E. Gordon Gee (President West Virginia U.)

[ORD_Buckeye]

100M according to a 2006 Dispatch article. It's probably increased a little, but only at the rate of inflation for hotel rooms, meals etc over the last seven years since the base number of consumers hasn't really increased, meaning that in the absence of massive stadium expansions, that economic impact is butting up hard against the law of diminishing returns.

Put in other words, it's economic impact is about 1/100th that of Ohio State's economic impact off academic research off an economic base (football budget vs. research budget) of only 1/20th. Is it just me or does it seem like a dollar spent in a physics lab brings much higher bang for the buck to the citizens and taxpayers of Ohio than does a dollar spent in the WHAC.

 

[cincibuck]

If someone or something is willing to pay a person a certain amount, why the hell not? That's what I don't get. Money talks and bullshit walks and talent will always follow the money. That's just the way it is.

"You have to pay talent outrageous sums to attract talent."

So because their CEOs and other top execs make far more money than their competition GM, Ford and Chrysler are better than Mercedes, VW, Honda, Toyota? So Motorola is more efficient than Sony?

Take an example from sports: Is Tim Tebow worth 11M right out of College? Is he worth 2.1M 4 years later? Someone thought so.

High priced talent developed junk bonds, credit default swaps, LIBOR, Standard and Poor's bond and stock ratings and sub prime mortgages.

Does David Petraius have the talent, brains and the ability to command a seven or eight figure salary? I think so, and yet he willingly worked for much less than $500,000 a year -

So money doesn't necessarily guarantee talent, nor is true that the only way to attract talent is with money.

Some people -some of whom are very talented people- are willing to work as a service to others, to causes, to their nation or their belief system without CEO level salaries.

Some people, for instance Amy Winehouse, Lindsey Lohan and half the known rockers and rappers of the music biz, are ruined by money.

Some - Jemarcus Russell, Tim Tebow, several too-big-to-fail bank/corp execs- don't have the talent the buyers believed they had.

Some - The Kardashians, Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber- get paid big bucks despite having no readily apparent talent.

Granted this is a small, cherry-picked set of examples, but life has yet to demonstrate to me that CEO salaries are consistently a product of talent. Nor has it proven to me that football coaches are more important than college presidents or that the purpose of a university is to win national championships in high revenue sports.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

"You have to pay talent outrageous sums to attract talent."

I've always defended Gee's salary. That being said, I have to agree that there is far too often very little direct link between compensation and performance in America today. Just look at the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street last decade and the economic impact they brought to America for all those years of multi-million dollar bonuses.

 

[cincibuck]

Also, I cannot even imagine the actual financial impact of Ohio state football on the state economy. Ludicrous is the closest I can come.

All of the memorabilia, the sports bars, the food, the room board and beer, some of the undergrad decisions , etc.

I don't disagree with you Jwins, but just as Athletic department dollars are, to use a military term, Force Multipliers, so to are dollars spent on research. Further, they spend those dollars each day of the work week, around the entire twelve months.

Just as people come to Ohio and Columbus, for the six or seven home football games, people travel to Columbus to visit research facilities and researchers. They stay in Columbus hotels, eat in Columbus restaurants and maybe stop by Conrad's or the University book store to take home some of the very same merchandise that you attribute to football, but may well be representative of the school itself.

Not everyone wearing an Ohio State t-shirt is doing so to celebrate success on the football field. That means that research dollars are not limited by season or home game in their revenue generating ability and we still get back to the fact that at $900M (thanks, Ord) kicks up a lot more multiplication than 93M.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

The anti-capitalist stupidity belongs in the Poli forum

 

[Mike80]

The anti-capitalist stupidity belongs in the Poli forum

GPA

 

[cincibuck]

The anti-capitalist stupidity belongs in the Poli forum

dollars made in football = capitalism
dollars made in research = socialism?

If it makes dollars it's always good, if you question the way in which the money was made, or the choices people make with money, you're a commie?

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

dollars made in football are capitalism. as are the dollars spent. you actually don't make dollars until you recoup what you have spent.

not sure that we are actually making dollars in research as much as we are spending dollars in research. i didn't see a line item in the financials where research was paying back the university.

spending money without payback is not capitalism, it is socialism if there is no payback. would love a quality link to the success stories of our research at OSU though. i have learned a fair amount about how the university is run through this thread and this is another opportunity to educate. the university seems to be run fine from what i can tell, better than i expected honestly.

i suspect some of these research dollars are greatly wasted in this nation (not necessarily at OSU, just the whole idea of government / public research is appalling to me; if there is demand for the research private business will have done that; academic research seems ripe for waste opportunities).

as of now though, research seems to be a cost without sufficient benefit to justify the expense. if it isn't paying back in no more than 2 years, we shouldn't incur the expense as we have better uses for our capital. now this is a business perspective and not an educational perspective, but it is real world and we should be teaching that, not subsidy eating practices.

i understand that most / all of the research money is in the form of government grants and not OSU's money. still no reason to waste money if there isn't a payback.


the football team is a self sustaining business unit. i trust market forces there.

the hospital is a self sustaining business unit. i trust market forces there (though that may change next year).

a public university is a quasi government organization as it exists on public funds. i don't trust the market forces there. i see the opportunity to waste money and see the massive inflation as a symptom of that so it is worth going over with a fine tooth comb. before government student aid and government subsidies, i would have not cared what private universities have done.

Hillsdale College is the only school i would give a pass to as they don't deal with student loans and it is a private university (and their publication Imprimis is typically the best piece of mail I get in a month; free magazine even if you don't donate to them, great read typically).

i would put the banks in the same category though and greatly restrict banker pay since they are completely insolvent but for the subsidy they receive from the government and the cartel structure of modern banking. they need to be put on a utilities type of margin model and highly regulated.

 

[Oh8ch]

First they make the man resign.

Then they take away his thread.

 

[AKAK]

First they make the man resign.

Then they take away his thread.

Gee's dog...

 

[jlb1705]

First they make the man resign.

Then they take away his thread.

Gee's dog...

They took his dog?!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2z9XYIuhNM"]THEY TOOK HIS JOB - YouTube[/ame]

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

to be honest, it is a pretty mixed bag from looking at the twitter feed from OSU research.

lots of waste here. some good for sure, but lots of waste. all of it should have been private research. the public should not fund any research whatsoever, only private business and individuals. they can provide private grants and funds to universities to do research still, but the government should stay out of this. it looks like a giant waste of cash for the most part.

https://twitter.com/osuresearch

Living in poor area as a teen could increase risk for chlamydia in young adulthood.

Men and women lie about sex to match gender expectations -- but not about other gender-related behaviors

Music as a drug: How listening to favorite songs could reduce the need for sedatives in the hospital ICU.

How loneliness affects immune system - NY Times reports on work by Ohio State's Lisa Jaremka.

Look! Something shiny! Study shows how textbook visuals can distract children from what they need to learn.

Why don't more young women get the HPV vaccine? Maybe we're focusing on the wrong disease.

Ohio State research. RT @beccabigwords: Another thing hurting women in science

Not everyone likes the company picnic. A new #OhioState study shows who doesn't and why it matters.

Huffington Post features research by Ohio State's @tlstrayhorn about how to help black males succeed in college

One factor that can help predict black men's success in college. Hint: it's not h.s. grades or test scores.

Gender bias found in how scholars evaluate scientific studies.

more than 50% of the tweets on OSU research seem to be a giant waste of money honestly.

 

[AKAK]

more than 50% of the tweets on OSU research seem to be a giant waste of money honestly.
.

Thank goodness the public isn't funding the tweets.

 

[BIATCHabutuka]

it is a shame and a waste that they fund the 'research' without market need though.

 

[Steve19]

I can think of a practical need, such as improved supply and logistics modelling, thus lower costs, for pharma distribution or improved training and diagnostic performance for virtually every one of those research projects.