I just read the last few pages of this thread and thought I would pass along some info on the University of Missouri.
- In fall 2009, MU welcomed a record 31,314 students representing every county in Missouri, every state in the nation and more than 100 countries. This is the eighth year in a row that MU has broken numerous enrollment records
- The 2009 freshmen class boasts an average ACT score of 25.6, compared with the national average of 21.1 and the state average of 21.5. Twenty-five percent of MU freshmen come from the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
- Sixty Missouri School of Journalism students were among a select group of 300 students from around the world to serve as Olympic News Service interns during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
- The National Science Foundation has recognized MU as one of the top 10 universities in the country for successfully integrating
research into undergraduate education.
- MU has $595 million of campus improvement projects in design or construction. The latest projects include the Brady Commons expansion, the
Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (completed September 2008) and Thomas and Nell Lafferre Hall.
- The Mizzou
Student Recreation Complex is one of the 10 largest facilities of its kind in the country. MU students voted to increase their fees to pay for the $50 million complex.
- National magazines and newspapers consistently list Columbia, Mo., among the top cities in the nation for its excellent quality of life. For example,
Money magazine included Columbia in a 2006 ?Top 100 Best Places to Live? study that analyzed factors such as housing, student test scores, air quality and commute time. Also in 2006,
Forbes listed Columbia as the 16th ?Best Small Metro for Business and Careers,? the seventh year in a row Columbia has ranked in the top 60. In 2007
Forbes listed Columbia as one of the top 20 American cities to educate children.
- Thanks to the generous support of alumni and friends, the For All We Call Mizzou campaign is close to reaching the university's $1 billion goal. MU will celebrate meeting the goal in spring 2009.
- Based on the most recent data from the National Science Foundation, MU ranks No. 2 among all institutions in the Association of American Universities in growth of federal research funding from 1995 to 2005.
- MU spent $248 million for research and development last year
- MU is one of only six public universities in the country with medicine, veterinary medicine, law, engineering and agriculture all on one campus.
- MU is one of only 34 public U.S. universities, and the only public institution in Missouri, to be selected for membership in the
Association of American Universities and designated ?Research University/Very High? by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This year marks the centennial of MU's AAU membership, which recognizes excellence in teaching and research endeavors and includes only the nation's top-tier institutions.
- A national leader in plant genomics research, MU is 7th in the nation in plant sciences funding from the National Science Foundation.
- MU is a national leader in comparative medicine, in which researchers collaborate by sharing discoveries, innovations and treatments for humans and animals. For example, Jimmy Cook discovered how to encourage the meniscus in knees to repair itself by implanting a scaffold in dog knees. Currently, this process is in stage II of FDA human clinical trials.
- MU boasts some of the world's top scientists in wheat, corn and soybean research and is 14th in the nation in life sciences funding from the National Science Foundation.
- MU is home to the
world's most powerful university research reactor and is the largest U.S. producer of radioisotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
- MU and its biochemistry researchers have a new $2.3 million high-powered nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (NMR), only the second of its generation in the U.S. and the only one in Missouri. Scientists use the NMR to see molecules in three dimensions and view their interactions. Understanding these interactions is crucial to understanding health and disease.
- MU is one of only 15 sites in the United States where the National Cancer Institute provides funding for clinical trials on animals. Veterinary medicine and human medicine oncologists developed Quadramet for bone cancer pain, one of many MU discoveries based on collaborative research.
- Interdisciplinary research is the hallmark of the university?s
Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. Mizzou scientists from such fields as biochemistry, biological engineering, electrical engineering, medicine, physiology and veterinary medicine come together and apply their particular expertise to health problems like hypertension, cancer, cystic fibrosis and heart disease.
- Mizzou is home to some of the world?s best nanoscientists, who work with particles at the nearly unimaginable scale of one billionth of a meter. The new $10 million
International Institute for Nano and Molecular Medicine will house scientists fighting cancer and other diseases.
In my opinion if the Big Ten did offer us a spot we would have to take it. The Big Ten is a much better run conference, pays more $$$, and membership in the CIC would be to good to pass up for a research university. I would however hate losing some of our long lasting rivalries and our Texas recruiting.
