With the recent speculation surrounding the Big Ten’s plans to potentially expand to as many as sixteen teams, as well as its most recent choice to take on the University of Nebraska beginning in 2011, a lot of attention has been trained upon how this will affect the involved schools’ athletic programs. And of course there is cause for enthusiasm over the Big Ten’s most recent addition (anybody else excited at the increased likelihood of a college football playoff?) but the enthusaism surrounding the Nebraska Cornhuskers has also overshadowed some of the more practical ramifications of incorporating the University of Nebraska into the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. So what is the CIC, anyway? Well, let’s start with this: based right here in Champaign, the CIC is the administrative entity that facilitates the academic relationships between all Big Ten schools, plus the University of Chicago.
Okay, next question: what exactly does all that mean?
Well, when I asked the CIC’s Executive Director Barbara McFadden Allen this very question, she told me that the universities that work with her organization “engage in voluntary, sustained partnerships such as library collections and access collaborations; technology collaborations to build capacity at reduced costs; purchasing and licensing collaborations through economies of scale; leadership and development programs for faculty and staff; programs that allow students to take courses at other institutions; and study-abroad collaborations”
Okay. Starting to make more sense.
“Basically, faculty, staff and administrators at all levels of the member universities — from the Presidents on down — think and work together to enhance the teaching and learning experience in the member universities.”
I get it. Its sort of like the grown up table for the Big Ten, right?
Well, not exactly: “We are a ‘sister’ organization to the Big Ten and work very closely with them,” says McFadden Allen, who went on to explain that “the Big Ten Presidents actually founded the CIC in 1958. We have a separate governing board and a separate budget, but we do work closely.”
What’s more is that this group has a great deal of influence in American higher education. “They have combined operating budgets of $28 billion — and conduct $6.4 billion in funded research each year (that’s twice as much research as the Ivy League Universities conduct each year). So, you don’t have to think very hard to see that pooling the resources of that group of institutions can yield really powerful results. For example, we pool language offerings, and offer them through video. We share access to study abroad programs. And I could name many more examples.”
In light of this, there has been some sparse, albeit pointed, criticism of the University of Nebraska’s induction into the CIC. Most recently prominent University of Wisconsin Madison Political Science Professor (and former U of I grad student) Donald Downs was quoted in the Madison publication the Capital Times as saying:
The fact this was all done by ‘Athletics Incorporated’ bugs me, and I’m sure I’m not alone. I don’t want to make too big of a deal out of this because it’s just sports, it’s not academics, per se. It’s not going to change whom we hire […] It’s clear that as sports has become more and more inflated and important, that it’s sort of taken on a life of its own, detached from the academic side of the institution. The tail is wagging the dog more and more. Every year they need more and more money, and it’s becoming like an addiction. I think an interesting question is, ‘What impact is this having on the university?’
Indeed, Nebraska’s academic reputation does not immediately measure up to most CIC universities, which boasts eight so called Public Ivy universities as well Northwestern and the University of Chicago, which are two well known and academically accomplished private research institutions. In the University of Nebraska’s favor, they hold an accreditation issued by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools which accredits all the other CIC schools with the exception of Penn State.
Furthermore, McFadden Allen and many others have gone on record expressing their confidence in the choice to bring Nebraska into the fold. “The Provosts of the CIC universities (who act as our board) voted unanimously to invite Nebraska to join the CIC, and Nebraska has enthusiastically accepted. They will become part of the CIC on July 1, 2011 (the same time they join the Big Ten). We are excited to welcome them.”
Perhaps most telling is the fact that, according to McFadden Allen, “30% of all faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln received their highest degree from a CIC university — so we have many natural linkages and affiliations.”
“Their joining us,” McFadden Allen told me, “seems a natural extension.”