ORD_Buckeye
Wrong glass, Sir.
There's a reason that you had to go back three years, and that's because Ono's ideas were thoroughly repudiated by the state leadership. He was essentially told to shut his mouth up about this. As I mentioned in my earlier response, his thinking displays not only a counter-productive and narrow "empire building" approach to his role as UC's President but also a glaring ignorance of the history of the Ohio public university system.
As asked above by others, what are these best of class fields? I have news for you (to which I'll post the rankings later), Ohio State owns "best in class" in virtually every single field. Throw out each little school's point of pride (Design at UC, polymers at Akron, journalism at Ohio) and Ohio State completely and by huge margins dominates any ranking of any core academic program: the sciences, engineering disciplines, social sciences and the humanities, medicine and law and business. How is the state going to reverse this and "spread the peanut butter" if not by attempting to marginalize the dominate programs in the state. The only ones with a national and international reputation. No, Ono's agenda to make UC a co-flagship is only possible by cutting off Ohio State at the knees. Something I'm sure he's quite ready to do, but also an idea for which he was told to shut his mouth. And I have news for him, news based upon the history of Ohio's system. Cut Ohio State off at the knees, and the kid with 32 on his ACT doesn't go to UC. He goes to Michigan or Wisconsin. Gut a world class program in Chemistry at Ohio State and those faculty members don't pack up and head down the road to UC. They leave the state for Wisconsin or UCLA, and they take their research dollars with them.
So what's he talking about by "multiple flagships." Is he being dishonest again and just using that term in an attempt to rally other universities around a model intended to only benefit UC? Or does he truly believe that a state the size of Ohio (and one that has historically underfunded higher education) can truly have a "flagship" in every corner?
At the end he says we must collaborate not compete, yet internal competition is EXACTLY what he is proposing. The only collaboration that I truly think he wants is a replay of the 1960s when the jealous hyenas seized an opportunity to team up on the lion. The results weren't good. My arguments against this are not theoretical. They're rooted in the not too distant past where Ohio followed a path much like what Ono is proposing. The results? It created a redundant, bloated and underfunded system. A system where Ohio offered as many doctoral programs in History and Chemistry as the three and a half times larger California did, with only one of them capable of having any real national impact or reputation.
Again, here is being highly disingenuous with the facts. Nobody in academia considers Texas/Texas AM, Michigan/MSU and UNC/NCSU to be equals and co-flagships. There is a distinct hierarchy and funding model among each pair in their respective state systems. Ono also conveniently and self-servingly fails to note that these are also states that made a conscious decision to split the A&M function from the traditional Arts & Sciences university. Ohio did not do that but, in the founding of Ohio State, made a conscious and explicit decision to follow the model of Illinois and Wisconsin (and California) in combining those roles into a single institution. Perhaps, JuggalOno would like to lecture us all on how weak and sub-par the Wisconsin and Illinois systems are by not allowing Stout or Carbondale to have a flagship of their very own.
As for California, Berkeley and UCLA can be considered co-flagships today, but even that's a recent development over the last twenty or thirty years and one driven by economic and demographic factors that are completely incomparable to Ohio. Ono's use of it as an example is highly misleading bordering on rank ignorance or, more likely, willful dishonesty. First, consider that California has a highly structured and regulated system to the point where the CSU system campuses are legally barred from having Ph.D programs or engaging in basic research. Ono makes no mention of this or the California Master Plan for Higher Education. That's because California's Plan that established California's public system of higher education as the world's gold standard is the very antithesis of what Ono is advocating. Even within the UC system there is a rather rigid hierarchy. How long would the Chancellor of Riverside or Santa Cruz last if he started giving speeches demanding co-flagship status with UCLA and Berkeley? Second, consider that California has over three times the number of public four year universities and population as Ohio and stretches 800 miles with a global class city at each end. For an apt Midwestern comparison to exist, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio would not only need to be one state, but there would need to be a second Chicago at the Eastern end of it. And guess what, if that "state" did exist. Juggalo State would still not be a flagship or even a "UC" campus. The flagships, based on every current ranking out there would be Illinois and--you guessed it--Thee Ohio State University. ISU, Indiana, Purdue, Iowa would round out the rest of the UC system equivalents to which you could probably add Miami (OH) as some kind of Santa Cruz like undergraduate focused campus. UC would still be at the little kids table with Ohio, Ball State, Northern Illinois and Toledo.
Here again, JuggalOno is being either incredibly ignorant or willfully dishonest. The University System was established and put into place precisely to continue the move away from the Rhodes era system of unregulated competition and self-centered empire building. What Ono is proposing is a giant leap back in that direction.
If that's the case, GOOD! It's about time that Ohio moved back to a model where funding is based on quality and role within the system than the funding model introduced by Rhodes where every campus was funded the same based on a simple student head count--even in Ph.D programs. That's right: a student in the 14th ranked nationally Political Science department in the state's flagship and AAU campus was funded exactly the same as a doctoral student in Political Science in a departments elsewhere around the state that can't even crack the top 100! JuggalOno loves to use California as a model, well do you think the UC campuses are funded the same as the Cal State campuses? Do you think that even the Physics department at UC Riverside gets the same attention as the physics department at Berkeley?
Wrong, at least in the self-entitled empire building path that JuggalOno has chosen. He's a university President within a public university system. As such, he needs to understand his institution's role and history within that system. I'll repeat my question, how long would the President of Cal State Sacramento (or even UC Davis) be around if he started giving speeches demanding flagship status with UCLA and Cal.
If I were being charitable to Ono, I'd say that all of his egregious errors--such as ignoring the hierarchy within the California system, trying to say that UNC and NCSU are equals, ignoring the historical decision made by states on whether to separate the A&M school from the A&S school and particularly Ohio's own misguided adventure with "multiple flagships" in the 60s and 70s--were the result of ignorance. I, however, don't think Ono is an ignorant man--a juggalo yes, but not an ignorant man. What he is is utterly dishonest in pursuing his self-entitled and reckless empire building. That's why I have no respect for the man.
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