Inside: U.S. Soccer's March to Brazil

[The Gipper]

Interesting but dated info that I found about this person:

Ms. XXXX is an accomplished and versatile architectural designer and project manager, whose current work includes the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society new History and Cultural Museum in Edgartown, Massachusetts; the Marion D. Campbell Center for the Performing Arts at the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts; the Cleveland Botanical Garden Glasshouse project in Cleveland, Ohio; and the award winning National Association of Realtors Headquarters building in Washington, D.C.

xxxx has also managed the design of Disney,s Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida; the Cheekwood Learning Center and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee; the International Retail & Manufacturers, Showcase for EuroDisney in Paris, France; the Camp Creek Community, Fort Walton Beach, Florida; the Stowe Mountain Resort in Stowe, Vermont ; Disney,s Inn at Celebration in Celebration, Florida; the Visual Arts Center at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina; and the new Fine Arts Center for St. John,s School in Houston, Texas.

xxxx is a registered architect in the State of Maryland and a member of both the American Institute of Architects and the Boston Society of Architects.She received a Bachelor of Arts from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota.Laura joined Graham Gund Architects in 1987.

Interesting in that she got her BA where my daughter goes. Got her Masters at Minn. where my son now works. And her son and mine were roommates at Kenyon, she worked for Graham Gund ...who also attended Kenyon. (Gund is related to the Gund Brothers who used to own the Cavaliers).

What this doesn't show is that she has now been hired as Disney's top architect permanently.

[MLD Woody]

That is a pretty interesting work history. Designing some of those things would have been cool. I'd rather do more mechanical design though, like instead of designing the look of a Disney resort, designing the rides.

Being an Imagineer would be cool haha

But yes, that is a very cool amount of coincidences.

[MLD Woody]

I am still not sure where you think some tiny LAC provides a "superior education". Are you just getting caught up on the large class sizes you'll have for some courses? That doesn't make the education quality any worse. I can't speak to the amount of courses within one major and LAC may have. If they can keep up with the amount Michigan offers, I'd be surprised. If they can, good for them. I should have said breadth of degrees. Clearly there are more options at a larger university then some tiny LAC.

Of course Kenyon has successful alumni. Every school has successful alumni if they've been around long enough.

Here is a list of famous alumni from Michigan... for comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Michigan_alumni Entire Apollo 15 crew, co-founder of Google, owner of the Miami Dolphins... yep

Clearly, in any random company across the country (or planet) there is a much better chance you run in to a Michigan alum. I've already seen the benefit of this. Having this giant networking system is fantastic.

As for resources, there is no way Kenyon can even come close to Michigan. It just isn't financial or physically possible. We have a renowned hospital on campus. We have some of the best professors in the world. Literally anything you could want to advance your quality of study in on campus. Hell, our endowment last year was over $8 billion! We were like 7th in the country in that regard.

Here are the rankings I posted in the last thread we had this "debate" (these are about a year old now):

4) Here are some liberal arts program rankings for Michigan.

Mathematics #8

Physics #11

Biology #20

Chemistry #16

Comp Sci #13

Earth Science #9

Statistics #12

Economics #12

English #13

History #7

Library and Information Studies #4

Nursing #6

Pharmacy #7

Political Science #4

Psychology #4

Public Affairs #12

Public Health #4

Social Work #1

Sociology #4

From the site that had Michigan with a World Ranking of #14 (Social Sciences & Management #17, Natural Sciences #29 Life Sciences & Medicine #34, Arts & Humanities #16)

Here are some I just looked up now:

US News has Michigan as the 7th best undergrad engineering program in the country, 2nd for Mechanical Engineering (my major).

On the same site, Akron comes in at #122 for overall undergrad engineering........ definitely comparable, right? Right...

Here are the rankings I see for Michigan now on that site:

#2 Best Undergrad Business (#6 Accounting, #4 Finance, #6 International Business, #1 Management, #2 Marketing, #5 Production/Operations Management, #8 Quantitative Analysis, #10 Supply Chain Management/Logistics

#7 Best Undergrad Engineering (#3 Aero, #7 BME, #8 Civil, #7 CE, #6 EE, #4 Environmental, #2 Industrial/Manufacturing, #7 Materials, #2 ME, #8 Engineering Physics

#12 Undergrad Teaching

#11 Graduate Business School (#5 Accounting, #8 Entrepreneurship, #7 Executive MBA, #11 Finance, #6 International, #4 Management, #5 Marketing, #7 Nonprofit, #7 Part-time MBA, #4 Production/Operations, #9 Supply Chain/Logistics

#8 Best Education Schools - Graduate ( #5 Curriculum and Instruction, #6 Education Policy, #3 Education Psychology, #4 Elementary Teacher Education, #2 Higher Education Administration, #2 Secondary Teacher Education

#8 Graduate Engineering (#4 Aero, #8 Civil, #6 CE, #7 EE, #4 Environ, #2 Industrial/Manufacturing/ #10 Materials, #5 ME, #1 Nuclear

#10 Law Schools (#8 Clinical Training, #9 International Law)

#8 Medical Schools: Primary Care

#12 Medical Schools: Research (#6 Family Medicine, #4 Geriatrics, #8 Internal Medicine, #7 Women's Health)

#19 Biological Sciences

#15 Chemistry (#7 Analytical, #13 Biochemistry, #9 Organic)

#26 Clinical Psychology

#13 Computer Science (#11 Artificial Intelligence, #10 Systems)

#8 Earth Sciences (#5 Geochemistry, #2 Geology, #3 Paleontology)

#13 Economics (#6 International Economics, #6 Labor Economics, #5 Public Finance)

#13 English (#10 American Lit, #3 Gender and Lit, #10 Renaissance)

#27 Fine Arts

#1 Health Care Management

#7 History (#2 African History, #3 African-American History, #9 Asian History, #2 Culture History, #3 European History, #6 Modern US History, #7 US Colonial History, #3 Women's History)

#4 Library and Information Services (#1 Archives and Preservation, #4 Librarianship, #1 Info Systems)

#9 Math

#6 Nursing (#4 Adult, #4 Family, #12 Pediatric, #3 Administration)

#7 Pharmacy

#11 Physics

#4 Political Science (#3 American Politics, # Comparative Politics, #6 International Politics, #3 Political Methodology, #13 Political Theory)

#4 Psychology (#3 Behavioral Neuroscience, #5 Cognitive Psychology, #2 Developmental Psychology, #1 Social Psychology)

#12 Public Affairs (#3 Environ Policy and Management, #6 Health Policy and Management, #10 Public Finance and Budgeting, #3 Public-Policy Analysis, #1 Social Policy)

#4 Public Health

#1 Social Work

#4 Sociology (#7 Economic Sociology, #3 Historical Sociology, #5 Sex and Gender, #3 Social Stratification, #1 Sociology of Population)

#12 Statistics

Of course, this is just one site. Also, they like to move around the ratings slightly from year to year to sell subscriptions I guess. The specific discipline rankings are more reliable than the overall school rankings though. The point here is to see a pattern. A very obvious pattern....

Here are the rankings for Miami OH (what are available) for comparison. After all, it is a peer university...

Unranked - Business

#98 Education

#139 Biological Sciences

#131 Chemistry

#104 Clinical Psychology

#106 Earth Sciences

#77 English

#93 Fine Arts

#92 History

Unranked Political Science

#101 Psychology

#52 Speech-Language Pathology

Again, rankings aren't perfect... but I think these paint a pretty clear picture...

So let's recap:

1) Akron engineering doesn't sniff Michigan engineering

2) Miami of Ohio is not a peer institution

3) Kenyon College does not provide "superior education" the University of Michigan

[The Gipper]

3) Kenyon College does not provide "superior education" the University of Michigan

It does, trust me...within what it teaches. You are comparing a school with 50,000 students to one with 1600.

80% of the curricula you list above is not offered in the little Liberal Arts College...so there can be no comparison there.

[The Gipper]

1) Akron engineering doesn't sniff Michigan engineering. Still debatable. Nevertheless.....lets see where Akron is better than Michigan......Let's see now.......this is supposed to be a soccer thread.

Akron is better than Michigan at soccer:

Akron: National runnerups in 1986 and 2009

Akron: National Champions in 2010

Michigan: one single Soccer Final Four appearance, never made the title game

And who did Michigan lose to in it only final Four appearance?: Akron

Bada bing, bada boom. Close the thread.

[MLD Woody]

@the-gipper said:

3) Kenyon College does not provide "superior education" the University of Michigan

It does, trust me...within what it teaches. You are comparing a school with 50,000 students to one with 1600.

80% of the curricula you list above is not offered in the little Liberal Arts College...so there can be no comparison there.

So your argument for the "superior" education is nothing more than "it's smaller"..... got it

[MLD Woody]

@the-gipper said:

1) Akron engineering doesn't sniff Michigan engineering. Still debatable. (no... no its not) Nevertheless.....lets see where Akron is better than Michigan......Let's see now.......this is supposed to be a soccer thread.

Akron is better than Michigan at soccer:

Akron: National runnerups in 1986 and 2009

Akron: National Champions in 2010

Michigan: one single Soccer Final Four appearance, never made the title game

And who did Michigan lose to in it only final Four appearance?: Akron

Bada bing, bada boom. Close the thread.

On that note, I will accept your surrender.

(Also, because I know you know nothing about soccer, Michigan has not had a Men's Varsity team for very long. It is also important to not Akron is basically a club team, lol. Back around 2010 it seemed like half of their team was from Jamaica or something. But yes, they do have a better soccer team than us.)

[The Gipper]

@mld-woody said:

On that note, I will surrender.

Your surrender is unnecessary. You have been conquered. Conquerors don't require the vanquished to surrender.

(Also, because I know you know nothing about soccer, A fact that I am proud of, like I said, cricket, soceer, muggle quidditch...all on about par for me.

Michigan has not had a Men's Varsity team for very long.

Flimsy excuse. Though...it does make me think more highly of Michigan a bit. Apparently they were aware of the insignificance of soccer for a very long time.

It is also important to not Akron is basically a club team, lol.

I don't think "club" teams win National Championships. I guess Alabama football is a "club team".

Back around 2010 it seemed like half of their team was from Jamaica or something.

I just know they won....I followed the games a bit...but knew nothing about the players. I mean, its not like it was football or basketball.

I do know that the coach lived in Wadsworth and his wife worked with my wife. Porter I believe his name is....and now I understand that he is the HC of one of the MLS teams, maybe Portland?

But yes, they do have a better soccer team than us.)

I am not sure that it has maintained the same status since Porter left.

[MLD Woody]

My bad, I was unclear of what I meant by saying club. I didn't mean it in the sense of Intramurals, Club then Varsity. I meant it as they were more of a pro club team than a college soccer team. They were pulling in guys from out of the country that were very good so they could play soccer. I am not sure how many actually got their degree and it looked like more of a tryout for MLS for them. It wasn't against the rules or anything though and Akron had some very good teams because of it.

Michigan's first year of varsity soccer was 1999. We made a run in 2010 in large part to having two brothers that made MLS teams. One was a Sr that had been around for awhile. The other was his freshman brother that came in having scored the most goals ever in high school in Michigan and he ended that freshman season with a bunch of awards. He left after one season for the MLS. After that season Michigan actually decided "Hey, maybe we could put some money into this?" and we hired a high profile coach. I mean shit, we have guys donate $200 million to the university, and they request half go to athletics, I think we can give something to soccer.

But again... you admitting you don't know anything about soccer doesn't help you in any of these arguments, on this thread and the other. Just like you not knowing anything about college rankings and how good some universities are doesn't help you in our above "debate"....

[The Gipper]

@mld-woody said:

My bad, I was unclear of what I meant by saying club. I didn't mean it in the sense of Intramurals, Club then Varsity. I meant it as they were more of a pro club team than a college soccer team. They were pulling in guys from out of the country that were very good so they could play soccer. I am not sure how many actually got their degree and it looked like more of a tryout for MLS for them. It wasn't against the rules or anything though and Akron had some very good teams because of it.

Again, I just know they were good and won. I had no clue where they were came from.

Michigan's first year of varsity soccer was 1999. We made a run in 2010 in large part to having two brothers that made MLS teams. One was a Sr that had been around for awhile. The other was his freshman brother that came in having scored the most goals ever in high school in Michigan and he ended that freshman season with a bunch of awards. He left after one season for the MLS. After that season Michigan actually decided "Hey, maybe we could put some money into this?" and we hired a high profile coach. I mean shit, we have guys donate $200 million to the university, and they request half go to athletics, I think we can give something to soccer.

TMI than I care about.

But again... you admitting you don't know anything about soccer doesn't help you in any of these arguments, on this thread and the other.

I wasn't making any kind of an argument. I was merely pointing to the scoreboard. (At least I will give soccer this: it is not one of those "judged sports, like ice skating or gymnastics that you get in the Olympics. One can point to a scoreboard in soccer)

Just like you not knowing anything about college rankings and how good some universities are doesn't help you in our above "debate"....

I told you more than you want to know about college ranking, like I know is that a lot of those college ranking systems are paid for. Like I said, Forbes puts an inordinate value on how many college alumni subscribe and pay to be in their owned publication of Who's Who. Some of the others may be similar to that.