Mizzou, the Big Ten, the CIC & the Big Ten Alliance

Posted on: July 3, 2022 at 04:12:39 CT

Sometime in the middle of the last century, the Big Ten established the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the CIC. It was a parrallel organization to the athletic confernece made up of Big Ten members. It's function was to promote cooperation and joint efforts to obtain research funding for Big Ten schools, particularly federal funding.

The CIC was not well known outside of academic circles, but was very effective. I recall reading stories of in the natinal media that described it as the "eight hundred pound gorilla" in American higher education and a USA Today story about the possibility of Notre Dame joining the Big Ten and a survey of twenty-eight Notre Dame faculty members, all of whom were in favor of the Irish joining the Big Ten. Twenty seven of the twenty eight cited membership in the CIC as the reason.

The CIC still operates, but under a different name, the Big Ten Alliance For . . ..

So when you see stories about Mizzou wanting to join the Big Ten because of cultural similarities, the cultural reasons also included very practical reasons beyond the impact on Tiger athletic programs.

Edited by ScottsdaleTiger at 04:15:20 on 07/03/22