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I don't care what newspapers say about A&M. I care what industry says about A&M. And we seem to be doing alright.
the backbone of our desirability in industry is academic competitiveness. They are intertwined. And again, it is as if you think every Ag goes into industry. Step outside Zachary. There is a whole world out there.
I agree they are intertwined. But what I'm saying is industry's interpretation of our academics are more important to me than magazine interpretations. And I'd say a majority of Ags do go into industry. What's the alternative you're implying? Academia? Thats a different beast that depends more on individual departments rather than the whole school. A&M does have a leg up in many departments.
I'm not exactly sure what he means, either, but maybe you kind of hit on some of it earlier when you said we can't be compared to Harvard or Yale.
I agree, but the rub is why can't we, at least to an extent? Now, a lot of that is obvious, but schools sit along a continuum, they don't sit on opposite poles. A&M is a large public university, and with that comes some of those obvious reasons we aren't going to be Harvard and Yale. However, with a large state population and the ability to bring in some out-of-state students, we could probably strike a good balance somewhere along that continuum where we both provide opportunity for our large in-state population while also producing a level of graduate that is, in many cases, ready to go be forward thinking, inventive, leaders in industry.
Will we produce 15,000 future executives every graduating class? No, but we can sure work to create an environment where our students have a legitimate chance to learn and condition themselves to the rigor and complexities of being leaders, and not just worker bees.