This distinguished chair will support a new faculty position in United States history that will focus on the relationship between sports and society from 1900 to the present.

Clear proof that Selig is biased against the National League. :)

Never saw him endow.

The chair should be connected to an electrical outlet.

As a historian, I applaud Selig here. Anything that creates new jobs in a profession devastated by the recession is a good thing. Now if he could only do it at the small college I work at.

So they can electrocute some poor history professor?

Anything that creates new jobs in a profession devastated by the recession is a good thing. Now if he could only do it at the small college I work at.

If anything ever needed devestating it is colleges and their corrupt doings.

Less well known, but Bud also endowed a chair in plastic sugery at Endowment University.

*throws chair*

So right there on Bucky Badger's own website the school is consistently referred to as University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Madison. Back when I attended UM-Ann Arbor, there was very little chance that anyone would confuse Wisconsin's main campus with any other school in the state. Has UW-Oshkosh morphed into some midwestern UCLA in the last few decades?

Not sure what you mean. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is consistently referred to as such, as is the University of Missouri-Columbia, even in-state.

Does Selig get any say on who they hire? If so, I can imagine such scintillating lectures like "Owners of Sports Team and the Freedom Century" and "Is The Keynesian Multiplier For Publicly Funded Stadiums Greater than 200 Or Merely Greater Than 50?"

Or some sort of prof vs prof debate in which they discuss the similarities of Bud Selig and Elvis and then hold Bud Selig symposiums.

Not sure what you mean. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is consistently referred to as such, as is the University of Missouri-Columbia, even in-state.

I guess it depends on the speech community you're eavesdropping on. I've never, ever heard Keith Jackson or Dick Vitale speak the words University of Nebraska-Lincoln or University of Missouri-Columbia.

Now, the speech community they represent is certainly large, but I have to admit that its members aren't usually referring to the universities themselves. Clearly the usage is different within academic circles and within the states that actually pay for the universities to exist...

Not sure what you mean. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is consistently referred to as such, as is the University of Missouri-Columbia, even in-state.

I don't know about Nebraska, but while I was at Mizzou (I graduated in 09) they were in the process of changing the official name to the University of Missouri and discouraging any and all appending of Columbia to the end. They were weirdly serious about it.

Does Selig get any say on who they hire? If so, I can imagine such scintillating lectures like "Owners of Sports Team and the Freedom Century" and "Is The Keynesian Multiplier For Publicly Funded Stadiums Greater than 200 Or Merely Greater Than 50?"

It would be unusual for a serious university to let the donor have much say in the process. Some will allow donors into screening meetings so they can observe. Many let the donors come to the job talks that candidates give, and no doubt some dept and search committee chairs listen to what the donor is saying, especially if more money may be on the way, but most good places are careful at drawing the line at a reasonable point. The department will after all be stuck working alongside this person for decades, and the person will get a vote on every department matter, so they have to be able to live with the choice.

I think UW-Milwaukee has been the big growth school in terms of scholarly reputation in the system, but I'm sure that any time anyone says U Wisconsin everyone knows they mean Madison.

If it's Bud Selig, shouldn't it be a Chair in Revisionist History?

If it's Bud Selig, shouldn't it be a Chair in Revisionist History?

There ain't no other kind. If you ain't revising something, you ain't contributing anything to the discussion and you ain't gonna have a career.

As an alum I will tell you only an ignorant wanker would say anything other than University of WI-Madison

I think UW-Milwaukee has been the big growth school in terms of scholarly reputation in the system

That's because Richie, Potsie and Ralph went there.

As an alum I will tell you only an ignorant wanker would say anything other than University of WI-Madison

So what do must Wisconsin-ites call it? (rimshot, and gets yanked off the stage by a hook).

Shouldn't the fight song be On Wisconsin-Madison! then?

History? I nominate Esoteric for the position. He knows more about 20C political history than anybody. Glenn Beck could guest lecture on Tuesdays.

As another alum, I can tell you we call it Wisconsin. Or Madison. Or UW. The hyphenation crap is...crap.

The University of North Carolina became the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as a part of a program to improve the status of the other UNC's (UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Asheboro, UNC-Wilmington, and UNC-Pembroke, which was Pembroke State when they made the change). Hyphenating the flagship sets it off less from the other schools, and allows the other schools in the system to look more like sister institutions rather than a second tier. I suspect that that a similar process occurred in most of the other states with hyphenated flagship schools.

Winnie:

Only to outsiders.

Certainly to Wisconsinites we can use shorthand.

There is US. And there is THEM.

A lot of THEM.

Insert Pogo quote.

I can think of a few people who would be great for this chair. I hope they don't pull away from Illinois.

Hyphenating the flagship sets it off less from the other schools, and allows the other schools in the system to look more like sister institutions rather than a second tier. I suspect that that a similar process occurred in most of the other states with hyphenated flagship schools.

Which, of course, is why UC Berkeley is still referred to as "Cal".

The UC system and the CSU system is so odd. U.S. News just released their rankings for universities and colleges, and the worst U.C. listed(outside of Merced which wasn't ranked due to being too new an university), was UC Riverside at 94. Which was still much higher than a number of other state colleges such as the University of Missouri, or University of Arizona.

The highest CSU school on the list was San Diego state, barely making it into the list around 150. Not saying the two tier system is wrong or bad, but you can see where a reputation of the two competing systems comes from.

I'll take on what Tripon just said. Understand that my viewpoint is partisan, on the CSU side.

I have a lot of mistrust of one size fits all rankings, since not all universities are trying to do the same things. Reputation depends to s significant extent on the status of doctoral programs, and the CSU's have no (well, almost no) such programs. That may play a part in the complete separation that Tripon mentions. I think if you narrow it to the typical experiences of undergraduate students once admitted, there ought to be overlap between the systems and I'm convinced there is overlap between the systems.

One other factor that comes into play is exclusivity of admissions. As state institutions go nationwide, the UC system is quite hard to get into for a freshman - and that difficulty has been ramping up quickly in the last couple of years. There's a formula-driven UC minimum standard for admission. It used to be that if you met that minimum, you wouldn't get into Berkeley or UCLA or UCSD but you probably could get into Riverside or Santa Cruz. There's a rumor that that's not true any more - that students meeting the formula minimum are now being turned away from all UC institutions. (And some of them are looking out of state - I've heard people joking about "UC Eugene.")

CSU admissions are odd enough that it's very hard to explain where we fit in terms of exclusivity. We also have an admissions formula, made up of GPA and test scores, and that formula counts for everything. There's a system minimum which is pretty low - so low that a person near the formula minimum is fairly likely to not meet the "(a) through (g)" standards of a certain list of courses passed with a C or better. But each CSU has a local service area. That is, the map of California is carved into 20+ segments, with each segment being the sole responsibility of one particular CSU campus. Students in the local service area must be admitted if they meet the system minimum; students from outside may be required to meet a higher standard. For us, the difference between our minimum standard for non-locals and the system minimum amounts to 1100 SAT points or 1.3 grade points or some convex combination of those. So are we selective or not? That depends on where you live.

By the way, on the whole name thing: everyone academic refers to our campus by it's official name, California State University Long Beach or CSULB. But our athletic department prefers to be known as Long Beach State.

Were UC-Riverside (and SDSU?!?) really ranked ahead of Cal Poly SLO? That doesn't sound right.

The CSUs not offering doctoral degrees might be changing as a number of professions (especially in health related fields such as physical therapy) are changing their standard of education to require a doctorate (mostly so they can be called Dr. So-and-So, from what I can tell).

So right there on Bucky Badger's own website the school is consistently referred to as University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Madison. Back when I attended UM-Ann Arbor, there was very little chance that anyone would confuse Wisconsin's main campus with any other school in the state. Has UW-Oshkosh morphed into some midwestern UCLA in the last few decades?

All the public schools (even the community colleges!) in Wisconsin are branches of UW, so it makes sense to differentiate, especially when you're talking about endowing a chair at a specific campus.

Which, of course, is why UC Berkeley is still referred to as "Cal".

If you are referring to its sports programs, then it is Cal or California. But if you are referring to the university, it is UC Berkeley or Berkeley or Cal. All three are used interchangeably.

My undergraduate institution was UC Santa Barbara. To fellow Gauchos it was always UCSB, but to outsiders who might not know the initials calling it UC Santa Barbara or Santa Barbara was fine. What was never acceptable was being called Cal-Santa Barbara. At UCSD, where I did my graduate work, UCSD and UC San Diego were pretty both used.

I happen to live right next to UC Davis (though I am not affiliated with it). That school used to be commonly called UCD. They purposefully rebranded it about 25 years ago as "UC Davis" only. They also don't like to ever be called Cal-Davis, though it happens to be the case that from 1906-1958, Davis was a part of UC Berkeley as its agriculture school. When people like John Kenneth Galbraith* (in the early 1930s) did his PhD here in Davis, he got his degree from UC Berkeley, though his coursework was all done in Davis. He had to take the one hour train to Berkeley to attend his graduation ceremony.

*I don't know where Galbraith became a socialist (or whatever far-leftist brand applies). I doubt it was in Davis, which was a fairly conservative institution back then. However, he was here from 1930-34, so maybe due to the Depression, the older economic ideas were seen in his time as a student as out of date.

The CSUs not offering doctoral degrees might be changing...

Yeah, that's why I said "(well, almost no)." We now have an Ed.D. program, for instance. Doesn't change the fact that we're not likely to be offering Ph.D.'s in most liberal arts and sciences. And in what I said about admissions, I'll admit that I don't know where either Cal Poly fits into that. (Note that both Cal Polys, San Diego State, San Jose State, and Fresno State are all part of the CSU system.)

I should also mention funding - we get maybe half the per-student funding of the UC's and charge less then half the tuition. (Excuse me, "Fees" - the "T" word is forbidden.) That tuition - er, fees - has been rising quite rapidly but is still lower than most other state systems.

Cal Poly is listed by U.S. news as a 'College' in the West edition. It doesn't try to rank them with research universities like the UC's. Then, they break it up by region, with Col Poly in the "West region", basically any state west of Texas, and including Texas. Cal Poly is 6th in this ranking, Chapman(Irvine campus is 8th), and Long Beach State is 24th.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges

"U.S. News just released their rankings for universities and colleges, and the worst U.C. listed ... was UC Riverside at 94. ... The highest CSU school on the list was San Diego State, barely making it into the list around 150."

"Were UC-Riverside (and SDSU?!?) really ranked ahead of Cal Poly SLO? That doesn't sound right."

The list he is referring to is US News's "Tier 1 National Universities" rankings. UCR, as he said, is No. 94. SDSU is No. 183 out of 191.

Cal Poly SLO is not considered a "National University." It is in the Regional University Tier 1 category. ("Regional Universities offer a full range of undergrad programs and some master's programs but few doctoral programs.") Among those, it is ranked No. 6 in the Western Region:

1 Trinity University San Antonio, TX
2 Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA
3 Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA
4 Gonzaga University Spokane, WA
4 Mills College Oakland, CA
6 California Polytechnic State University--San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA
6 Seattle University Seattle, WA
8 Chapman University Orange, CA
9 University of Portland Portland, OR
9 University of Redlands Redlands, CA
9 Whitworth University Spokane, WA

These are the top 10 public universities in the SLO category for the West:

California Polytechnic State University--San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 1
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Socorro, NM 2
Western Washington University Bellingham, WA 3
California State University--Long Beach Long Beach, CA 4
Evergreen State College Olympia, WA 5
California State University--Chico Chico, CA 6
California State Polytechnic University--Pomona Pomona, CA 7
University of Colorado--Colorado Springs Colorado Springs, CO 7
Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA 9
California State University--Fullerton Fullerton, CA 10
Humboldt State University Arcata, CA 10

Looks like SLO is being seriously underrated here. Mills? Loyola Marymount? Are you serious?