Mary Ann Rankin
The university’s move to the Big Ten will bring new collaborations on the academic front, many of them out of reach for members of the ACC, officials said.
Beginning July 1, 2013, a year before the university’s entrance to the Big Ten, researchers will be able to access opportunities through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, an academic consortium made up of the 12 schools in the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago. Officials learned the membership date yesterday, after member schools’ provosts reviewed and voted on the application university Provost Mary Ann Rankin filed last week.
The Big Ten is more than an athletic conference, said University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan — it also boasts strong academics. Both Kirwan and university President Wallace Loh said opportunities provided in the CIC far exceed what is available through the ACC.
“They just work together academically in a way that no other conference, except possibly the Ivy League, does,” Kirwan said. “There’s nothing like the collaboration of the CIC among the ACC or any other conference. It is a huge benefit, and it’s one of the reasons I was supportive of this decision.”
To be invited to the Big Ten, a university must be a member of the Association of American Universities, a group of the 62 largest and most prominent public and private research universities in the country, Kirwan said. This prerequisite is a testament to the conference’s emphasis on academics, he added.
“That’s one indication of the commitment there to making the conference much more than athletics,” he said.
Membership in the CIC will aid in the university’s efforts to globalize, Loh said, particularly through new study abroad opportunities. If this university doesn’t have a certain study abroad program offered by another CIC university, students can join that program and pay this university’s rates, Loh said, opening up 70 new programs.
“It’s seamless. It’s like you’re signing up for a program at the University of Maryland,” he said.
After study abroad programs saw participation grow in the 2010-2011 academic year, the university jumped two places to 15th in the Institutes of International Education’s 2012 Open Doors rankings. And because students can take advantage of the CIC’s offerings as well, the university can save money it may have used starting new study abroad programs, Loh said.
The CIC also provides high-speed Internet connections among the universities and shared language courses, library resources and journal subscriptions, and opportunities for graduate students seeking fellowships; many of the resources will save the university money, Loh said.
For example, the Big Ten has a contract with Google to digitize whole library collections of the CIC universities, Loh said — a project that would cost the university “a fortune” on its own and will now only cost a fraction of the amount.
“You want any book in the University of Maryland library or the University of Michigan library or wherever, you can go online and get it,” Loh said. “That’s the power of collective purchasing.”
Although the CIC does not provide research grants and will not contribute to a direct source of research funding, university Research Vice President Pat O’Shea said membership will allow for greater research collaboration between universities, which often makes it easier to obtain larger grants.
“Immediately, when I heard about the CIC, I said, ‘This is great, because we’ve got nothing like this in the ACC,’” he said. “The Big Ten historically has been more than just athletics. It’s almost like the Ivy League but for public universities.”
It is hard to predict how much CIC membership will increase research funding, O’Shea said, but the coalition will lead to more collaboration outside of the local area and give the university a competitive edge.
“Ultimately, it will increase the research funding and the quality of the scholarship,” he said. “We’ll be playing research with higher quality colleagues. It will up our game.”
Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon agreed, saying the CIC allows for collaboration in both research and leadership among the institutions.
“It allows greater collaboration, which has led to greater research opportunities,” she said.
Membership in the CIC has helped other Big Ten members, such as Penn State, both academically and financially. Blannie Bowen, Penn State’s academic affairs vice provost, noted a CIC-run leadership development program for faculty who might want to move into administration. As part of the seminar, coordinators bring top speakers from across the Big Ten, who don’t have to be paid because they are already university employees.
“For that reason, there’s a tremendous saving,” he said. “These people are really, really good speakers, so by sharing resources, we share some of the best speakers of the university.”
Though the university will not join the CIC until 2013, Bowen said some collaborations can begin much sooner.
While Loh said he understands some individuals are upset about the move to the Big Ten, he argues the academic opportunities were too great to pass up.
“Was this the major reason for moving to the Big Ten? No, it was not. But it was enough of a reason that I don’t think I wouldn’t have wanted to lead Maryland into any other conference,” he said. “I respect their feelings, but, you know, what I have to weigh is their upsetness over not having a basketball game versus the advantages of joining the CIC. That’s looking at the whole picture and looking at the future.”
