Go_UTA

Thanks for the info and answer. Frankly, I thought you might be thinking, "look stupid, if those pictures weren't enough, I don't know what is!" But, you either were not thinking that or are too polite! Yes, they are in fact wired, but I should get them changed even if they are high up. (I have an idea to get to them.) A secondary is also good idea. Could put it near a wall where the extension ladder could be used.

Thanks. Good advice. We have detectors around the house. do you recommend testing by pushing the button, or would blowing cigar smoke in them be a superior test? One thing I don't like about my house in this regard, is that my bedroom ceiling must be 20 feet or so above the ground. The smoke detector is in the middle. I can't even get an extension ladder to change the batteries. I think I will be forced to rent scafolding or something like that. That is a bit of a deterent for that smoke detector.

Boy, that's a truism. I've said for long time: if all a person knows is what he reads in the newspapers, he is very uninformed. Most especially about something of this nature.

That's right. It's auxiliary income, and not dedicated for a specific purpose. It's like an unrestricted gift, so what you earn would would be yours to spend as you wish. And, as the website explains, whatever UT Arlington earns is for UT Arlington. Period. It is an understatement to say that the UT System knows something about natural gas, so we had the benefit of System expertise in making this arrangement.

Yes. http://www.uta.edu/naturalgas/

SMU has noteable academic programs in business, law, and some of the arts. Those are their strong points. Personally, except for what I sometimes read on this board, I don't give them a lot of thought. I neither especially like or dislike them. (Of course, I guess we from UT Arlington don't have the "history" with them that you guys do.) Regardless, I can see the merits of the above programs. There may be, for an undergraduate education, some marginal benefit to a good private school compared to a good state school, but, if there is, the cost for that little benefit IS high. Unless money just isn't much of a factor, the cost/benefit analysis weighs heavily in favor of the good state school, IMHO. Always remember, however, that class has nothing to do with money. You can't buy it. Class is the way you act and how you treat other people.

No, the fee for the MAC was voted on and passed by the students for the MAC. Plain and simple. Here is the main MAC site: http://www.uta.edu/mac/

Which is exactly what I'm getting at. Thank you, my man.

Well, if you insist on a college, here it is. Look familiar? http://hearitlive.huntingdon.edu/

Sorry, I can't spell ubiquitous. That's what I get for trying to use a big word.

True. But, another way of looking at is that the U.S. Post Office logo is slightly more ubiquitious than Boise State's. Just trying to be helpful.

We've got club football. That's where I expect it to stay for the foreseeable future. Yeah, they are going to come up with a costumed figure for games. The students of Fall 2007 will pick his name, which will probably be in place for decades.

Well, the way I look at it, you guys unmercilessly thrashed your own athletic logo to a bloody pulp when it was the topic of the day, so you don't need me to lend a hand in this area. I'll admit, I really like the new UTA athletic logo, but not every one agrees, including a couple of critics on our own board. However, I predict that the athletic logo will be widely embraced by the campus, just as the institutional branding campaign, with its logos, wordmarks, and slogan, etc., has been. Of course, everybody thinks they are an expert in this area. If the now iconic UT Austin longhorn image came out for the very first time today, the criticism would be huge...too flat, too monotone, etc. But, after awhile, there is no controversy, and people get used to it...it is what it is. I don't care if the new athletic image is a cousin or brother of another logo of a school in the northwest corner of the U.S., thousands of miles from here. And, a nice thing, while of course the administration endorsed the result, this was an entirely student-driven process, led by Student Congress; no outside consulting firms or anything like that. The only check that was cut was for proper compensation to the student designer of the winning image. The process and complete leadership of the students is something to be proud of, I think. But, unless you pick an obscure image like an armadillo or horned frog, inadvertently or not, it's hard to be completely original with an animal logo in this day and age of branding, with all the now-recognized graphic principles.

uuuuh, I think we could do the same comparison exercise with your screaming eagle and a few others, starting with the U.S. Post Office.

Grand, I don't agree. You could have a good program now, with the facilities and conference you have. Sure, it would be easier if you were in the PAC 10 with a great gym, but you don't have to. We got a little lucky, but in the 1990s, our girls went to the Final Four...beating Austin a west coast teams to get there. Honestly, if our setter hand't had a bad match, I think we could have won the national championship. Last year, the program was 25-10 (but not as high profile and without the national notoriety of the final four team). You may just stink because of coaching, off year, whatever. We stunk 2 years ago real badly. We may stink again this year, but I hope not. But, you could put together nice, competitive teams with what you have, IMHO.

BTW, my figures above don't include student fees. If you added-in student fees, the figures would be higher. Basically sources of athletic department support are: 1) athletic department generated (ticket sales, TV revenue, concessions, advertising, booster club gifts, etc.) 2) student fees 3) general funds of the university (from tuition and/or auxiliary enterprise income from dormitories, book stores, etc.) This is what I am talking about in my above post in terms of "red ink" or "general funds." These are the most "sensitive" dollars, and are usually hardest to get a handle on because the institutions don't want to talk about it. Except for the existence of the deficit, these are the dollars that otherwise would have gone to teaching, research, and or student services.

This is interesting, but also interesting would be a true accounting the amount of red ink in each athletic department. That is, the amount of support that must come from the institution's general fund to cover the athletic deficit. This would also be an interesting measure of strength and/or desperation. The big boys filling 70,000 seat stadiums probably don't have athletic deficits. The deficits are significant for many or most of the football-playing, non-BCS schools...in fact, the situation is frequently quietly desperate. Ballpark, I have reason to believe that SMU and U of H spend $10 or $12 million a year from their general funds to prop-up their athletic enterprises. UNT and Texas State are probably in the $4 to $5 million per year range, excluding capital expenditures. A true accounting of these figures are hard to come-by in most cases. Nobody likes to publicize them and stir things up.

Probably right. Of SMU and TCU (and speaking sports-wise), we seem to have little relationship with SMU and a pretty good one with TCU. And, part of it is geography, I'm sure. We regularly play TCU in men's basketball, baseball, and volleyball, and probably some other sports such as tennis and golf. Frankly, SMU just doesn't come to mind very much. There is something about that Tarrant County/Dallas County line. That partly explains why the Dallas crowd is smarting so much about the Cowboys moving over here.

We've been playing TCU and Texas Wesleyan every year for quite a while. That's logic. Cross-county opponents. Glad to see UNT as a part of that last year and this year. Hope it continues. Easy on travel budgets and gets a little extra attention from fans and media. (Haven't seen SMU on our men's schedule since the last ice age.)

Yeah, UNT's timing on the Super Pit couldn't have been better. You got it just a few years before the ad valorem tax was declared unconstitutional and shut down funding for quite a while. I think Jitter Nolan was the president who put that project through. At least that's what I think I read on the dedicatory plaque. We had one on the boards a few years later which had already received approval from the board of regents. So, it was on its way for sure. However, before the contract was let out, there was a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ad valorem tax (which was the source of university building funds). So, out of the blue and in a blink of the eye, the arena project went into deep freeze. It was gonna sit at the top of the South 40. When construction funding opened up a few years later, there was so much pent-up academic need, that the university went after those projects instead of starting with the arena (architecture building, nursing building, power plant). So, yeah, y'all can be glad you happened to get the Super Pit when you did. I can't give any updates on the current arena initiative. Hopefully, we will hear more before long. I do know it is one of the projects that our president has taken on, and it is featured on the university's website under the development page. It is a tough thing...very similar to your stadium project. In fact, the projected costs of the 2 projects are very close. We might be able to get a little Permanent University Fund money for our project, however. (I don't think any state money is planned for the stadium.) Reason being, the arena will have legitimate academic purposes, e.g., commencements, convocations, major speakers, etc. I do look forward to y'all coming down to Arlington. Like I said prior to last year's game in Denton, history shows that anything can happen when these 2 universities get on the b-ball court together. Well, that certainly proved to be the case in Denton last year. Very exciting game and down to the last second (past the last second, actually!).

The demographic comments were interesting, and not something I have thought much about. Judging from the comments and what is probably implied, I assume that race is what is meant. So, I went to the interactive reporting system off the Higher Education Coordinating Board site. For 2006, enrollment demographics of UTA, UTD, Univ of Houston, UNT were as follows, respectively. White 51%, 53%, 39%, 66% African-American 12%, 6%, 13%, 12% Hispanic 14%, 8%, 19%, 11% Asian 11%, 17%, 20%, 5% Other 12%, 15%, 9%, 7% All of these universities are among the "emerging research" university category defined by the state. I purposely selected those that I thought would be somewhat similar to UT Arlington. That is, non-flagships (meaning not Austin or A&M), metropolitan locations, and with large engineering programs. Obviously, other universities will look different. UT San Antonio and UT El Paso (the other 2 "emerging research" universities) will look highly hispanic. Tech, SFA, and others will probably be very white. The University of Houston is very low in white (39%) and highest in the Asian category. (A Conference USA athletic school, btw.) UNT, not surprisingly (with traditional strengths in the liberal arts and a small engineering college), has more whites than this group, and Asian faces are less common. Some students may not like so much diversity and may choose less diverse schools. However, from a societal perspective, state universities seek diversity. They want to look like the public, so to speak, since the public is its constituency. This is what the state is after with its "Closing the Gaps" initiative. Also, for instance, schools like Texas State-San Marcos are seeking to be declared "Hispanic Serving." In any case, UT Arlington is not so different from UT Dallas, and U of H. Not sure what racial demographics alone says about support of athletic programs. BTW, UT Dallas and U of H or pretty darn good places. In fact, U of H is an "aspirational peer" for UT Arlington.

Yeah, that part was a little weird.

Some of the "visitors" to this board are really fun to read. ArkStateFan (sorry if my spelling of his handle is off) has a deep historical and contemporary knowledge of the collegiate athletic scene. You can tell that this is an enjoyable hobby for him, as he knows so much, and is analytical like a good attorney. And, SouthernMustang is one of the nicest and entertaining posters around. Just my two cent comments.

I met her once inside my home....pretty special. I don't care much for LBJ, but I have always loved Ladybird. Dear lady.

While yes to those things, at this point in time, I also see her biggest job as a fixer.... a strategic fixer to really get UNT moving and competitive with its peers.