(09-21-2017 10:29 AM)JCGSU Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 09:11 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 08:56 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Thoroughly enjoying the discussion in this thread. For the record, the "Young Earth" position of creationism has traditionally been the predominant theory taught in Creationism classes at LU for decades. Most at LU don't feel the age of creation is significant. The time period is only relevant if you require it for your theory to be correct. Intelligent Design doesn't.

What any of this has to do with scheduling football games against each other on a few random fall Saturdays is beyond me.

My beef is with the idea that Liberty should be excluded because they have too much money as a private school. Let me get this straight, public schools have a gravy train from state tax dollars funneled into their coffers that private schools do not access. All schools have the ability to generate revenue through how they market their educational resources. So a school without the benefit of tax dollars being driven directly into their operating budget is excluded because it was more creative than other schools in developing curriculum to meet the changing needs of the marketplace? Every school currently in the Sun Belt had the oppoortunity and squandered it in spite of tax dollars being at their disposal. Now every school in the league is playing catch-up and crying foul. That to me is more indicative of the problems in the Sun Belt than liberal elites not wanting diverse viewpoints in their club.

No Liberty fan would ever question App State & Georgia Southern's worthiness as candidates. The Statesboro folks had some financial challenges that they wisely overcame to be positioned for success. Both football programs have been the envy of ours for decades. They both had the fan support to make it a success.

We do use a ton of allocated funds to support the athletic department. How that breaks down I dont know but there is state money involved.

I dont think you Liberty fans understand that state schools generally have LESS funds to allocate to sports because they have budgets that are controlled by the state government and not by one person who is able to steer money in whatever direction he wants without a hundred other folks with many divided loyalties tugging at the purse strings. many states actually limit the amount of funds that can go to sports and sports facilities, leaving schools to scramble to get what they need. add to that the fact that none of us belt schools are the flagship of their respective states and we therefore dont get the huge sums of cash from big name boosters or the big tv money.

I understand that completely. What I don't think many are getting is that your school has state funding at the core of your university's operating expenses that is a financial foundation. Yes I know how Austin leverages that to stay in the state capital. On the other hand, Liberty has no foundational financial support and has simply outhustled most public schools in adjusting to rapidly changing market economics. In spite of a clear financial disadvantage, Liberty is competing in the marketplace because it was willing to recognize changing dynamics sooner than other schools. Both models have room for schools to generate additional revenue if they are wise and execute their strategies.

Are we spending exponentially more than most similarly size public schools on athletics infrastructure right now? Absolutely. Of course our school didn't exist 50 years ago when most public schools already had established infrastructure from which to build. We are building everything from scratch with no state funding or wealthy alumni to do so.

That's why it is so frustrating to hear Sun Belt folks state that we have some sort of financial advantage as opposed to other league schools. If we do it is simply because other universities did an inadequate job of recognizing changing dynamics of how students learn and continued to use their centuries old model until they were too far behind the bell curve to catch up. To me, financial jealousy and spite were every bit as big of an obstacle to winning support from university presidents than our idealogy. Both were clearly contributing factors IMHO.

Liberty has spent $192 million on athletics facilities in the last ~$5 years I believe.

That is more than 6 years of our current athletic budget.

No, we as public institutions do not have that kind of money. No one in this conference can do that.

I agree completely. We had a great deal of catching up to do. We also know that this ride of financial prosperity that we have enjoyed the past decade of explosive online success is not sustainable. That's why we are pouring it into infrastructure that will be paid for long after our revenue drops back down closer to the norm. I still am puzzled at why this would be used as a negative inour candidacy.

(09-21-2017 09:54 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Please enlighten me, truebluedrew. Are state funds a significant portion of Georgia Southern University's operating expenses? Or is funding from the statehouse a zero or negative sum relationship?

I feel for you, AstroCajun. Thankfully our operating budget was not built on a foundation of royalties from oil & gas production. It is based on a free market system of paying customers. What is happening in Louisiana with higher education right now is a travesty as well as a tragedy.

On the the recurring theme of discussion, creationism is taught as a religion course at LU these days and is not in the science department. But I know that doesn't fit the stereotype so please carry on.

The way you worded your original post, it sounded like you thought that the governement cuts every public school a multimillion check year to do with as we please and anytime we want something built me can just dip our hands into the taxpayers wallets and get what we need. That's not the case. In Georgia, the Board of Regents controls what schools get what money out of the state budget and what that money is to be used for. They place caps on how much of our athletic budgets can be subsidized by student fees and the athletic fee amount we are allowed to charge. State tuition cannot be directly used by schools to fund athletics.

Meanwhile, Liberty sets their own tuition rates and all revenue that the school makes through school and online tuition, room and board, and athletics goes into one pot and after operating costs are taken out whatever's left over can be used at yalls discretion whether it's to build dorms, a huge arena, or privately fund politicians, correct?

Absolutely (with the obvious exception of the politicians). We are doing more with less help from the state.

(09-21-2017 12:55 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  Absolutely (with the obvious exception of the politicians). We are doing more with less help from the state.

...because you're using online tuition as an ATM

(09-21-2017 11:20 AM)eaglewraith Wrote:  Liberty has spent $192 million on athletics facilities in the last ~$5 years I believe.

That is more than 6 years of our current athletic budget.

No, we as public institutions do not have that kind of money. No one in this conference can do that.

Well yeah because we have to spend money presumably on silly things like operations and research. If our president said yeah I am going to take $200M of revenue presumably from tuition and devote to building athletic facilities there would be a crowd with torches outside his home.

There is no school in FBS with a financial model like Liberty except Liberty. And since they neither are subject to nor volunteer infor to any of the various academic or financial reporting groups that the rest of our universities do they make it very easy for university presidents to say "Yeah I want no part of that". Add to that the way Fallwell Jr. has handled this. Nobody is under any obligation to invite anyone. Period. There is discrimination in realignment by it's very nature. Yes. Absolutely. I want universities I am comfortable with is the overarching presidential goal. You dont see Southern Miss' president launching accusations at the AAC. You font have UConn's president angry publicly at the ACC. Even in his verbiage (CEOs) Fallwell is showing he doesnt get it. And I met the SBC, CUSA and MAC are laughing as in wow imagine if we had invited this dude!

(09-21-2017 01:12 PM)panama Wrote:  Well yeah because we have to spend money presumably on silly things like operations and research. If our president said yeah I am going to take $200M of revenue presumably from tuition and devote to building athletic facilities there would be a crowd with torches outside his home.

We have invest close to a billion dollars in the past five years on infrastructure across our 7500-acre campus including the launch of a medical school and engineering research facility. Athletics is not getting any more special treatment than our law or business schools. But I see you fishing.

(09-21-2017 01:12 PM)panama Wrote:  There is no school in FBS with a financial model like Liberty except Liberty.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game. We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way. Everyone is trying to play catch-up and will eventually do so. We recognize it.

(09-21-2017 01:12 PM)panama Wrote:  And since they neither are subject to nor volunteer infor to any of the various academic or financial reporting groups that the rest of our universities do they make it very easy for university presidents to say "Yeah I want no part of that".

SACS is the same accreditation body that oversees all members of the Sun Belt at last check. They have full access to our books like anyone else. Just like all Division I provate schools, we are not required to open up our books to the public beyond those required as part of our tax exempt status. I'm not sure what you are inferring but it doesn't stand up to the facts.

Yes, our chancellor has torched the bridge to the Belt. I personally don't agree with the tactic but I am fully aware why he felt emboldened to do so. The Sun Belt no longer brings value to us now that we were able to get our FBS ticket punched without the SBC. Both sides are pleased with how things turned out. It is all good.

You meant invested

I do not hate you. Just stating why you're not in a conference.

Statements about your financial model stand. Nobody has the financial model you do in FBS.

You do not fit culturally with anyone in FBS until for profit schools start sponsoring athletics and move to FBS

I see your arguments and still...you are not in a conference and will never be.

Maybe that's why Fallwell went on this tirade. maybe he finally was clued in that it's never going to ha[/align]ppen and decided he had nothing to lose.


And oh yeah, we have a quarter of a billion dollar athletics facilities plan without a dime of state money or student fees so...not impressed with your use of tuition as an ATM...playa.

(09-21-2017 01:31 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way.

Can someone give the sugar daddy Georgia Southern's address? I'd love to get some of his state money you keep referring to at Georgia Southern, we are in need of a lot of things.

(09-21-2017 01:42 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:31 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way.

Can someone give the sugar daddy Georgia Southern's address? I'd love to get some of his state money you keep referring to at Georgia Southern, we are in need of a lot of things.

Seriously! At least our students have a clear accounting of where the money they paid went.

(09-21-2017 10:15 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There is no "free market" in higher education in any true sense of the word. Higher education costs are grossly inflated by an absolutely ridiculous system of funding via government where students are essentially price insensitive because of grants, scholarships, and below market government secured loans with deferred repayment schedules.

The government's misguided attempt to inject free market economics into higher education, vocational/technical training, and health care via subsidization of the customer rather than the provider has created rampant and unsustainable inflation.

I've stayed out of this thread and only briefly skimmed it. But I thought I'd jump in to issue my support of the majority of this statement. I'd differ by saying there is plenty of subsidization at the provider level as well, which adds to the unsustainable inflation.

I suspect the whole system will be crashing down around us within the next few years - once enough parents and students realize they dont need mounds of debt to get a slip of paper from a university to prove to a prospective employer that he or she will show up for work and can get their projects done well and on deadline.

(09-21-2017 02:00 PM)AppfanInCAAland Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 10:15 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There is no "free market" in higher education in any true sense of the word. Higher education costs are grossly inflated by an absolutely ridiculous system of funding via government where students are essentially price insensitive because of grants, scholarships, and below market government secured loans with deferred repayment schedules.

The government's misguided attempt to inject free market economics into higher education, vocational/technical training, and health care via subsidization of the customer rather than the provider has created rampant and unsustainable inflation.

I've stayed out of this thread and only briefly skimmed it. But I thought I'd jump in to issue my support of the majority of this statement. I'd differ by saying there is plenty of subsidization at the provider level as well, which adds to the unsustainable inflation.

I suspect the whole system will be crashing down around us within the next few years - once enough parents and students realize they dont need mounds of debt to get a slip of paper from a university to prove to a prospective employer that he or she will show up for work and can get their projects done well and on deadline.

I think it'll be a bit longer than just a few more years. Unfortunately for college-aged parents many schools have taken to creating a resort experience on campus with all of the spiraling costs associated. As long as little Buffy and Timmy demand a safe, trigger-free place to get a higher education with lots of bells and whistles, mommy and daddy will most likely keep writing checks. And don't get me started on that $375 trig book that is only good for one school year. But you are absolutely correct - something has to give because the current trajectory of college costs is unsustainable.

If Liberty were a VA public their athletics would still be in the poorhouse and their football would still be in the Big South. 100,000 online students that don't pay student athletic fees don't mean ****.

(09-21-2017 01:42 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:31 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way.

Can someone give the sugar daddy Georgia Southern's address? I'd love to get some of his state money you keep referring to at Georgia Southern, we are in need of a lot of things.

How about these web addresses:

Proposed $5M PE Complex

$33.6M for New Classroom Building

$88 million in funding Georgia Southern receives from the state

First few links that pop up on Google. The amount of money coming from state tax dollars may not be as much as many in Statesboro would prefer. But it is a significant amount of the university's operating expenses.

And for the record, I fully expect the higher ed bubble to pop within the next decade or so. That's why we are trying to be wise with the resources we have at Liberty while they are available to us.

(09-21-2017 04:14 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:42 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:31 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way.

Can someone give the sugar daddy Georgia Southern's address? I'd love to get some of his state money you keep referring to at Georgia Southern, we are in need of a lot of things.

How about these web addresses:

Proposed $5M PE Complex

$33.6M for New Classroom Building

$88 million in funding Georgia Southern receives from the state

First few links that pop up on Google. The amount of money coming from state tax dollars may not be as much as many in Statesboro would prefer. But it is a significant amount of the university's operating expenses.

And for the record, I fully expect the higher ed bubble to pop within the next decade or so. That's why we are trying to be wise with the resources we have at Liberty while they are available to us.

Waiting on the $200M in State funding for Athletics link

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

(09-21-2017 04:14 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:42 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 01:31 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We're simply outperforming the competition in spite of the sugar daddy state money not coming our way.

Can someone give the sugar daddy Georgia Southern's address? I'd love to get some of his state money you keep referring to at Georgia Southern, we are in need of a lot of things.

How about these web addresses:

Proposed $5M PE Complex

$33.6M for New Classroom Building

$88 million in funding Georgia Southern receives from the state

First few links that pop up on Google. The amount of money coming from state tax dollars may not be as much as many in Statesboro would prefer. But it is a significant amount of the university's operating expenses.

And for the record, I fully expect the higher ed bubble to pop within the next decade or so. That's why we are trying to be wise with the resources we have at Liberty while they are available to us.

Allow me to introduce you to the buildings that those new projects are replacing:



This is what the new 33.6M classroom building is replacing. Yes those are trailers. Those trailers were erected in the early 2000's to be temporary buildings while funding was allocated for more classrooms. Then the recession hit in 2008 and those "temporary buildings" became permanent fixtures for the next 10 years. Guess what kind of university isn't affected by a recession.

Every project like this has to be approved by the BOR and the Governor himself and funds have to be allocated from the state budget. In fact, the only reason this building was approved is that Governor Deal visited Georgia Southern two years ago and was appalled to see college students cramming into tiny trailers for classes. How many trailers has Liberty been forced to use when money was tight?



This is the Forrest Drive building. Yes those are also trailers with canopies built between them to make them look like one building. This is what the 5M Research lab will replace. This building is ancient and another building that Governor Deal claimed was unacceptable for use.

Georgia Southern doesn't have a central wallet that all revenue flows into that we can use to fund anything we want. Everything that we do has to be allocated and approved at the state level. If you frickin read the last article you posted, which is extremely old by the way, you can see what being tied to state budgets is like. They cut our budget by 30% which means people lost their jobs, future projects got put on hold, and tuition increased although today it is still well under the national average.

Georgia Southern doesn't get free money whenever we want it. That's not what government subsidy is. They take our money and we give them our operating cost and then they decide what to do with the extra. That's it. We have no say and government subsidies definitely aren't freebies like you're making them out to be.

(09-21-2017 08:54 AM)joshdude182 Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 10:37 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 07:59 PM)McLeansvilleAppFan Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 11:58 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 08:15 PM)airtroop Wrote:  Just a couple of quotes from the article... click this link to read in its entirety:


SNIP!!!


He also goes on to point out all of the MANY private schools have held membership in C-USA... interesting read in the middle of the week anyway.

Sorry Jerry, you might live in Jerrys world in Lynchburg VA. That's a great place for Liberty "Lynchburg", its something I'm sure he wouldn't mind seeing come back. But others already in a conference don't need you to pay to play since we seem to already own the game and are playing quite will without a snot nosed egotistical right winged propaganda outfit you call a university. You can't call yourself a university when you teach creationism as a science class and force students to attend regular brainwashing meetings once a week.

Also isn't bribery a crime, that's what he attempted to do with both CUSA and The Sun Belt. Why did he stop there, why not try for the ACC, B12 or even SEC. Or B10 for that matter.

The whole creationism is what really gets me. Teach it as a religion all you want, but going about it like it is a science should be enough to lose accreditation and not even be considered a university.

As opposed to the scientific facts behind the Big Bang THEORY of how the universe began.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using CSNbbs mobile app

Your capitalization of the word "theory" demonstrates your lack of understanding as to what a scientific theory even is. If you want to argue against something, that is certainly your right so feel free, but you should always take the time to educate yourself on the subject first.

You may or may not be correct about the big bang, but you're definitely incorrect in using the word "theory" to suggest that it is nothing more than a hypothesis.

Read the first two paragraphs and you'll understand what is meant by the word theory, when speaking in scientific terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Thank you very much for this post. It is always frustrating when someone confuses the colloquial definition of theory with the scientific use. For all practical purposes, a scientific theory is a proven fact.

(09-21-2017 01:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-20-2017 11:34 PM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  If this is too much, mods please delete:[/b]

(09-20-2017 10:15 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  I find it amusing people denounce Creationism yet expect people to believe, without one ounce of proof, the universe formed out of nothing.

I believe in God. I also believe in science through empirical evidence. The Big Bang Theory is the most prevalent scientific theory for the creation of the universe. It does not say that the universe came from nothing but rather the whole universe came from a singular point. Astronomers have observed the path that galaxies move through space and have observed that all the galaxies that we can see are moving away from the same point in space. I don't see how that excludes God from creating the galaxies. "In the beginning there was nothing but God and God said let there be light and there was light." Sounds an awful lot like the Big Bang to me.

(09-20-2017 10:15 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  You want me to believe the complexity of the human body, the perfection of the seasons and the order of the universe all happened by happenstance. I'd like to see the mathematical equasion to figure those odds.

I'm not saying it happened by accident. I still believe in a grand design because ALL life is complex, not just the human body which further goes into how all living organisms are related but more on that later. The seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis and some parts of the world don't experience seasons. If you want the mathematical equation to determine the odds of life existing in the universe, watch this:

(09-20-2017 10:15 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  Then there's Darwin's theory of evolution. Key word being theory. No proof, no facts and most importantly no speciation in the fossil record. That's not to say animals and organisms can't adapt and change with their environment. But to teach all life on this planet developed from some self-replicating molecule is borderline insane.

I'm not sure what you mean by "no proof, no facts" because there are actually tons of experiments and observations that back up the theory of evolution. We observe how viruses evolve over short periods of time. That's the reason people get flu shots every year because every year or so the virus mutates and the antibodies in the previous year's vaccine aren't equipped to fight the mutation. I think it's strange that you find cells replicating DNA and dividing (which you can actually observe yourself through a microscope) is more far-fetch than the idea that big man in the sky coughed and there was Adam. I suppose next you'll be telling me the Earth is flat and NASA is lying to us because they hate Jesus. For more watch this:




I know none of this is going to change your firmly held beliefs and if this is going too far, then mods please delete this post. God's design is more complex and far less anthropocentric (centered around humans) than we could possibly ever imagine. I'll leave you with a great Neil DeGrasse Tyson quote: "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

During the Scopes "Monkey" Trial Clarence Darrow called his opposing counsel William Jennings Bryan to the stand.

Bryan rejected the idea that man evolved from lower forms of life and John Scopes was being tried for teaching that it had in violation of Tennessee law.

To undermine Bryan, Darrow began questioning Bryan on the age of the earth and the age of the universe. Bryan batted those questions away arguing that the Biblical account did not conflict with science since the lifetime of a man is but a vapor before God's eyes, a day for God could be decades, centuries or millenniums.

The sole point of contention was the lack of concrete evidence that humankind came into existence via evolution from lower forms. Bryan like the majority of Christians in 1925 did not contend that the earth was millions or billions of years old.

In the early 20th Century only Seventh Day Adventists and a subset of Lutherans widely accepted the idea that the earth was only thousands of years old. Evangelicals didn't start widely embracing the idea until the 1960's.

The age of the earth is a key element for evolution to level of complexity we see now. It's difficult for people even today to conceive of how much time a billion years actually is.