Quote from: GusD on October 07, 2026, 01:44:55 PMSpeaking of WashU, they're probably glad to be out of the CCW and no longer having to play Wheaton and NCC. They are currently tied for first in their new conference, the NCAC, at 4-0, and are the only team in the conference that is currently undefeated, including nonconference games.

The Bears had a great stretch in the CCIW and every player I ever talked to was thrilled to play North Central and Wheaton.

I am not the only fan who circled those games on the calendar, so to speak, even when I knew there was a good chance that the final score would be closer to 0-31 or 9-49.

It would be fun to watch the Bears play North Central or Wheaton in the playoffs.  The Bears would be the clear underdogs, but still, I like our chances.

Quote from: y_jack_lok on October 07, 2026, 10:14:55 AMThis got me wondering what has become of the MacMurray College campus. A quick Google search turned this up:

That is awesome.

Randomly, I have a friend who lives in St. Louis and is from Jacksonville.  Her father was on a few of the steering committees that worked on MacMurray related projects.  If I understand correctly, the community mobilized quickly and worked very hard to make things happen.

The future of Division III is housing.  Eastern Nazarene, Cazenovia, Iowa Wesleyan and other references.

https://globecollegetown.substack.com/p/closed-colleges-could-be-great-for-housing

Quote from: Ron Boerger on October 06, 2026, 01:56:08 PMCase has $4.8B in assets against $1.2B in liabilities.  While that's a higher debt load than one might expect, since 2021 they are clearing over $50M a year in profit (and an astounding $239M in 2022, $116M in 2021) so you can continue to assume they are doing great financially.

Perfect! 

Now if they would just update their Men's Basketball roster.

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on October 06, 2026, 09:52:15 AMTo be honest, I never paid any attention to stuff like this until this string came along, so I looked up CWRU's ratings.

I mean this in the best possible way: let's just assume that Case Western Reserve is doing great financially and in terms of enrollment until we hear otherwise.

Quote from: KnightSlappy on October 05, 2026, 03:30:06 PMIf MUW must change the name, they should change it to MUW and if that must stand for something it can be Mississippi University W. The W can stand for the letter W which represents the history of the college being a women's college.

I imagine that name would be blocked by the Ole Miss wing of the Mississippi legislature, but I like the idea.

Quote from: Kuiper on October 05, 2026, 12:08:37 PMYou mean "the W," or "Wynbridge State University of Mississippi," or "Mississippi Brightwell University," or "Reneau University"?

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/the-w-will-remain-mississippi-university-for-women-as-renaming-efforts-fail-a-second-time/

That is exactly what I mean, yes!

Quote from: CentPA on October 05, 2026, 12:45:18 PMHow about North Central sitting at #1 in the NPI (even ahead of Wash U) .. it can pay to not play!

The only team that has a chance of finishing ahead of Washington University is Tufts.  The worst team in the UAA would be the third best in the CCIW.

I'll never understand why marketing and design consulting firms struggle so mightily with higher education clients.

You must engage stakeholders at all stages of the process or you will end up with far more disgruntled alumni than necessary.

I am looking at you, Mississippi University for Women.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on October 02, 2026, 11:05:20 PMhttps://lailluminator.com/2026/10/01/consultant-to-evaluate-ul-system-teams-leaving-division-i-to-save-money/

The future of Division III and higher education in general is wasting money on consultants.  Also, the past and present.

Quote from: jknezek on October 01, 2026, 11:04:04 AMI don't know, off the top of my head, NYU might. I'd also say Johns Hopkins might if they thought it would alienate Bloomberg. Money and politics go hand in hand...

Hopkins, definitely.

I do wonder if NYU would accept another major gift from John Paulson if he offered that today.  Vanderbilt would, but NYU might pass.  Hard to say.

Quote from: CarollFan on October 01, 2026, 10:51:00 AMFor sure but he has billions more. He has done a lot of philanthropy around education. I'm sure some these chancellors have him or his people on speed dial.

This is unquestionably true.

I might add, if any Division III institution was going to turn down Ken Griffin on principle, it would be the University of Chicago.

Quote from: jknezek on October 01, 2026, 10:22:35 AMJust a guess, but U Chicago has some financial issues right now. Since a huge part of this is building new facilities in South Florida, a requirement for the money, that may not have been a project they wanted to tackle on top of what they have on their plate. CMU might have had an easier time agreeing to open/run a satellite campus halfway across the country. Schools have tried this before, both nationally and internationally, and it doesn't always work well. It takes a lot of dedication of resources, not just the money.

It could be he tried to get his alma mater involved, and they decided the project wasn't in their interests as he wanted it done. U Chicago might have said they wanted more like a 50/50 split on the money home campus vs satellite and CMU had more flexibility for the 2/3rds 1/3rd. Just a thought, as I have no knowledge other than what I've read.

Griffen is known as a shark, and I'm sure he negotiated the best deal he could get for the part that mattered most to him, the South Florida campus. I'd be surprised if CMU was the only school he approached, but they were probably the one that was willing to do it closest to his vision.

Unfortunately, we will never know, but I think there is a near-zero chance that if asked, the UChicago Chancellor would say that this was the best possible outcome given what Ken Griffin would have wanted from whomever was willing to accept his billions.  That was my only point.

Quote from: CarollFan on October 01, 2026, 07:14:21 AMHe is originally from Florida and bailed on Chicago in 2022 when he moved his company Citadel from Chicago to Florida.

You're describing the conversation taking place in Evanston.

Ken Griffin was actually a Trustee of the University of Chicago.

Carnegie Mellon has the better computer science department, but otherwise, if geography matters, I do not see a connection to Pittsburgh.

I imagine the talk in certain Hyde Park circles tonight is how did things go so badly that a former University of Chicago Board of Trustees member gave the money to a peer institution instead.