

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
41

I think that UChicago should continue her innovations, and hire someone like her to push the envelope a little bit more (and if they leave for Harvard after a decade, fine.):

I think they should broadcast UChicago games anyway. It does not have to be ESPN… YouTube or Tiktok is fine. Just find an enterprising student (or group) who wants to be a reporter and give him and his cameraman the freedom and access to do their thing. Imagine if there are 20 YouTube channels (for for the 20 varsity sports that are as popular as chocopuffeater’s admission vlog!

42

^ What’s to prevent a student from doing that anyway, @FStratford?

My impression is that there just isn’t a ton of student interest in athletics on campus. Could be wrong, obviously. But most people tend not to associate UChicago with “athletics.”

Once upon a time, “athletics” was a supplement to a top collegiate education at Chicago. Why should this be any different now? I’d argue that it’s the purpose of collegiate athletics that has changed over the years, not UChicago’s participation in them.

43

Such interesting comments and analysis on this thread!

I agree with @Zoom10 carefully laid out plan, except for the part about athletics, b/c…

D1 athletics is just way, way too costly and risky. Sure, I’d love to see Chicago compete in the Big 10, but let’s be clear, to field competitive teams, Chicago would need to invest $1-1.5B. The football program alone could cost $300-$400M (to build a top-class stadium and training facility, recruit, give out scholarships, pay a coach, etc.). Then, building a top-flight D1 field house, upgrading all the sports facilities to top D1 levels, paying athletic scholarships, paying D1 coaches, etc. It’s just a ton of expenses, for unpredictable gains.

Instead, in terms of a strategic plan, I see it like this:

Goal: Universal recognition as a world-class, comprehensive research U

Plan:

1.) Increase the endowment (the next $10B campaign is a must – the prior $5B campaign should just be an appetizer)

2.) Increase Compsci’s standing AND start a world-class engineering school – ideally, with a $500M-$750M gift, Chicago could create a small engineering school from the ground up. Engineering seems to be a necessity today. Not having an engineering school deflates application #s and makes some students look elsewhere. Heck, even Swarthmore has an engineering program.

3.) Pour resources into the medical plant: expand research footprint, get the hospital back in the top 10-20 in the nation, and the med school into the top 5-10. Prominence in STEM is key for a 21st century research U, and Chicago isn’t up to snuff yet to be H and S class at this point. Invest at least $2-$2.5B for the expansion and recruitment of top talent.

4.) Establish top 5 standing in D3 sports - get to the Williams level here. Make it clear that at Chicago, excellence in any endeavor is expected. If Chicago chooses to compete on the D3 level, be firm: the expectation is excellence.

5.) Innovate to increase brand strength: I keep this vague, but, essentially, I’d like Chicago to earmark $500-$750M purely to broaden brand awareness.

*** Establish a central office concerned only with brand awareness. This office can serve as the U.'s internal think tank to stay ahead of the curve and keep UChicago in the social consciousness. To do this, the office will need money - lots and lots of money (e.g., hundreds of millions) to spend.

This office could then try to:

  • Build thinktanks and institutes across the country. Essentially, "plant flags" across the U.S. - have University of Chicago centers across the U.S. - in LA, NYC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Houston, the Southeast, etc. These venues could function both as intellectual centers and event spaces. Constantly bring people in to the spaces, have lectures, host events for different groups, bring in high schoolers, etc.

At these think tanks, promote key Chicago initiatives. For instance, bring the UChicago Crime Lab to NYC, LA, Houston, Atlanta, etc. Have UChicago Institute of Politics events in DC, NYC, across the U.S. etc.

  • Building UChicago community centers in impoverished areas across the U.S. Have them focus on learning, and also offer community benefits (sports programs, recreation, etc.). Huge goodwill generation possible here.

[In COVID times - spend to broaden the virtual footprint of the school. Not sure how to do this, but social media, programming, sponsorship of shows, etc.]

  • Establish an expansive program of middle and high school related awards. From inner city schools to prep schools, established "University of Chicago" awards across the nation, for excellence in academics.
  • Do some straight up marketing - advertise and sponsor orchestras, ballgames, museums, movies, etc. Strike an exclusive deal to be the "official university" for the next 10 Marvel superhero films - just some out-of-the-box marketing
  • Establish institutes of sports analytics: instead of building a D1 program, invest in analysis of sport. Have these centers throughout Europe and the U.S. In essence, partner with the Bears, Manchester United, the Yankees, the Lakers, etc.
  • Have big annual events right on campus: host the heisman awards, be a part of the NFL draft, political debates, etc. Pay to get these events on campus (or in conjunction with the U.) Have this *every* year, so people expect these events to happen at Chicago.

We could do all of the above for probably half the cost of starting a good (not even great) D1 sports program. I’d rather do the above than field a bunch of D1 mediocre sports teams.

Thoughts?

44

Cue 7, you state that you wish Chicago had more universal recognition, so I assume you would agree with me that rejoining D1/Big 10 would greatly help achieve this correct? Note that I am not asking whether you agree or disagree with how this might affect the serious intellectual vibe of Chicago, instead I am strongly arguing that this move would undoubtedly greatly enhance Chicago’s universal recognition which you and many others (maybe except Marlowe1) would welcome.

To others who are opposed to Chicago moving to D1 sports for a variety of reasons, I am sure you also realize that this would not be radically contrary to Chicago’s history. In fact, Chicago was a national athletic powerhouse during the pinnacle of its prestige at the turn of the 20th Century when Chicago, Harvard, and maybe Columbia were the undisputed most prestigious universities in America (Stanford was not remotely in the picture until the mid-1900s). Although one cannot definitively claim a causal relationship between Chicago’s loss of prestige and its withdrawal from the Big 10, I will nevertheless asset that there is some (strong) degree of causality between these 2 events. Therefore, instead of characterizing rejoining D1 sports as some kind of horrible abandonment of academic principles, one should ask why the hell did Chicago make the tragic mistake it did in the 1940s, and why shouldn’t it try to rectify that mistake going forward. All of its peers (yes, even MIT who takes great pride in being excellent at sports in D3) value their sports highly whether or not they are nationally competitive, and there is no reason UChicago should do so any less, particularly if its goal is to become more universally recognized. Rejoining the Big 10 would give Chicago a nationally prestigious athletic platform that is second to none (equal to SEC) and far greater than what Stanford or Harvard can reap from their memberships in the Pac 12 or Ivy League. Not to mention that this would also increase school spirit and pride among students and alumni to varying degrees, which would in turn help with fundraising for annual giving endowment. Just because some students and alumni don’t care too much for sports and would prefer to spend all their time discussing Kant (these students and alums exist at all of Chicago’s peers too), that is a terrible reason not to consider the immense positive benefits of a D1 program.

45

@Zoom10 - sure, going back to the Big 10 would be nice, but it’s way to costly and risky. Again, I estimate, to establish good (not great) D1 programs would cost at least $1-1.5B. And that’s a FLOOR. To build top-flight football and basketball arenas and training facilities would easily cost $500-$600M alone. And that’s before you recruit players, pay top-flight coaches salaries, establish top-flight training facilities for other sports (tennis, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, etc.).

It’s way too expensive and risky. AND, Chicago could do all this, and very well could be a tomato can - beat up every year by the Wisconsins and Ohio States of the world.

Honestly, Chicago would gain more positive recognition by paying Disney/Marvel $250M to be featured smartly and heavily in the next ten Marvel films. It would literally be a fraction of the cost, for more returns.

In total, I think my plan in post #42 offers better returns.

Thoughts?

46

Cue7, I love your expansion of my proposals! I forgot to mention improving the standing of the medical school, and fully agree with you on that. Chicago’s medical school is not bad by any means, but it should aim to be Top 5 (or at least Top 10) just like its law and business schools are. It’s far more expensive to improve the ranking of a medical school but we should expect nothing less from the Board and administration.

Building the endowment and improving annual fundraising must be priority number 1 because everything other priority depends on money, but all Chicago needs to do next is improve upon or better leverage its capabilities in a few STEM areas (it is already excellent and Top 5 in many STEM areas), and enhance sports programs. I could temporarily live with Cue7’s suggestion of demanding that Chicago be Top 5 in D3 athletics (but given its size compared to liberal arts colleges and MIT , there is no reason Chicago shouldn’t try to be #1 in D3 sports), but the day Chicago rejoins the Big 10 is the day that it clearly puts Yale and Princeton in its rear view window just like it has already done with Columbia and Penn and all other former peers of the late 1990s. H and S are still in the front view of Chicago but that gap can be closed in the next 20 years.

47

@Zoom10 - nope, as I said above, rejoining the BIG 10 is far too costly and risky. It could invest half the needed cash in brand awareness, and probably see 4X the gain.

48

[QUOTE=""]
Have UChicago Polsky entrepreneurship contests across the U.S. etc. - This is already happening through the Alumni New Venture Challenge. I think its actually worldwide.

What’s to prevent a student from doing that anyway, @FStratford?

[/QUOTE]

  • I think the carrot and stick incentives are missing. e.g. access is not guaranteed, since they are not "official" reporters sanctioned by the school.

The explicit permissions are missing too. Sports, logos and events are proprietary to the school. Privacy issues need to be delineated.

And institutional support like media centers where students can edit their video or get free software and borrow video cameras (excellent pixels and zoom capability and audio pickup)

Now that I think about it, a better set-up would be to have athlete broadcasters, instead of fan-reporters… more like nileswilson and the GBR olympic team, since more than likely those who care enough about sports are those who participate in it.

49

Conspiracy Theory:

Maybe Erin McDermott was placed at Harvard as Chicago’s first move toward joining the Ivy League athletic conference.

50

@Publisher - I’ve often said, the cheapest way for chicago to increase brand awareness would be to join or create a prestigious league. If an alum offered each participating school $30M, would stanford, chicago, duke, hopkins, mit, etc not create an academic league of some sort - where students could collaborate/mingle w one another?

For the right incentive, schools would gladly band together in more intellectual ways, all to Chicago’s gain.

What would we call such a new league? (How about the “New” League?!) But no athletics, just for academic pursuits.

51

The University of Chicago has a well established brand as an intellectual powerhouse. I do not think that the University of Chicago needs to increase brand awareness as the folks who count (academics, employers & students) are already aware.

But it is fun to speculate regarding athletic league membership.

52

Back to the original thread, even from the time my DD first stepped foot on the campus UChicago’s name recognition and for what its worth “prestige” has increased exponentially. Far more people seem to recognize the name from even just a few years ago. Seemingly we can credit that mostly to Nondorf. The reality is that there are far too many awesome candidates for just H&S to accommodate (heck even the T20 schools can’t seem to accommodate all those who are qualified). This won’t change the perception that H&S are at the top of the heap perception wise, but again that is just perception.

53

Yes Chicago’s brand strength has improved, but it has a long way to go to rival H and S.

Personally, I think for most bang for buck, Chicago could sponsor and create analytics thinktanks at: Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, the Lakers, and the Yankees. There should be strong brand promotion at every game, and pub on what the thinktanks do (e.g. “Man United scouting… powered by the University of Chicago.”)

And maybe some political thinktank that’s a hub for liberals and conservatives - something that gets constant play in the nytimes and fox news.

Oh, and form an academic league with stanford, mit, and a few others (if you can’t beat 'em…). Always do recruitment events with these schools (one of Penn’s smartest moves was to travel with Harvard, Duke, and Georgetown).

I’m pretty sure all this would increase brand awareness like 10X.

This would all need to be funded by donor cash. No academic budget could go to this. But, it’d pay big dividends.

54

^ UChicago already does Coalition Ap stuff with some of those schools doesn’t it?

55

UChicago should be a natural pipeline into sports and data analytics with its heavy quant focus in all subjects and particular strengths in math, statistics, econ, and now CS and engineering.

We need to get more Chicago grads like Kim Ng (SVP at MLB), Adam Silver (NBA Commish), and Nate Silver (founder of FiveThirtyEight) into professional sports franchises and forecasting analytics because the big winners of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be the masters of AI, machine learning, robotics, and data mining.

Chicago is moving in this direction and hiring Mike Franklin from Berkeley as Chair of CS was a spectacular move by Zimmer as Franklin is a superstar in data science. Chicago has everything it needs to be a winner in AI and machine learning with all of its graduate and professional schools collaborating with CS in interdisciplinary research as well as TTIC on its campus and Argonne/Fermi labs which will soon unveil the world’s most powerful supercomputer. In some respects, this temporary economic crisis caused by Covid-19 presents a creative opportunity for Chicago to defy conventional thinking which it already does much better than its peers by investing more in targeted areas when others are budget cutting across the board.

56

@Zoom10 - totally agreed, but for the sports data analytics stuff, the Chicago brand has to be front and center (for instance, when Lebron James does his post-game analysis, he should be flanked by banners for UChicago’s analytics institutes.) IOP does a good job of this, and this should be expanded.

Anything with “analysis” for sports, politics, etc. links to Chicago’s brand.

Make UChicago synonymous with all this.

It’s not just that Chicago needs its alums out there (like Adam silver, ng, etc.), the name literally needs to be out there too.

Also, UChicago branding should be all over Bears and Bulls games, white Sox and cubs too. They should “support” these teams (with econometricians, data scientists, booth classes on financial literacy, whatever - attach to these big brands!)

The joke when I was at u of c: forget national recognition, people in the CITY of Chicago don’t know who we are! That’s better now, but still…

Also, community centers in impoverished areas are key. Who better than the University of Chicago to bolster literacy rates and math acumen across the nation?

57

A far cheaper and far more effective measure than building a Big Ten football program would be to build a first-class student symphony and musical performance program. At my kid’s academically rigorous New England boarding school, about half of the top 75 academic students in his class are also extraordinary classical musicians (many are Asian females; many are especially strong in STEM). Most of these students choose Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia over Chicago, and an important reason that they don’t seriously consider Chicago is that they believe that they could not continue to pursue music at nearly as high a level at Chicago than they can at those other schools. None of these kids plan to pursue a career in music, but music is an extremely important part of their lives, and they want to continue to engage in that activity in a very serious way.

58

@Mom2Melcs - that might improve the inputs, but has a negligible effect on universal brand awareness.

Moreover, part of Chicago’s identity is a more amateurish range of ecs.

59

Zoom, where do you get the idea that there would even be something resembling support for this endeavor among anyone in the university community? Where’s the evidence?

The one person who apparently had a vision for D1 athletics among the top research universities of the world . . . has just left for Harvard.

"“The Ivy League is a model for Division I, and Harvard already has a natural platform to be a model for other institutions. More than ever, we need to have a voice that brings in excellence in every way, and I look forward to having that strong voice.”
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/8/harvard-athletics-mcdermott-first-female-director/

Where do you see UChicago’s vision of athletics even remotely resembling Harvard’s? And then, to be competitive in the Big 10 you need a LOT more money than Harvard plows into its football and basketball programs, I’m guessing. This is precisely the reason that Hutchins and the trustees pulled UC out of the Big 10 to begin with. UChicago is not a football team with a little university education offered on the side. :wink:

@Mom2Melcs already mentioned the data that was made public from the Harvard admissions lawsuit. We should probably just let Harvard be Harvard. Not sure where UChicago is damaged by not playing D1 sports. Lack of engineering has probably done more to suppress the number of apps. :wink:

We need an expert to weigh in here. @BronxBorn ?

60

Right–I think that attracting the best (undergraduate) students is more important than “universal brand awareness.” And “amateurish” athletics is just as much a part of Chicago’s identity as “amateurish” ecs, no?