Conference Expansion: Stanford, California and SMU Join the ACC

[BarcaDeac]

Where do you think all the Duke fans came from? It became a national brand after winning....

Also our viewership numbers for football the last two years have been middle of the ACC.

well they can only cram a few thousand people in their gym so the rest gotta watch on TV !

 

[DeacDaddy]

We can’t really know how Wake will be viewed in a decade, but 3-4 Final Fours plus a natty under Forbes would at least make it interesting. There’s a lot of national bandwagonners we could potentially attract during that time.

Shoot, here I am calling them Final Fours when we all know good and well I meant Final Forbes.

 

[Deacfreak07]

Where do you think all the Duke fans came from? It became a national brand after winning....

Also our viewership numbers for football the last two years have been middle of the ACC.

They became a national brand after they hired a young person to coach in the small OCA they had been playing in for 4 decades. The winning had nothing to do with it.

 

[Pilchard]

Big 12 Going After UCONN and Gonzaga

Going all in on hoop.

 

[WakeForestRanger]

The Big12 isn't coming near us once the ACC music finally stops.

Good. Who the hell wants to play in the Big 12?

 

[morrison2951]

Good. Who the hell wants to play in the Big 12?

Once nd is all in the ACC with football, the other conferences can kiss our feet.

 

[CaptRenault]

It’s honestly a respectable decision by WF, especially with our focus on humanities which is shrinking many places. It’s irresponsible to be giving grad degrees in the humanities unless you have an extremely established program at an Ivy or equivalent institution these days.

There is no special "focus on the humanities" at Wake Forest. As shown in these charts, the number of undergrad students who get degrees in the humanities (history, English, philosophy, languages, art, etc.) is small. The most popular majors by far are business, finance, politics, communication, psych and econ. Wake emphasizes majors that are seen as good for career prospects. Wake is not fundamentally different from most other schools in that respect.

 

[PhDeac]

deacdixieboy would know better than either of us most likely, but that seems like a lot of humanities majors.

 

[DeacDaddy]

I know you can get a BS in computer science, but the twelve year old in me still laughs at the fact that you can get a degree in computer science BS.

 

[deacdixieboy]

It’s not just about majors. Our Gen Ed requirements put more focus on the Humanities than almost anywhere in the country.

Ph is also correct. Those major numbers are high for the Humanities. You’re also missing minors which, at least in my day, many of those top granting major students still had, and usually it was in something they found simply to be interesting like History, English, Religious Studies, Art History, etc.

 

[inspectah]

I count 172 humanities degrees in that list, give or take. How many students in the graduating class? 1,350? How is that a high number of humanities? Not picking on you guys, just find this discussion interesting. I understand the argument about not turning out humanities PhDs that can't get jobs but we should not be eliminating or reducing humanities majors just because STEM is having a moment.

 

[PhDeac]

I count 172 humanities degrees in that list, give or take. How many students in the graduating class? 1,350? How is that a high number of humanities? Not picking on you guys, just find this discussion interesting. I understand the argument about not turning out humanities PhDs that can't get jobs but we should not be eliminating or reducing humanities majors just because STEM is having a moment.

Because it's a higher percentage than comparable universities.

Nobody is talking about eliminating or reducing humanities, just explaining why Wake is different than other universities.

 

[inspectah]

Surprising to me that any four-year non-technical school would be giving fewer than 12 percent of its degrees in the humanities.

 

[PhDeac]

Surprising to me that any four-year non-technical school would be giving fewer than 12 percent of its degrees in the humanities.

Humanities isn't that many majors. Keep in mind, those majors have been subject to a decades-long smear campaign.

 

[deacdixieboy]

And, again, these numbers aren’t showing minors. Just as an example, at my institution we had 8 Religious Studies majors this year. We had almost 40 minors.

I’ll also add that at my institution admin doesn’t even look at numbers of humanities majors anymore. They look at how many unique students each humanities prof teaches. A bunch of people at liberal arts schools take humanities classes for fun because they are interested, even if they aren’t majoring or minoring in that. Just in case y’all were curious, I had the second highest number of unique students at the whole school last year. Everyone wants to take a class with Dr. DDB.

As a department we also count “frequent flyers.” Folks who take a lot of classes with the same prof, even if they aren’t minoring or majoring (I was first in that by a long shot!).

 

[BlackjackMc]

Didn’t really say they would or wouldn’t. But bball isn’t the driver of things anymore is my point. NCAA way back in 2016 or so stupidly signed that CBS extension for the same money all the way thru 2032. Sounds like Swofford with ACC tying us up thru 2026 for same money. Meanwhile B10 signs new deal for $1.15 bill per year and gets USC & UCLA.

If I'm not mistaken, the signatures on that B1G deal are missing. Probably a minor inconvenience considering the cash involved, but a requirement nevertheless.

 

[TheReff]

If I'm not mistaken, the signatures on that B1G deal are missing. Probably a minor inconvenience considering the cash involved, but a requirement nevertheless.

It will also be interesting to see how big the SEC deal will be in a couple years after all their dust settles. They are just doing the 8 game schedule in 2024, plus adding OK & Texas. Will give them time to see ratings and assess more money to come from a 9 game schedule. They could be up to the $80 mill per school by 2025.

 

[CaptRenault]

It’s not just about majors. Our Gen Ed requirements put more focus on the Humanities than almost anywhere in the country.

Ph is also correct. Those major numbers are high for the Humanities. You’re also missing minors which, at least in my day, many of those top granting major students still had, and usually it was in something they found simply to be interesting like History, English, Religious Studies, Art History, etc.

By "Gen Ed," I assume you mean what Wake calls divisional requirements, i.e., a student must take a certain number of courses in each division of the curriculum (i.e. humanities, social sciences, sciences, humanities, literature and fine arts). To its credit, Wake has maintained such divisional requirements while some schools have not.

But most of of the selective schools that Wake likes to compare itself with still have such divisional requirements. There is nothing special about Wake's requirements and there is no special emphasis on the humanities.

It's a good thing for some departments that there are such course requirements. If students were not forced to take divisionals, then some departments would have no students to teach. The courses that students typically take to fulfill these requirements are usually the lowest level courses in a department-they are usually not very challenging.

I find it amusing that courses in "Women's Studies" are considered part of the Humanities.

Requirements for Degrees < Wake Forest University

bulletin.wfu.edu

Division	Departments	Number of Courses Required
I: Humanities	History; Philosophy; Study of Religions; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies	2
II: Literatures	Literatures Written in English (English Department) In English Translation (Classical Languages, East Asian Languages and Cultures, French Studies, German and Russian, Spanish and Italian, and the Program in Humanities)	1
III: Fine Arts	Art, Music, Theatre and Dance	1

IV. Social Sciences	Anthropology, Communication, Economics, Education, Politics and International Affairs, Psychology, Sociology	2
V. Math and Natural Sciences	Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Statistical Sciences	2

 

[deacdixieboy]

By "Gen Ed," I assume you mean what Wake calls divisional requirements, i.e., a student must take a certain number of courses in each division of the curriculum (i.e. humanities, social sciences, sciences, humanities, literature and fine arts). To its credit, Wake has maintained such divisional requirements while some schools have not.

But most of of the selective schools that Wake likes to compare itself with still have such divisional requirements. There is nothing special about Wake's requirements and there is no special emphasis on the humanities.

It's a good thing for some departments that there are such course requirements. If students were not forced to take divisionals, then some departments would have no students to teach. The courses that students typically take to fulfill these requirements are usually the lowest level courses in a department-they are usually not very challenging.

I find it amusing that courses in "Women's Studies" are considered part of the Humanities.

Requirements for Degrees < Wake Forest University

bulletin.wfu.edu

Division	Departments	Number of Courses Required
I: Humanities	History; Philosophy; Study of Religions; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies	2
II: Literatures	Literatures Written in English (English Department) In English Translation (Classical Languages, East Asian Languages and Cultures, French Studies, German and Russian, Spanish and Italian, and the Program in Humanities)	1
III: Fine Arts	Art, Music, Theatre and Dance	1

IV. Social Sciences	Anthropology, Communication, Economics, Education, Politics and International Affairs, Psychology, Sociology	2
V. Math and Natural Sciences	Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Statistical Sciences	2

Again, there is something “special” about WF’s requirements. It is literally double the requirements of most other schools that have such Gen-Ed requirements. I know, I work at one of those other ones and have worked at several others. Also, everything in tiers 1, 2, and 3 there are Humanities. So, yes, that’s a lot of Humanities.

By sheer number, you also left out quite a few other requirements including First Year seminar (many are Humanities), foreign languages (many schools consider these Humanities), Writing courses (Humanities), and HES just off the top of my head.

 

[CaptRenault]

Humanities isn't that many majors. Keep in mind, those majors have been subject to a decades-long smear campaign.

I agree-Shakespeare and scores of other dead, white males have been smeared for decades!