My name is Brian Davidson and I am running for the Indiana University Board of Trustees. Before I explain who I am, I want to express
WHY I am running.
My platform consists of two very simple messages.
First, I support immediate
TUITION CAPS to ensure Indiana University students are earning the highest possible return on their educational investment. I do not believe the university is adequately changing its financial and educational models to compete in our rapidly changing communities and economies. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and other disruptive technologies will radically transform our lives and our world in the coming decade. Universities will need to adapt. Or, they will risk saddling students with outdated skills and mountains of debt. Tuition caps will encourage the university to leverage technology to increase teaching efficiency, reevaluate degrees and programs that do not attract student interest or provide students with reasonable economic prospects, and help curb the devastating growth of student debt.
Second, I support giving Indiana University’s student-athletes the financial resources necessary to achieve excellence on the field and in the classroom. As trustee, I will work to see that
100% of B1G Network Revenue remains in the athletic department. The hundreds of Hoosier student-athletes have
EARNED that money representing our school in thousands of competitions across the country. It should be spent supporting them and their pursuit of excellence, both athletic and academic. While athletics may seem a trivial pursuit for a university, one does not have to look far to see the financial and community benefits derived from having a successful athletic department, such as those maintained at universities in neighboring Michigan and Ohio.
Who am I?
I graduated from the Kelley School of Business in 2004 with degrees in entrepreneurship, marketing, and management. I was a member of my fraternity’s executive council and participated in our national philanthropic outreach event - bicycling over 3,700 miles across the United States to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities. The experience had a profound effect on my core values.
Post-graduation, I settled in Chicago, where I had the opportunity to put my education and entrepreneurial mindset to work when starting my business, Matchnode Digital Marketing. Matchnode has had the privilege of working with numerous well-known brands, but none more so than the Indiana Alumni Association and Foundation. I regularly participate in alumni events in the Chicago-land area, and have even had the pleasure of hiring several Indiana University graduates.
Over the years, my passion for Indiana University has never wavered. Each fall, I renew my near weekly pilgrimage down I-65 and Route 37 to watch Hoosier football, basketball, and soccer. My family and I planted a tree outside Memorial Stadium, I bought an RV for fall weekends, and I met my wife, a fellow Hoosier, at a football tailgate. My wife and I were married at Beck Chapel last year, something I once dreamed about during a campus walk during my freshman orientation.
I believe my dedication to Indiana University, my perspective as a digital business owner, and my focus on student economics give me a unique voice for change. I humbly ask for your consideration to represent you as a trustee.
Please feel free to contact me to discuss any of my positions at 812-322-0585 or visit my website at
briandavidsonfortrustee.com.
just a heads up Brian, but despite it's getting much of the PR on the subject, i don't think BTN is the big athletic media revenue producer for B10 schools.
unless something has changed recently, the tier1,2 contracts are still the media revenue big dogs for athletics.
that said, at some point gold plated toilets still function just as well as solid gold ones do, and just how much better are imported Italian marble shower walls than domestic.
point being, at some point the athletic facilities arms race produces diminishing returns to all recruits other than the most emotionally needy, who we can probably do without anyway.
until govt reins in the cable/internet beyond belief anti competitive business model, the athletic media money is just going to keep coming in.
at some point, if not already, there are or will be better uses for that money than a new $50,000,000 tiddlywinks arena.
and even that $50 mil tiddlywinks arena would be a better use of money than just giving more and more millions to a few coaches and an AD.
as for the academic side,
teaching people to think and understand and perform and communicate, as opposed to just teaching them the hot job skills of the day, will always be a debated topic.
life is short, complex, and ever changing, with no guarantees.
people should be able to pursue their passion, even if their passion isn't the most profitable skill in today's job market.
that said, pursuing their passion shouldn't cost a beyond ridiculous amount, with poor financing options.
there are about the same number of large state universities today as there were 100 yrs ago, so obviously said schools are pretty much immune to normal competitive market forces such as competitor market entry and price-demand market forces.
absent a normal competitive market environment or normal competitive market forces in play, the only way to hold down, or better yet lower, tuition and board, is with a gun to their head and forcing them to live within a budget..
as otherwise, why else would they, and who could ever force them to?
the problem isn't with youth pursuing their passion.
the problem is the out of control cost of doing so, with no constraints to said runaway out of control costs, anywhere in sight.
and what looks like the hot money making degree today, other than medicine, may not look so hot tomorrow.
good luck with the IU board thing, but you'll need to go into bigger politics to ever bring about the changes needed so desperately.
as that "gun to their head", can only, i repeat ONLY, come from govt, when big state and even private schools are pretty much totally immune from most market forces that control pricing in other industries.
