While trying to research my SEC v. Big 10 revenue question from above, I came across this Columbus (Ohio / Ohio State) article from back on May 23. However, I have not seen it mentioned and it points out Georgia Tech's AAU membership and the strategic importance to the Big 10. Also, the end of the article lists all AAU members by conference.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...academic-coalition-is-key-but-what-is-it.html
Big Ten expansion: Academic coalition is key, but what is it?
Sunday, May 23, 2010 2:59 AM
By Bill Rabinowitz
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
In the five months since the Big Ten announced it would explore expansion, one organization has seen its profile raised more than perhaps any other group.
The irony is that the organization - the Association of American Universities - has nothing to do with sports.
"My Google alerts for 'AAU' have gone up considerably," said Barry Toiv, the AAU's vice president for public affairs.
"Every story about Big Ten expansion mentions the AAU now. It has certainly put it on the sports pages, where I don't think it's ever been before."
That's because membership in the prestigious AAU is considered almost essential for any candidate for the Big Ten.
"I think it's very important to our presidents and to our league," Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said last week at the Big Ten meetings in Chicago.
The only exception is probably Notre Dame, whose academic reputation would probably earn it a pass.
All 11 Big Ten schools are AAU members. No other league has all of its members in the AAU, which comprises 61 U.S. universities and two in Canada.
Until recently, the only AAU many sports fans recognized was the unrelated Amateur Athletic Union, which trumpets itself on its website as the "real AAU."
Though college basketball coaches rely on the Amateur Athletic Union as a pipeline for recruits, the Association of American Universities serves as a conduit to a more important end. Among other things, it acts as a forum to discuss pressing educational matters and as a lobbying presence to push for federal research funding for all universities.
"These are all major, well-known universities," Toiv said. "When you bring them all together on behalf of an issue, that's pretty powerful."
One issue the AAU tackled recently was the fight to raise the amount of Pell Grant money available to low-income students. In part because of AAU support, the maximum Pell Grant is scheduled to rise from $4,360 in 2008 to $5,975 in 2017.
"We all would be working on that (issue) on our own, but when we can work together, that's eight states (working together)," said Richard Stoddard, Ohio State's associate vice president for government affairs. "There's nothing that the political world likes better than a common approach (saying), 'This is important to us and this is who we all are.'"
Presidents from AAU schools meet twice a year. Provosts and other counterparts down the hierarchy also meet regularly.
"These conferences are more than athletic conferences," Stoddard said. "The Big Ten Conference has a lot of joint activities in Washington on policy issues."
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith spoke of the possibility of expansion as a way to increase the conference's research synergy "to do some things for our country and our world that need to be focused on. Imagine the schools with cancer centers that could collaborate even better to ultimately find a cure for cancer. There are a lot of different things there."
Adding a non-AAU school would adversely affect the academic culture of the conference. Of the schools most often mentioned to be under consideration by the Big Ten, six are AAU members: Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers.
Georgia Tech is the newest AAU member. It was admitted last month, the AAU's first addition in 10 years. Given Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany's statement Tuesday that the population shift to the South is a driving force behind the consideration of expansion, some eyebrows were raised by Georgia Tech's admission to the AAU. Could the AAU's invitation be a precursor to a Big Ten invitation? If so, it would be strictly coincidental. First, membership to the AAU is by invitation only. Schools cannot apply for consideration.
As for interest in or by the Big Ten, a school spokesman said Georgia Tech has not been contacted by the conference.
"If we receive a call or are approached, we'll consider it at that time," said Jim Fetig, associate vice president of communications and marketing.
There was no such indecisiveness when the invitation from the AAU came.
"There were a lot of handshakes, a few backslaps, a lot of brows that were wiped," Fetig said. "There was a sense of euphoria."
That might sum up how membership in the AAU is viewed in the academic community.
"It's being told by your peers that you are among the very best," Fetig said.
brabinowitz@dispatch.com Association of American Universities
63 MEMBER SCHOOLS (WITH YEAR JOINED)
BIG TEN (11)
Michigan 1900
Wisconsin 1900
Illinois 1908
Minnesota 1908
Indiana 1909
Iowa 1909
Ohio State1916
Northwestern 1917
Penn State 1958
Purdue 1958
Michigan State 1964
IVY LEAGUE (7)
Columbia 1900
Cornell 1900
Harvard 1900
Princeton 1900
Pennsylvania 1900
Yale 1900
Brown 1933
PACIFIC 10 (7)
California 1900
Stanford 1900
Washington 1950
Oregon 1969
Southern California 1969
UCLA 1974
Arizona 1985
BIG 12 (7)
Missouri 1908
Kansas 1909
Nebraska 1909
Texas 1929
Iowa State 1958
Colorado 1966
Texas A&M 2001
ATLANTIC COAST (5)
Virginia 1904
North Carolina 1922
Duke 1938
Maryland 1969
Georgia Tech 2010
BIG EAST (3)
Syracuse 1966
Pittsburgh 1974
Rutgers 1989
CONFERENCE USA (2)
Tulane 1958
Rice 1985
SOUTHEASTERN (2)
Vanderbilt 1950
Florida 1985
OTHERS (19)
Chicago 1900
Washington University 1923
McGill 1926
University of Toronto 1926
Cal Tech 1934
MIT 1934
Rochester 1941
New York University 1950
Case Western Reserve 1969
Carnegie Mellon 1982
UC San Diego 1982
Brandeis 1985
SUNY-Buffalo 1989
Emory 1995
UC Santa Barbara 1995
UC Davis 1996
UC Irvine 1996
Stony Brook 2001