Julio Frenk Interview

[Bunker Mentality]

My undergrad degree from Miami, my internship in President's Foote office, and my continued association with Miami for years would disagree with you.

Please continue to lecture me on how Miami runs as an institution though.

Good. So you should know better than anyone football can’t be completely ignored at the []__[]. Foote was an anomaly, in that football thrived despite him. Our standards and the current level of competition in higher education necessitates football be taken seriously at the []__[]. The pack has caught up and we can’t just mail it in anymore.

 

[Canedude08]

There is in many cases a direct correlation between football success and academic ranking. This guy is very underwhelming.

There isn't, and I want to see where you dug this pseudofactoid from. If that was true, the US News and World Report and WSJ rankings would look extremely similar to the AP Rankings, and they don't and never have. There are few, and I repeat, few selective private Universities that even try to compete consistently in major college football. Why? Because in most cases, to be successful in the endeavor, you have to prostitute yourself and few schools are willing to do that, for good reason. Alabama can win every national championship until the end of time, still won't change the fact that they are a joke to the educated public, same with most of the SEC.

 

[Canedude08]

At OSU the President, VP, BOT, professors, AD, desk clerks, librarian, gas station clerk, the homeless guy in the ally, EVERYONE cares about FB. That’s the difference

Actually not. The BOOSTERS that write the checks care, the athletically inclined people on their governing board care, everyone else has other, more pressing priorities. It's amazing how people think that well managed schools are spending all of their waking hours concentrating on football. No, the people who care, REALLY CARE, and they are given carte blanche to do the things needed in order to succeed. Ohio State has a dedicated, loyal and above all LARGE donor pool that uses their money and political influence to force change if things aren't working. The President of the University is there to fundraise for the academic side and to be there for photo ops. He isn't hanging out in the athletic department offices.

 

[Canedude08]

Not ranking but increased attendance. Example, As UCF has improved football it has become the 2nd largest university (students) in America!

Guess what, UMiami isn't interested in being a glorified diploma mill. Why? Because a small, selective private school doesn't care about letting in everyone and then using sheer force of numbers to force their way into the conversation with the state powers that be. UCF has no choice, they have to have those numbers, that's the only way they can stay afloat financially. They have to crank people through, educational quality be damned, because that's how they get their money.

 

[Empirical Cane]

Good. So you should know better than anyone football can’t be completely ignored at the []__[]. Foote was an anomaly, in that football thrived despite him. Our standards and the current level of competition in higher education necessitates football be taken seriously at the []__[]. The pack has caught up and we can’t just mail it in anymore.

You are conflating the President's role for Miami as a whole vs what "authority" the position truly has over AD.

Understand before you spew.

 

[Fluffhead]

There isn't, and I want to see where you dug this pseudofactoid from. If that was true, the US News and World Report and WSJ rankings would look extremely similar to the AP Rankings, and they don't and never have. There are few, and I repeat, few selective private Universities that even try to compete consistently in major college football. Why? Because in most cases, to be successful in the endeavor, you have to prostitute yourself and few schools are willing to do that, for good reason. Alabama can win every national championship until the end of time, still won't change the fact that they are a joke to the educated public, same with most of the SEC.

I will preface this by saying that I went to Miami for law school, so I don’t really like saying this, but Alabama’s law school is in the top 25 and their accounting program is extremely well regarded by the accounting firms. Georgia is extremely well regarded and a number of other schools in the SEC or the big football schools. Miami is simply not as well regarded as you may think it is, and certainly not good enough to ignore the full college experience of good athletics. Also, Jesus Christ you are insufferably condescending.

 

[CaneInHeelCountry]

I will preface this by saying that I went to Miami for law school, so I don’t really like saying this, but Alabama’s law school is in the top 25 and their accounting program is extremely well regarded by the accounting firms. Georgia is extremely well regarded and a number of other schools in the SEC or the big football schools. Miami is simply not as well regarded as you may think it is, and certainly not good enough to ignore the full college experience of good athletics. Also, Jesus Christ you are insufferably condescending.

FTR, the SEC ranks very poorly—next to last—among the major conferences in academic rankings.

Bama’s law school may have some good programs, but their undergrad ranking among national universities is pretty poor. Vandy’s always ranked highly academically, but they’re not exactly known for success in football. UF and UGA are relatively well ranked academically and in football, but aside from that, most SEC schools are pretty poorly ranked academically.

If College Football’s Rankings Were Based on Academics... - CollegeFindMe

Stanford University has had success on the football field over the past 10 years while also leading the WSJ/THE College Rankings for 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS The hierarchy of the power five conferences shifts dramatically when you rank teams by strength of its university By ANDREW BEATON on October...

blog.collegefindme.com

 

[Fluffhead]

FTR, the SEC ranks very poorly—next to last—among the major conferences in academic rankings.

Bama’s law school may have some good programs, but their undergrad ranking among national universities is pretty poor. Vandy’s always ranked highly academically, but they’re not exactly known for success in football. UF and UGA are relatively well ranked academically and in football, but aside from that, most SEC schools are pretty poorly ranked academically.

If College Football’s Rankings Were Based on Academics... - CollegeFindMe

Stanford University has had success on the football field over the past 10 years while also leading the WSJ/THE College Rankings for 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS The hierarchy of the power five conferences shifts dramatically when you rank teams by strength of its university By ANDREW BEATON on October...

blog.collegefindme.com

I live in Atlanta. I am familiar with the SEC. I also was responsible for a lot of my group’s recruiting at two top level professional service firms at different points in my career. The cold hard truth - they recruited Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida a **** of a lot harder than Miami.

This was discussed ad nauseum in the law school thread but Miami has a reputation problem outside of Miami and NYC. Unfortunately, companies in both cities also have a lot of much better schools to recruit. Even in Miami, UM grads are competing heavily with UF/FSU and every other top school’s alums.

There are a lot of top schools where the school’s president is not making day to day athletics decisions, but recognizes the value of athletics as a marketing tool and part of the college experience, and there are even more schools where a president will step in and replace the AD if the school’s athletics are failing. Miami is simply not a good enough school to not offer prospective students the athletics side.

 

[Ethnicsands]

There isn't, and I want to see where you dug this pseudofactoid from. If that was true, the US News and World Report and WSJ rankings would look extremely similar to the AP Rankings, and they don't and never have. There are few, and I repeat, few selective private Universities that even try to compete consistently in major college football. Why? Because in most cases, to be successful in the endeavor, you have to prostitute yourself and few schools are willing to do that, for good reason. Alabama can win every national championship until the end of time, still won't change the fact that they are a joke to the educated public, same with most of the SEC.

This is bad logic. The question is whether for schools for which football is or has been important, football outcomes impact donations or applications. It’s pointless to observe that there are schools where other factors drive these things. Of course there are. That’s irrelevant. No one claimed football was the only factor and for schools where football isn’t important, it may not be a relevant factor. But for UM, it’s a fair question. It’s not easy to know the answer, however, because the data set is too narrow and idiosyncratic. And the answer may be that it only matters significantly when things are really good or really bad. But whether it’s knowable by fans or not, the Institution does have to fundraise and bring in new students, and I suspect it’s the case — because why wouldn’t it be — that winning football brings interest and excitement, and those things drive applications and donations, while inept football brings frustration, disappointment and embarrassment, and is less likely to hve a positive impct on applications and donations.

 

[TreOFive]

Go Fvck Yourself you left wing American hating communist draft dodging dirt bag piece of ****! Go play victim somewhere else scumbag, no one gives a Fvck about your identity victim politics here. Oh Admiral Starvidis was the other person the school was going to hire to be the president until they made the mistake of hiring foreigner Frenk who doesn’t give a **** about football and only cares about futball and it shows in how little attention he’s given our program and how he’s allowed Blake James to further run it into the ground. The admiral is an American obviously and not only atleast knows what football is but actually cares about it and the admiral would also kick the **** out of Frenks Maricon @ss! Have I made my self perfectly clear to you fvcko? Now go take a long walk of a short pier into an ocean full of electric eels.

We might not know how the power structure at Miami will play out or how Miami will get back on top in CFB. but at least we know who would buy beach front property in Iowa in the town with a golden trump statue that town residents are required to pray and praise 3 times per day while attending trump Univ to get their degree in coming up with cool sayings like libtard, fake news, and how to tweet 500xs per day.

 

[Canedude08]

This is bad logic. The question is whether for schools for which football is or has been important, football outcomes impact donations or applications. It’s pointless to observe that there are schools where other factors drive these things. Of course there are. That’s irrelevant. No one claimed football was the only factor and for schools where football isn’t important, it may not be a relevant factor. But for UM, it’s a fair question. It’s not easy to know the answer, however, because the data set is too narrow and idiosyncratic. And the answer may be that it only matters significantly when things are really good or really bad. But whether it’s knowable by fans or not, the Institution does have to fundraise and bring in new students, and I suspect it’s the case — because why wouldn’t it be — that winning football brings interest and excitement, and those things drive applications and donations, while inept football brings frustration, disappointment and embarrassment, and is less likely to hve a positive impct on applications and donations.

Football brings increase in applications, but let's be honest: The kind of kid that is making academic decisions based on how good the football program is most likely not the kind of kid that is going to get in anyway. Most fundraising is done on the academic side, and it's done through research. The most valuable entity in any University are the researchers. They are far more valuable than any sports coach, because they are what will attract the true big money donors. You have some top end researchers, they can and will attract the kind of money that athletics never will. Never mind the fact that athletics tends to hold onto every single dime they raise. What the AD raises or earns, it keeps. Outside of some insanely profitable schools, most schools see little in regards to cash infusions in regards to athletic departments.

Athletics have a purpose, but it's far overblown on this board and among college athletic fanbases in general. No school has ever been built solely on athletics and no school ever will. It's not an accident that the schools that have historically been really, really good in sports are for the most part schools that are mediocre at best in their primary mission, outside of some outliers. For every Michigan, or Texas, there are dozens of LSUs and Alabamas.

Miami can and should do what it takes to have a nationally competitive athletics program, but one shouldn't mortgage the future of the institution itself to do it. A quality AD can work within the confines presented by being a smaller, selective private institution, and create an atmosphere in which accountability and competence reigns. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to not hire Manny Diaz without conducting a search. It doesn't take a ton of money to realize that it's an awful idea to continue to hire inexperienced HCs especially ones that have shown an inability to understand the issues at hand.

 

[CaneInHeelCountry]

I live in Atlanta. I am familiar with the SEC. I also was responsible for a lot of my group’s recruiting at two top level professional service firms at different points in my career. The cold hard truth - they recruited Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida a **** of a lot harder than Miami.

This was discussed ad nauseum in the law school thread but Miami has a reputation problem outside of Miami and NYC. Unfortunately, companies in both cities also have a lot of much better schools to recruit. Even in Miami, UM grads are competing heavily with UF/FSU and every other top school’s alums.

There are a lot of top schools where the school’s president is not making day to day athletics decisions, but recognizes the value of athletics as a marketing tool and part of the college experience, and there are even more schools where a president will step in and replace the AD if the school’s athletics are failing. Miami is simply not a good enough school to not offer prospective students the athletics side.

It’s funny that you got all over another poster for being condescending, given your post and your refusal to look at the objective facts.

It’s great that you went to UM law, that you live in ATL, and that you work(ed) as a recruiter.

Be that as it may, the truth is that in any ranking of national or international universities, SEC schools are not as highly regarded as are schools from several other major conferences. Stack the SEC against the ACC or Big 10 and there’s a mighty big gulf between the former and the latter 2.

UM generally ranks ahead of all but 2 or 3 SEC schools by most undergraduate ranking systems.

I don’t doubt that hiring—particularly in the south—is geared much more toward the big state schools. There are numerous reasons for this—the most obvious being the enormous alumni networks of those schools, which dwarf UM. And if you were recruiting for a firm in ATL, of course they’re going to spend more time and effort on the schools that are within a couple hundred mile radius...which would include all the schools you listed.

 

[Ethnicsands]

What an awful series lf logical fails.

Football brings increase in applications, but let's be honest: The kind of kid that is making academic decisions based on how good the football program is most likely not the kind of kid that is going to get in anyway.

Way to assume your conclusion. Let’s just agree this is a stupid argument in your part. You have no basis to assert this, and no reason to think it’s true. Kids make holistic decisions on where to go to college based on lots of factors, and social environment are amongst them, as are career opportunities, for smart kids as well as less smart ones.

Most fundraising is done on the academic side, and it's done through research. The most valuable entity in any University are the researchers. They are far more valuable than any sports coach, because they are what will attract the true big money donors. You have some top end researchers, they can and will attract the kind of money that athletics never will.

This too is a bad argument, because it’s a complete red herring distraction. Football doesn’t help or hinder research grants or other support, to my knowledge, so you’re just mixing apples and oranges. Whether football helps general donations or not is the question.

Never mind the fact that athletics tends to hold onto every single dime they raise. What the AD raises or earns, it keeps. Outside of some insanely profitable schools, most schools see little in regards to cash infusions in regards to athletic departments.

Bad argument again, because you assume that the donations related to football are all earmarked to the AD. That isn’t necessarily true at all. The question is whether success in football (or lack of awfulness at it) helps overall giving, at least for some schools. And AD fundraising does also help the institution, because money is fungible. It can pay for opportunities and facilities that otherwise wouldn’t happen or would require other resources, not only for revenue producing sports, but for all scholar athletes.

Athletics have a purpose, but it's far overblown on this board and among college athletic fanbases in general. No school has ever been built solely on athletics and no school ever will.

What an obviously ridiculous strawman you’ve created. Has anyone argued that a school was ‘built solely on athletics’?

It's not an accident that the schools that have historically been really, really good in sports are for the most part schools that are mediocre at best in their primary mission, outside of some outliers. For every Michigan, or Texas, there are dozens of LSUs and Alabamas.

This is also a ridiculous comment. Schools that have been historically good at sports tend to be big state schools, in no small part because they have a big pool of students from which to draw athletes. They also have a bias towards the mean in average student talent, because of size and in some cases because of state mission / admission criteria. That doesn’t mean they don’t also have many terrific students and professors and departments. You’re fooled by the denominator and too impressed with brand. And it’s easy to pick on LSU, I suppose. Alabama is a good institution. So is Texas, UGA, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Nebraska, Cal, UCLA, etc. State schools tend to get a bad rap because insecure elitists feel the need to look down on them for self-validation.

Miami can and should do what it takes to have a nationally competitive athletics program, but one shouldn't mortgage the future of the institution itself to do it.

False choice alert!!! Has anyone argued Miami should ‘mortgage it’s future’ for anything? The discussion is the opposite - what is the best path to a rosy future.

A quality AD can work within the confines presented by being a smaller, selective private institution, and create an atmosphere in which accountability and competence reigns. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to not hire Manny Diaz without conducting a search. It doesn't take a ton of money to realize that it's an awful idea to continue to hire inexperienced HCs especially ones that have shown an inability to understand the issues at hand.

Agreed.

 

[Fluffhead]

It’s funny that you got all over another poster for being condescending, given your post and your refusal to look at the objective facts.

It’s great that you went to UM law, that you live in ATL, and that you work(ed) as a recruiter.

Be that as it may, the truth is that in any ranking of national or international universities, SEC schools are not as highly regarded as are schools from several other major conferences. Stack the SEC against the ACC or Big 10 and there’s a mighty big gulf between the former and the latter 2.

UM generally ranks ahead of all but 2 or 3 SEC schools by most undergraduate ranking systems.

I don’t doubt that hiring—particularly in the south—is geared much more toward the big state schools. There are numerous reasons for this—the most obvious being the enormous alumni networks of those schools, which dwarf UM. And if you were recruiting for a firm in ATL, of course they’re going to spend more time and effort on the schools that are within a couple hundred mile radius...which would include all the schools you listed.

Edit - don’t actually give a ****. The U is building champions, trending upwards academically and athletically, and is a great investment compared to a ton of public schools at a fraction of the price with the same job placement prospects.

 

[CANEFAN83]

Jeb Bush has no immediate future in the Republican Party so this would be a logical choice to replace Frenk- if those rumors are true. Stavridis is fine by me too. We'll probably give it to Debbie Wasserman Schultz or some clown that is currently a dean at Temple if history repeats itself.

Where are the rumors about Jeb Bush?

 

[Tad Footeball]

Where are the rumors about Jeb Bush?

There aren't any. I should've been more clear. I was just throwing his name out there as a personal preference because there were rumors (along with Stavridis) last time prior to giving it to Frenk.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Not ranking but increased attendance. Example, As UCF has improved football it has become the 2nd largest university (students) in America!

Football didn't make UCF the 2nd largest university in America. Massive amounts of land, massive Florida population, and massive spending on buildings (and a related scandal) have made UCF so large.

Now, if you want to talk about APPLICATIONS to UCF, then you may have an impact due to football. Though, in all honesty, the vast majority of students at UCF can't even get into the football games.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Where are the rumors about Jeb Bush?

There are no rumors about Jeb Bush, the rumors are about Frenk leaving.

All of the Republicans on the board are just going to have to drop their delusions about Jeb Bush and Condoleezza Rice, neither of those will ever happen.

Admiral Stavridis might happen, and I hope that it does, regardless of politics. He is a leader. Frenk is a spineless jellyfish. I don't give a **** how either of them vote when they go to the polls. UM needs strong leadership. Period. Stavridis can provide that.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Jeb Bush has no immediate future in the Republican Party so this would be a logical choice to replace Frenk- if those rumors are true. Stavridis is fine by me too. We'll probably give it to Debbie Wasserman Schultz or some clown that is currently a dean at Temple if history repeats itself.

We are not F$U. We are not a landing spot for Republicans with no immediate future in the Republican Party.

Jeb Bush does not have the academic background. Period.

Condoleezza Rice is more likely, but post-Shalala, it is highly unlikely that we would ever hire a president who has been active in day-to-day politics. That's why Stavridis is more likely, because even if you think you know his political ideology, he has never been as in-your-face with it.

And, he would likely be acceptable to either side of the political spectrum:

"He was considered as a potential vice-presidential running mate by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and as a possible U.S. Secretary of State by President-elect Donald Trump in the fall of 2016."

Look, one of my School of Business majors was Politics. But that department is not powerful or prominent enough to warrant bringing in a big-time politician to run the entire University.

Stavridis is probably as political a president as UM is willing to hire at this point.

 

[CANEFAN83]

We are not F$U. We are not a landing spot for Republicans with no immediate future in the Republican Party.

Jeb Bush does not have the academic background. Period.

Condoleezza Rice is more likely, but post-Shalala, it is highly unlikely that we would ever hire a president who has been active in day-to-day politics. That's why Stavridis is more likely, because even if you think you know his political ideology, he has never been as in-your-face with it.

And, he would likely be acceptable to either side of the political spectrum:

"He was considered as a potential vice-presidential running mate by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and as a possible U.S. Secretary of State by President-elect Donald Trump in the fall of 2016."

Look, one of my School of Business majors was Politics. But that department is not powerful or prominent enough to warrant bringing in a big-time politician to run the entire University.

Stavridis is probably as political a president as UM is willing to hire at this point.

Why did UM hire Frenk over Stavridis a few years ago? Stavridis interviewed with Miami for the Pres position when Frenk was hired. This was a mistake.