<p>This has been an interesting thread!</p>
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<p>Hey I’m curious where did you get the US Senate alma maters?</p>
<p>Too bad Lincoln Chaffee was not re-elected in 2006.</p>
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Maybe the reason they point to those metrics is that those are the only ones they’ve found.
For graduate departments, we have the National Research Council assessments (outdated though they may be). Do we have anything comparable for undergraduate programs? I believe the answer is no. Would it even be feasible? I’m not sure.</p>
<p>However, the Common Data Set model probably could be improved to reveal more information about faculty commitment to undergraduate instruction.</p>
<p>One education-side metric that some people do like to cite is the one for baccalaureate origins of Ph.D.s in various fields. Of course, the Ph.D. is just one outcome, medical school admission would be another, getting elected to public office yet another. What are the best outcomes to consider in assessing educational quality?</p>
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<p>The Dept of Ed under Margarette Spellings wanted to institute something akin to the test-based accountability in K-12 for colleges and universities. Many institutions have been trying to develop their own model. Here’s some of the stuff Brown collected recently:
<a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University;
<p>osucowboys… I got the alma maters from the wiki thread posted earlier in this thread. I did not count graduate school, as that is more of an alma pater.</p>
<p>osucowboys,</p>
<p>One of the two U.S senators from MO (McCaskill) has both undergraduate degree and law school degree from the University of MO. The governor of MO (Nixon) also has both undergraduate degree and law degree from the Univ. of MO.</p>
<p>The other senator (Bond) hails from a wealthy family. He attended boarding school at Deerfield Academy (western Massachusetts), then Princeton for undergrad and UVA for law school. Having spent much of his life outside the state did not hamper his career.</p>
<p>I believe all three of these examples prove the rule in states like Missouri: in general, local and state connections are the most important requirement for election, so attendance at the state flagship public university serves a budding politician well; however, significant personal wealth is a good substitute for those kinds of connections. People with political ambition but no personal wealth are better off staying in-state.</p>
<p>I will be proved wrong if someone who attended a famous private university on one of the coasts with significant financial aid, gets elected to statewide office. I don’t see it happening for a while, maybe a long while.</p>
<p>midmo, you forget Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama in your hypothesis there.</p>
<p>All three of them came from lower to-middle class families. Went to top notch universities: Georgetown, Wellesley, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard, and became governors, senators, first ladies, presidents, and secretary of state.</p>
<p>It’s been done and is certainly more than possible.</p>
<p>^^^I’ll accept Bill Clinton as an exception to the rule. Hillary Clinton and Obama are special cases for obvious reasons.</p>
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<p>Well, of course. It has also happened that someone who rarely buys a lottery ticket hits the big one, but few recommend that strategy for accruing wealth.</p>
<p>Exceptions duly noted, it seems to me that a person from most states, with no political connections and no personal wealth, is more likely to be elected to local or state office if they strike voters as someone with some similarities to themselves–and that similarity can be established by attending the well-known public schools in their state.</p>
<p>The politicians in this state fall all over themselves trying to establish themselves as down-home types, playing up their supposed roots in the small rural towns. If they are from families like Senator Bond’s or former Senator Danforth’s (Ralston-Purina fortune) they can skip that part. </p>
<p>When our new governor took office, the list of Cabinet members and their colleges/universities was the subject of a news article. What a lot of unimpressive colleges. One had Ivy connections, and the big discussion was how the guy had managed to wander into MO politics!</p>
<p>All states are not the same, of course. There just isn’t a tradition in most parts of this state to attend private universities, especially those out of state. Other states have a different history. Over time, the picture may change everywhere, but it hasn’t happened yet</p>
<p>Apparently Sarah Palin went through a list of (not so impressive) schools seeking the one that would help her political career…(even if it was at the state level). ;)</p>
<p>…or was it actually her beauty contest participation that proved to be more helpful in her political quest? 
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<p>You mean Sarah Palin went to college?!? lol jk.</p>
<p>Hope2getrice, I think Hillary Clinton is more of a national figure than she was an Arkansas figure. I don’t think she applies. Hillary doesn’t really have many ties to any one place…Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and New York are all just kinda thrown in there for various reasons that benefit her.</p>
<p>^ No, i meant that Hillary and Obama both could still get to elected positions despite ivy and ivy-esque credentials. A large part of their success is due to the people they knew as well, and it’s important to note that in politics, connections made through elite schools can be very crucial/</p>
<p>Hillary is connected to Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and New York</p>
<p>just like Obama is connected to Hawaii and Illinois, Indonesia, Africa, etc.</p>
<p>Georgetown has five US Senators -Webb, Barrasso, Leahy, Murkowksi and Durbin. Durbin is in the leadership as the majority Whip. Georgetown also has three current Governors-Quinn, Lynch and Daniels and a fourth if you count Fortuno of Puerto Rico. Georgetown’s five Senators are exceeded only by Yale. Harvard and Stanford tie. Lisa Madigan and Stephanie Sandlin may well help Georgetown to pull away and open a lead in 2010. Terry McAuliffe might lift the Governor count in 2010 as well</p>
<p>A good number of our politicians here in Louisiana graduated from Catholic University in DC.</p>