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TU slipping more than sports

It's a web page. They're not going to list every little thing they're trying to do to make that main point happen. It's bad practice because the avg attention span for an adult on a web page is about 3 seconds. You've got 3 seconds with the headline to make them click in for more info. If they do, you have about 10-15 seconds to capture them with the info behind the link, so you better make the 1st 2 sentences good if you want them to read further
I get that but exactly as you said. You have about 3 seconds to get the headline and make them click for more info. Click click click click click....nothing there.
 
I would love to see TU grow into a research institution of the magnitude that spawns startups and draws businesses to the city, but there are a number of pretty significant hurdles to that goal. The first is obviously the investment. The school won't be dropping $300 million to build a synchrotron any time soon. But even if they did, you'd need a paradigm shift in the type of research that the majority of TU faculty currently specialize in and you'd need to offload some of their teaching duties to grad students and give them appropriate bandwidth for writing grants and attending conferences. In my opinion, this is almost always a detriment to the undergraduate experience. That population now spends more time with TAs/grad students and there are fewer direct research opportunities available to them. And that whole system is dependent on getting highly-capable grad students that you effectively pay pennies, which is a much bigger challenge than attracting undergrads. In fact, the only real structural advantage I see is cost-of-living. Especially for post-docs. Those positions pay laughably small salaries and are disproportionately concentrated in expensive cities. One lab at MIT offered me $25k/year, which far as I could tell wasn't enough to even afford rent anywhere near campus. So maybe the sales pitch is "Come to Tulsa and you won't have to literally sleep in the lab". But you obviously still need to be offering prestigious research opportunities to draw candidates for those positions. I'm not saying it's impossible or that it's not a laudable goal. But I'm skeptical.
 
I would love to see TU grow into a research institution of the magnitude that spawns startups and draws businesses to the city, but there are a number of pretty significant hurdles to that goal. The first is obviously the investment. The school won't be dropping $300 million to build a synchrotron any time soon. But even if they did, you'd need a paradigm shift in the type of research that the majority of TU faculty currently specialize in and you'd need to offload some of their teaching duties to grad students and give them appropriate bandwidth for writing grants and attending conferences. In my opinion, this is almost always a detriment to the undergraduate experience. That population now spends more time with TAs/grad students and there are fewer direct research opportunities available to them. And that whole system is dependent on getting highly-capable grad students that you effectively pay pennies, which is a much bigger challenge than attracting undergrads. In fact, the only real structural advantage I see is cost-of-living. Especially for post-docs. Those positions pay laughably small salaries and are disproportionately concentrated in expensive cities. One lab at MIT offered me $25k/year, which far as I could tell wasn't enough to even afford rent anywhere near campus. So maybe the sales pitch is "Come to Tulsa and you won't have to literally sleep in the lab". But you obviously still need to be offering prestigious research opportunities to draw candidates for those positions. I'm not saying it's impossible or that it's not a laudable goal. But I'm skeptical.
So was Levit.
 
I would love to see TU grow into a research institution of the magnitude that spawns startups and draws businesses to the city, but there are a number of pretty significant hurdles to that goal. The first is obviously the investment. The school won't be dropping $300 million to build a synchrotron any time soon. But even if they did, you'd need a paradigm shift in the type of research that the majority of TU faculty currently specialize in and you'd need to offload some of their teaching duties to grad students and give them appropriate bandwidth for writing grants and attending conferences. In my opinion, this is almost always a detriment to the undergraduate experience. That population now spends more time with TAs/grad students and there are fewer direct research opportunities available to them. And that whole system is dependent on getting highly-capable grad students that you effectively pay pennies, which is a much bigger challenge than attracting undergrads. In fact, the only real structural advantage I see is cost-of-living. Especially for post-docs. Those positions pay laughably small salaries and are disproportionately concentrated in expensive cities. One lab at MIT offered me $25k/year, which far as I could tell wasn't enough to even afford rent anywhere near campus. So maybe the sales pitch is "Come to Tulsa and you won't have to literally sleep in the lab". But you obviously still need to be offering prestigious research opportunities to draw candidates for those positions. I'm not saying it's impossible or that it's not a laudable goal. But I'm skeptical.
There is research in a large number of areas, many of which do not require huge capital expenditures.

But we absolutely need to put some money to such an effort. And strategically expand graduate programs in the areas where the the research investments are made.
 
So was Levit.
Well it wouldn't be possible under Levit, that's definitely for sure. But that's far different than it not being possible under anyone. It's hard to imagine a soul less well suited for building that kind of institution than Levit. But just because we couldn't win under Burns doesn't mean that TU can't compete in football, as an example...
 
I would love to see TU grow into a research institution of the magnitude that spawns startups and draws businesses to the city, but there are a number of pretty significant hurdles to that goal. The first is obviously the investment. The school won't be dropping $300 million to build a synchrotron any time soon. But even if they did, you'd need a paradigm shift in the type of research that the majority of TU faculty currently specialize in and you'd need to offload some of their teaching duties to grad students and give them appropriate bandwidth for writing grants and attending conferences. In my opinion, this is almost always a detriment to the undergraduate experience. That population now spends more time with TAs/grad students and there are fewer direct research opportunities available to them. And that whole system is dependent on getting highly-capable grad students that you effectively pay pennies, which is a much bigger challenge than attracting undergrads. In fact, the only real structural advantage I see is cost-of-living. Especially for post-docs. Those positions pay laughably small salaries and are disproportionately concentrated in expensive cities. One lab at MIT offered me $25k/year, which far as I could tell wasn't enough to even afford rent anywhere near campus. So maybe the sales pitch is "Come to Tulsa and you won't have to literally sleep in the lab". But you obviously still need to be offering prestigious research opportunities to draw candidates for those positions. I'm not saying it's impossible or that it's not a laudable goal. But I'm skeptical.
The challenge is that all the paths are difficult and risky, so it's always possible to find reasons why Hard and Rocky Path A is hard and rocky. But the alternative is Hard and Rocky Plan B and it's easy to show why it's hard and rocky too, so we have to settle for a plan that has risks (for example, for Levit's votech model, top professors want to do research and get paid well so if research isn't valued then we'll end up with 2nd or lower tier professors whose teaching wouldn't be that much better than smart grad students, and the non-research model is lower profit, which means lower paid professors and more pressure for lower quality and heavy reliance on adjuncts, who, well, get paid even less than TAs! And will often be worse teachers than a smart TA, you'll have adjuncts teaching at TU on MWF and TCC on TTh, which sets up a death spiral where it's harder and harder to deliver value to students and thus harder and harder to get them to pay a lot, until you're charging the same as OSU but without state support, and so on).

Whatever the path, we need to be clear about the goal. People say "we can't compete with MIT and Stanford on research so we will fail". But will we? That's like "if we can't beat Alabama most years, we might as well drop football". But is there a more modest vision of success that is realistic and more achievable, that we all agree is valuable and sustainable? Maybe 15% of MIT, making up a number, but still worth doing?

And as the always astute boobay says, maybe focus initially on lower cost research, not nuclear fusion where you need a half mile linear accelerator or whatever. Do you know how much has been invested in educational tech (ed Tech) and health and wellness tech companies in the last 5 years? An astronomical amount, think tens of billions, with a "B". And those can come out of dpts with modest needs like psychology, teaching and nursing, as long as there's a strong computer science program. I mention those only b/c I know about them but I'm sure there are plenty like that.
 
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The challenge is that all the paths are difficult and risky, so it's always possible to find reasons why Hard and Rocky Path A is hard and rocky. But the alternative is Hard and Rocky Plan B and it's easy to show why it's hard and rocky too, so we have to settle for a plan that has risks (for example, for Levit's votech model, top professors want to do research and get paid well so if research isn't valued then we'll end up with 2nd or lower tier professors whose teaching wouldn't be that much better than smart grad students, and the non-research model is lower profit, which means lower paid professors and more pressure for lower quality and heavy reliance on adjuncts, who, well, get paid even less than TAs! And will often be worse teachers than a smart TA, you'll have adjuncts teaching at TU on MWF and TCC on TTh, which sets up a death spiral where it's harder and harder to deliver value to students and thus harder and harder to get them to pay a lot, until you're charging the same as OSU but without state support, and so on).

Whatever the path, we need to be clear about the goal. People say "we can't compete with MIT and Stanford on research so we will fail". But will we? That's like "if we can't beat Alabama most years, we might as well drop football". But is there a more modest vision of success that is realistic and more achievable, that we all agree is valuable and sustainable? Maybe 15% of MIT, making up a number, but still worth doing?

And as the always astute boobay says, maybe focus initially on lower cost research, not nuclear fusion where you need a half mile linear accelerator or whatever. Do you know how much has been invested in educational tech (ed Tech) and health and wellness tech companies in the last 5 years? An astronomical amount, think tens of billions, with a "B". And those can come out of dpts with modest needs like psychology, teaching and nursing, as long as there's a strong computer science program. I mention those only b/c I know about them but I'm sure there are plenty like that.
I guess the other benefit of a research model is that if you have some successful companies, you might develop the next generation of donors. A good but not great exit gives founders something like $20m - $30m in payout after 4 - 7 years and connections to top investment opportunities (there's a reason that they rich get richer a lot faster than anyone else).
 
If we are talking about improving the link between TU and the city or metro area, I wonder if TU has considered a financial incentive for local students to attend. In philosophy it could be a lot like in-state tuition functions to encourage students to attend university but couldn't be as rich. For example - something like a 20% tuition reduction for anyone with proven residence of X years in certain zip codes who are admitted? I know this is slightly off topic, but I've not heard of this being discussed.
 
If we are talking about improving the link between TU and the city or metro area, I wonder if TU has considered a financial incentive for local students to attend. In philosophy it could be a lot like in-state tuition functions to encourage students to attend university but couldn't be as rich. For example - something like a 20% tuition reduction for anyone with proven residence of X years in certain zip codes who are admitted? I know this is slightly off topic, but I've not heard of this being discussed.
I know at least when I went there that if you were within an X amount of miles of the university you did not have to live on campus the first year. I lived at the time just over 2 miles away and could have used this to save money. However, I wanted to be out of the parent's roof to spread my wings a bit lol.
 
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I know at least when I went there that if you were within an X amount of miles of the university you did not have to live on campus the first year. I lived at the time just over 2 miles away and could have used this to save money. However, I wanted to be out of the parent's roof to spread my wings a bit lol.
Student living within 20 miles can be exempt from the housing and dining plans, which are required for the first two years.
 
If we are talking about improving the link between TU and the city or metro area, I wonder if TU has considered a financial incentive for local students to attend. In philosophy it could be a lot like in-state tuition functions to encourage students to attend university but couldn't be as rich. For example - something like a 20% tuition reduction for anyone with proven residence of X years in certain zip codes who are admitted? I know this is slightly off topic, but I've not heard of this being discussed.
LOL, you're just suggesting this for a friend, no self-interest involved :)
 
Wrong. Though I think the odds of my 17 year old wanting university in OK or any bordering state < 5%.
Both of mine never looked at another school. Each were granted additional funding just by writing a short essay about their interest in TU so being local does help.

The girl told about waving her blue and gold poms at the stadium and the boy wrote about Trey Watts and UCF. I never knew that Tulsa Football could save me some money.
 
Both of mine never looked at another school. Each were granted additional funding just by writing a short essay about their interest in TU so being local does help.

The girl told about waving her blue and gold poms at the stadium and the boy wrote about Trey Watts and UCF. I never knew that Tulsa Football could save me some money.
You are fortunate! She is a great gal but wants to get away - preferably near a beach:)
 
Both of mine never looked at another school. Each were granted additional funding just by writing a short essay about their interest in TU so being local does help.

The girl told about waving her blue and gold poms at the stadium and the boy wrote about Trey Watts and UCF. I never knew that Tulsa Football could save me some money.
Babe, not sure if you'd heard yet but TU's School of Music just announced a partnership with the Tulsa Symphony where members of the symphony will teach master classes for music and the Symphona and TU orchestra will have joint concerts a couple of times a year and the symphony also performing a chamber concert series on campus. Hopefully this type of opportunity attracts some more students to the music programs at TU.
 
Babe, not sure if you'd heard yet but TU's School of Music just announced a partnership with the Tulsa Symphony where members of the symphony will teach master classes for music and the Symphona and TU orchestra will have joint concerts a couple of times a year and the symphony also performing a chamber concert series on campus. Hopefully this type of opportunity attracts some more students to the music programs at TU.
That’s some good info, thanks for sharing. This is a good start and every thing does help.
 
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