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As the University of Utah this month enters a daunting new realm of big-time intercollegiate sports, a lot of Utahns may be wondering, What does joining a high-glitz athletic conference have to do with educating future generations of leaders, finding cures for cancer and other academic and research roles of a major public university?
A lot actually, according to David Rudd, the dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science. The U. may still be anchored in Utah, but it's in a whole new upscale neighborhood, "running with the big boys," as one faculty leader puts it. And he wasn't talking about stadiums and "jock boxes," but labs where Nobel-caliber research unfolds and libraries that enable cutting-edge scholarship of all kinds.
"For better or worse, we think of universities in terms of athletic affiliations," says Rudd, pointing to the group of Northeastern colleges whose conference, known as the Ivy League, is synonymous with academic excellence.
With the U.'s admission to the Pac-12 Conference, made official this month, the rest of the nation will associate Utah with Stanford, Cal and Washington, Rudd says. That's not just among football fans, but also among students, faculty, even the reviewers who help award federal research grants.
Instead of living up to standards set by San Diego State, UNLV and other Mountain West schools, Utah will measure itself against the most prestigious institutions on the West Coast, officials say.
"It gives us a higher level of competition to shoot for," says Clark Ivory, chairman of the Board of Trustees. "When you are in the middle of the Pac, literally, you're saying what's going to take to get to the top three. That will take new focus and new motivation. Having these new standards will help motivate us."
Other top officials believe the U. will parlay Pac-12 membership into enhanced academic stature.
"This is in part due to the sort of 'friends you keep' phenomenon," said acting President Loris Betz at the Capitol last week. "And with this higher profile, we are able to showcase the academic and research [mission] of the university to a population that has never really understood who we are and just how good we are."
Although the U. and the University of Colorado, which moves from the Big 12, boast nationally competitive football programs, both have research footprints larger than those of some Pac-12 schools.
"Our conference was built on a pioneering spirit and through innovation that has contributed to some of the most valuable advancements in this country and the world," conference Commissioner Larry Scott said in a media statement to mark the occasion. "Colorado and Utah share those core values and instantly enhance the strength of our conference both academically and athletically."
The U. still lacks the diversity, both ethnically and geographically, common on most Pac-12 campuses. In response, officials are trying to boost out-of-state enrollment to 25 percent by marketing to students in California and Texas, and renewing efforts to recruit minority faculty.
On an academic level the U. will find itself in the middle of the Pac-12. Like Betz, Rudd predicts the conference switch will lift Utah's profile. The new national stage will enable the U. to recruit and retain better students from more corners of the country and more competitive faculty and to grow its research enterprise.
"There's no question these things go hand in hand. When you look at the data, there are academic benefits," says Rudd, a professor of psychology who once played safety on Princeton's football team.
U. faculty leaders and trustees are enthusiastic about the conference switch because of the national exposure it will bring. But some say the benefits on the academic side will take time to nurture, and trustees acknowledge the school will need to make major investments in athletic facilities to be competitive with its new big-spending rivals.
"It will cause us to look at how we can lift everything to a new level. The athletic investment will be very incremental," Ivory says. "The Pac-12 schools are under their own budget constraints, they understand we can't wave a wand and get everything we want."
Meanwhile, the U. faculty will have more opportunities to forge scholarly collaborations with their counterparts at Pac-12 schools, according to Patrick Tripeny, an associate professor of architecture who chairs the Academic Senate's athletics advisory council. He notes that there was only one other architecture program in the Mountain West, while all but one of the Pac-12 schools have programs in his field.
"Suddenly there are these other schools we are talking to," he says. "There's something about that that is working well. We've had a great relationship with Oregon, now we're in the same conference, and I expect we will be building relationships with Berkeley and other schools."
Already the U. faculty have participated in a Pac-12 arts and sciences deans conference, held in April in Eugene, Ore. — home of the University of Oregon Ducks — and to be hosted by the U. next year.
Rudd and Tripeny have both been impressed with the U. athletic department's track record at containing costs, arguing it bodes well for shielding the university from the excesses of the "arms race" gripping collegiate sports at the highest level. Officials promise to continue tapping private sources to build up athletic facilities, rather than raiding state money.
Tripeny is not concerned that sports will monopolize philanthropic giving because Utah's wealthy donors have consistently demonstrated a commitment to academics and research. Nor is he worried that the increased pressure to win will result in episodes similar to those on other Pac-12 campuses where star football players' poor academic performance and off-field behavior have triggered embarrassing sanctions and headlines.
"I was always amazed with [athletic director Chris] Hill's insistence that academics is an important part of being an NCAA athlete," Tripeny says. "As long as Chris Hill is in charge, I don't see that sort of thing happening."
A new league academically
Where Pac-12 universities place in the latest U.S. News & World Report national rankings:
Stanford • 5
Cal • 22
USC • 23
UCLA • 25
Washington • 41
Colorado • 86
Washington State • 111
Oregon • 111
Arizona • 120
Utah • 129
Oregon State • 139
Arizona State • 143