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Cheers
to you! How we compete with the "big schools"
With the spring semester
well under way, and in the spirit of mid-term exams soon to follow, lets introduce
today's topic with a pop quiz. I invite you to test yourself below. (Allow no
more than 30 seconds. There will be no grades assigned.) Ready. Here we go!
Question 1: Do you recognize the following set?
Vanderbilt University, Villanova University, University of Georgia, University
of Oklahoma, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Can you identify an outlier?
Answer: The outlier on the list of universities? Trick question. They
all happen to be members of one particular set: the institutions in last week's
AP women's basketball Top 25. The specific subset is No. 21 UW-Green Bay and
those ranked nearby.
Question 2: Match the characteristics:
Match 'UW-Green Bay' or 'The Other Top 25 Schools, on Average'
with either
Choice One:
Enrollment:
25,000 students; Total budget: $864 million; and Ph.D. programs
or
Choice Two:
Enrollment: 5,300 students; Total budget: $72 million; and no Ph.D. programs
Answer: UW-Green Bay is, of course, the institution with current on-campus
enrollment of 5,300. It turns out we truly are an outlier when measured via
common characteristics of the "big schools" that dominate the sports
polls.
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This standing ovation is directed toward members of UW-Green
Bay's nationally ranked women's basketball team, but also worth cheering is
our competitive success on a number of fronts, across the University.
Question
3: True
or False: UW-Green Bay students compete on a national level primarily by way
of intercollegiate athletics.
Answer:
Absolutely false.
And so introduces today's topic: Our success in women's basketball
is phenomenal, yet it is only one arena in which our students go head-to-head
with the best and biggest, and succeed.
Everywhere I go these days, people want to talk women’s
basketball, and that’s terrific. It’s a feel-good story for the larger
community. To be 16-3, ranked as high as No. 16 and regarded among the nation’s
elite is an exceptional achievement. (As someone who loves the game, I also
love that on most nights our team displays a beautiful brand of basketball —
with crisp passing on offense and hard-nosed play on defense.)
TO
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