Potential SEC move will not impede academics, past MSA President says

With conference realignment looming, some think the move would negatively affect MU’s academic standing.

By Matthew Flores

Published Oct. 7, 2011

After Tuesday’s Board of Curators meeting in which the board voted unanimously to allow Chancellor Brady Deaton to pursue conference realignment possibilities, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that MU will not be a member of the Big 12 Conference for much longer.

Public perception over the academic standards of the Southeastern Conference, the most likely landing spot for MU, has raised concerns that a move to the conference would negatively affect the school in areas like academics and research funding.

“I think that the conference that Mizzou goes to definitely affects the quality of our degrees,” freshman Anthony Agbabiaka said. “For instance, if we were to go to the Big 10, our degrees would increase in value tremendously.”

He fears a move to the SEC could potentially devalue MU’s academic reputation.

“Mizzou has always been at the higher end degree-wise in the Big 12,” he said. “To go to the SEC with schools that aren't ranked as well academically would be a bad move.”

Jordan Paul, a graduate student at MU and former Missouri Students Association President, disagrees.

“We're not going to lose our AAU status or drop in the U.S. News and World Report rankings or be turned down for research grants because we're in the SEC,” he said. “All of this is tied to how we perform individually as an institution.”

According to the most recent university statistics from the U.S. News and World Report, the Big 12 has a lower average ranking among its eight members (not counting MU, which was ranked 90th) than does the SEC with its 13 schools.

“I'm not trying to prop up the SEC as the premier academic conference, but it's not logical to argue that Missouri is absorbing a hit in academics by moving to the SEC,” Paul said.

The Big 12 currently has five schools within its conference that are member institutions of the Association of American Universities, an organization of the leading research universities in the nation. The SEC currently has three member institutions. The numbers will change to four for each conference when Texas A&M joins the SEC next year.

Membership in the AAU is often preferred by academics as a better barometer for academic strength than athletic conference affiliation or U.S. News and World Report metrics.

“This argument (that the SEC is a weaker conference academically) is moot because there is no meaningful academic difference between the Big 12 and the SEC,” Paul said.

“The Big 12 and the SEC currently have comparable academics and, in fact, the SEC probably has an edge. The old Big 12, which included Colorado, Texas A&M and Nebraska, had a much stronger claim to being academically superior to the SEC.”

One theme that those on both sides of the argument agree on is that a move out of the Big 12 would benefit MU financially.

“Mizzou has a history of being shafted financially by the Big 12, and the SEC would be much more fair in regards to revenue,” Agbabiaka said.

Paul agrees that the financial aspect would be beneficial to the university.

“The continued existence of the Longhorn Network proves problematic because, if a Big 12 Network is established, its contract will be worth substantially less (than the Big Ten or SEC’s networks), and Missouri would be getting a smaller piece of the pie compared to other conference networks like the Big Ten Network,” Paul said. “So, even if we get equal revenue sharing, we're getting less than we would in the Big Ten or SEC.”

Ultimately, the issue might boil down to simple stability.

“Basically, unless (the Big 12) erects some real barriers, like a legitimate long-term assignment of rights and astronomical buyout, we're not in any better shape than we were last year when it comes to conference stability,” Paul said. “The Big Ten and SEC aren't going anywhere. We can't say the same for the Big 12.”