Sorry cecil, disagree here. I'm not speaking to academic or athletic elitism, but class. White versus blue collar. Rah-rahing for the school or talking smack is entirely different than holding contempt for people you think are intrinsically your inferior.
There's been a couple of shifts in the university culture towards more professional and cosmopolitan careers no doubt but by and large we've produced a workforce that holds no disdain to blue collar workers. A large swath of our cultural identity as a university is centered around the idea of being servant leaders - folks who are ideal in the workforce because we are known for doing jobs that other matriculates with northeastern or left coast degrees would consider beneath themselves. I've experienced those folks in my business in New York and have peers that have to deal with that type of person daily up there.
I'm generalizing here, but the mindset that it's OK to have calloused hands is not encouraged when we're actively winnowing down the number of kids who can get in to the absolute cream of the crop. It's a different demographic you're targeting at that point.
I do not want to see TAMU-College Station morph into a coastal institution that prizes academic metrics over 'the other education' that produces graduates that are more rounded. There's a constant tug-of-war for time commitments between academics, personal pursuits and private life and in that zero-sum game if academics is made more demanding of time then I'm inclined to believe it will be the cultural identity of the university that loses out.
That's not to say that I don't want to elevate the academic profile of the university or to take students that aren't qualified. We've been on a bad trajectory over the last two to three years and it needs to be addressed and reversed, no question.
But there is a world of difference between the top public and top private universities and the grading metrics favor the private schools. We're a
Top 25 public school now. I'd like to see us move into the Top 15 or possibly Top 10 of public schools - I fully think that's possible without seriously affecting the university attitude on academic vs. personal priorities. But even the
No. 1 public school is only No. 20 overall and the distribution thereafter is nearly 2:1 private versus public schools.
Basically the takeaway is
yes, push reforms that improve our national grading
but ensure they're balanced reforms that don't undercut what's already here. Going to 35,000-40,000 total enrollment is nothing I want to see happen, it makes no sense to tear out 1/3 of the school when facilities and infrastructure are expanding dramatically. Cap it around 50-55,000 and bring the facilities under construction online, raise tuition a little and improve the student-faculty ratios. That preserves the gains we've had in facilities and economic power while improving the metrics used by the national grading houses.
We're always going to lose point because of size - we're also subject to a massive state population and a constitutionally-protected permanent endowment we don't want to breech to bring on additional state flagship schools. We're not exactly comparable to very many universities out there.