quote:
The Big Ten is the oldest Division 1 athletic conference and leads all others in total amount of research expenditures. The league is one of only two conferences (the other being the Div III University Athletic Association) in which every member institution belongs to the prestigious Association of American Universities; a collection of over 60 of the top research universities in the country. In addition, every member of the conference belongs to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) along with the University of Chicago (http://www.cic.net, 2010).
Membership in the CIC is indeed a coveted association. The CIC on average bestows 15% of the Ph.D. degrees in the United States. CIC members engage in $6 billion in funded research, receiving approximately 12 percent of the total federal research funds awarded annually (18 percent of the National Science Foundation total, and 15.7 percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture total). Collectively, CIC institutions employ more than 29,000 full- time faculty members and enroll approximately 400,000 undergraduate and graduate students. (http://www.cic.net, 2010).
to answer your question Laxtonto, no they don't have to be in both, it was just a nice bragging point for them to have. The CIC is actually more prestigious, but they were guaranteed admittance pending approval on their move to the Big 10. I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure on Nebraska to step up their academics. Dont get me wrong, their move to the Big 10 was primarily to strengthen the athletics and get them their coveted conference championship game, a move that was not unanimously agreed upon. Still, the Big 10 remains an academics first conference, I imagine they are not happy right now with this development and the wheels are turning as we speak...
[This message has been edited by Sex Panther (edited 4/29/2011 8:34p).]
