University of California, San Diego

Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate... training, and public service in the world. Hundreds of ocean and earth researchers conduct scientific research with the aid of oceanographic research vessels and shorebased laboratories. The public explorations center of the institution is the Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Its Old Scripps Building is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. It is part of the University of California, San Diego. Tony Haymet is the tenth director of Scripps. He also serves as UC San Diego's vice chancellor for marine sciences and dean of the Graduate School of Marine Sciences, and is a professor of oceanography at Scripps. He joined Scripps in 2006. Scripps publishes explorations now an award-winning monthly e-magazine of ocean and earth science. "To seek, teach, and communicate scientific understanding of the oceans, atmosphere, and Earth for the benefit of society and the environment.
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The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic... research and education. It consists of 59 universities in the United States and two universities in Canada. The AAU was founded in 1900 by a group of fourteen Ph.D.-granting universities in the United States to strengthen and standardize American doctoral programs. Today, the primary purpose of the organization is to provide a forum for the development and implementation of institutional and national policies, in order to promote strong programs in academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education. The largest attraction of the AAU for many schools, especially nonmembers, is prestige; for example, in 2010 a spokesman for nonmember University of Connecticut called it "perhaps the most elite organization in higher education. You'd probably be hard-pressed to find a major research university that didn't want to be a member of the AAU.
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