Academics and Realignment

Regarding the academic aspect of conference realignment, an organization whose name you may have seen bandied about is the AAU. Not the Amateur Athletic Union, but rather the Association of American Universities. The latter is an elite consortium of 63 research universities (61 in the U.S., two in Canada). When schools discuss wanting to be in a conference with academically comparable institutions, the AAU is usually the yardstick. I have gone ahead and mapped out AAU membership in the conferences that are at the center of the realignment talk.

The Big 10 stands alone in all of its current members (plus incoming Nebraska) having achieved AAU membership. In fact, not even the Ivy League can make that claim, as Dartmouth has not qualified (the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests it may be because the school "has long emphasized undergraduate education"). The only non-AAU institution the Big 10 would be willing to take in, it appears, is Notre Dame.

As the realignment process continues to unfold, the map above will show how conferences are strengthening themselves academically -- or not.

UPDATE: The University of Nebraska was officially dropped from the AAU in April 2011, whereas Syracuse University has pulled out on its own. According to this Chronicle of Higher Education article: "It's not clear what prompted the special reviews of Nebraska and Syracuse last year, except that they ranked at the bottom of the AAU metrics."