This thread highlights an issue I have wondered about for a while. Why is it that we (and by "we" I mean the alumni of any university, but especially large universities) feel like we have such a vested interest in the overall activities of the university as a whole? I'm not talking about athletics - being a sports fan defies logic, but it's a pastime and a form of entertainment, so my love of Gamecock sports makes as much sense as an obsession with lowering a golf handicap or shooting an elk with 6 points on each side of his head rather than 5. I'm asking why do we develop such strong emotional attachments to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise to which we are no longer officially connected? Why am I expected to be a "fan" of the academic programs of the university in the same way that I am about the football team?
We go to high school. We develop some emotional attachments to the school by virtue of the friendships we developed there and the activities we engaged in. But a lot of our old high schools, literally, don't even exist any more. We don't set a goal of sending our kids and grandkids to our old school.
I spent three pretty good (but difficult) years of my life at the USC being trained in the law. In exchange for that training, I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000 (that was a long time ago). It's natural that I have some continued interest in the current goings-on of the USC law school, but what difference does it make to me if SC is a tier 2 or tier3 school in the latest magazine-rankings of the law schools? Granted, I would care more about those rankings if I was a current student at the school, but once I'm settled into my respective career, what difference does it make? Why am I expected to care much about who the university hires as presidents and deans and multi-million-dollar academic buildings that I will likely never enter? It all strikes me as a highly-manipulative and an odd form of tribalism.