BU brand poll

[SFP]

Would you rather BU's brand be closer to Harvard or a school like Florida that has great sports programs. Stanford is an anomaly. You all know where I stand.

[Double D]

Butler, Creighton, Xavier...

[amckillip]

Stanford

[Chico]

I would like the team to be all A students and win the NCAA tournament. Can I vote for both?

[thefish7]

Not as greedy as chico but I'd like the academic rep of harvard with better athletic chops. Georgetown and stanford come to mind.

[Fetz86]

To be like the Ohio State University, best at everything.

[ser_solace]

SFP, why do you think sports and academic excellence are mutually exclusive?

To make BU's academic achievements on par with the likes of a Harvard, MIT, or whatever other top school, BU will need to expand considerably its academic program. Add a law school. More doctorate programs (Do we have any?). Increase research facilities. All of which require...more money.

Much more feasible in the short term IMO to maintain and improve BU basketball to be annual contenders in the conference and occasional NCAA bids. Means more money for all, sports and academics at BU.

Long term, take the added money and reinvest and grow the academic curriculum.

[amckillip]

To be like the Ohio State University, best at everything.

I'll take Stanford. If I'm going to sacrifice a little. It'd be just barely in sports, though Stanford is hardly a slouch in those.

[BU RICK]

I'll vote for Bradley the way it is and always has been, perfectly satisfied. I don't suffer from envy, I don't want to be like anyone else. I'm a sports fan and would like to see Bradley win championships across the board. My donation this year was earmarked to the Men's Basketball Fund, I'm sure you did the same - right

I'll let the ones that want to make the drugs with a list of a dozen different ways they could kill you go somewhere else - those ads are hilarious, here's the perfect drug for you... but first let us tell you a dozen ways it could kill you.

Don't get me started on lawyers........let them go to Harvard.

Let the Wall Street Bankers graduate from the Ivy League, they've caused enough problems in our county.

My doctor went to Illinois, I'm happy with him.

Go Bradley

[BuB]

Don't kid yourself. We are not close to either school and never will be. I think our academic reputation is plenty good for the type of D1 school we are. We have military leaders, political leaders, business leaders and top engineers. A private, midwest school with an 6000-7000 students can only excel so much. Our graduation rates are high, even higher for all athletes, placement rates are high, etc. We are who we are. Pretty d@mn good.

The problem is the media doesn't report on where these leaders graduate from very much. Year in and year out we are much more likely to generate positive publicity on an athletic court/field for Bradley than to turn out a Nobel Prize winner. Basketball clearly drives our athletics but other sports have had good teams or individuals who have done good things for Bradleys national reputation. We just need to win games and compete for the Valley title on a regular basis. A NCAA bid every 3-4 years will do great things for our national reputation.

[amckillip]

Don't kid yourself. We are not close to either school and never will be. I think our academic reputation is plenty good for the type of D1 school we are. We have military leaders, political leaders, business leaders and top engineers. A private, midwest school with an 6000-7000 students can only excel so much. Our graduation rates are high, even higher for all athletes, placement rates are high, etc. We are who we are. Pretty d@mn good.

The problem is the media doesn't report on where these leaders graduate from very much. Year in and year out we are much more likely to generate positive publicity on an athletic court/field for Bradley than to turn out a Nobel Prize winner. Basketball clearly drives our athletics but other sports have had good teams or individuals who have done good things for Bradleys national reputation. We just need to win games and compete for the Valley title on a regular basis. A NCAA bid every 3-4 years will do great things for our national reputation.

Vanderbilt? WashU? Notre Dame? Those have a little more students but are all in the same realm with undergrads. If you have success you will grow your post graduate program, though that is a very difficult and expensive thing to do. The media doesn't need to report on them for these to be effective. It just takes placing a couple good professors in each department. The IE department only has 15-20 graduates each semester, no one reports on them, and we regularly have 100% placement and that's not inflated, literaly, 100% of people have career starting jobs. The average starting salary in 2010, in a down economy over $60,000. What has happened is that over the years a couple, literally two, outstanding professors have built up the program into what it is. With really nothing but an attitude that the student comes first. To put it in perspective, a department, less than 100 students total, hired away the department chair of the same program at Auburn...

The attitude of 'we are what we are' is self-defeating. Bradley should be aspiring to attain more, it can happen. IMO, we should be looking to add more technical and professional programs. I'm not talking law or medicine, there are plenty of those. But expand the physical therapy department and add ocupational therapy, add a pharmacology department, make the MBA a little more rigorous and add some more relevant concentrations. Add an MS of Engineering Management. Basketball is nice, but I'll tell you what. What UNI did in the tourney last year doesn't make me look at a potential employee from UNI any more.

[Buesch N Chips]

Where is the "These BU brand polls are bunk" option?

[SFP]

Where is the "These BU brand polls are bunk" option?

WOW! Why is it so hard to phantom that BU is a brand and each and every graduate will have to use their diploma as part of their own brand to sell themselves in the labor market, like it or not? The closer BU is associated with outstanding education the easier it will be for graduates to get a high paying job or excepted to a high ranking graduate school or recruit the best educators in their field or imagine a vast network of very influential people to help each other in the business world.

No disrespect to Florida but the value put on an Ivy school diploma is much greater over a lifetime then any SEC school save Vanderbilt. There are reason we are closer to winning an NCAA basketball championship then a Nobel prize winner. I still believe BU would be best served by being the best academic institution it can be with the basketball team as a tool to create a diverse and fun collegiate atmosphere. I'm not saying we can't have both but if I had my choice I'd rather have a Harvard diploma over a Florida any day of the week.

[theBUer]

Bradley will never be Ivy League nor a major sea-grant/land-grant school or part of the AAU. What a loaded poll question.

Harvard attracts the Nobel Prize winners and more esteemed professors because they can do research! At Bradley, yeah you can do research, but the school wants you to not have TAs teach Intro courses. And you also have graduate programs that receive a lot of money to conduct research, and let's not forget the amount of time it takes to get grant proposals!

With Florida, they are considered tops in programs such as agriculture. And it is very high in lists of best universities as well. They too are also part of the AAU, and get a lot of federal money to do research.

Bradley is a great school, but it's brand is regional (similar to Drake, Creighton or even Gonzaga). Sure there are alumni scattered all over, but BU's bread is buttered in Illinois.

[TylerDurden]

There are some good points in this thread.

BU is a teaching institution. Many of the other institutions, including the poll options, are research universities with vast post-graduate degree offerings.

There would have to be a fundamental shift in BU's philosophy before we begin those comparisons.

As it is, I'm proud of my Bradley education. It is well-respected and is known for its graduates being well prepared for the work force. People are impressed with the fact that I have a Bradley degree.

I think Bradley's brand is strong. Obviously, it has a strong reputation in Illinois and regionally, but from personal experience, it has a quality reputation around the country as well.