Conference USA

The Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro Conference, was an NCAA Division I athletics conference, so named because its six charter members were all in urban metropolitan areas, though its later members did not follow that pattern. The conference was centered in the Upper South with some strength in the Deep South. The conference never sponsored football, although most of its members throughout its history had Division I-A football programs. In 1995, it merged with the Great Midwest Conference to form Conference USA. The merger was driven mainly by football, as several Metro Conference members had been successfully lured to larger conferences that sponsored the sport.

The Great Midwest Conference was an NCAA Division I athletics conference that existed from 1991 to 1995.

The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The Big East Conference was a collegiate athletics conference that consisted of as many as 16 universities in the eastern half of the United States from 1979 to 2013. The conference's members participated in 24 NCAA sports. The conference had a history of success at the national level in basketball throughout its history, while its shorter football program, created by inviting one college and four other "associate members" into the conference, resulted in two national championships.

DePaul University is a private Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1998, it became the largest Catholic university in terms of enrollment in North America. Following in the footsteps of its founders, DePaul places special emphasis on recruiting first-generation students and others from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Marquette University is a private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of the diocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and Midwest metropolitan areas. The conference was officially recognized as a Division I multi-sport conference on August 1, 2013, and since then conference members have won NCAA national championships in men's basketball, women's cross country, field hockey, men's lacrosse, and men's soccer. Val Ackerman is the commissioner.

Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River and the second-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. The university is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern Seaboard, as well as some in the Midwest: Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri as well as in the District of Columbia. Although some of its members are state-funded, half of its membership is made up of private, Catholic institutions. Despite the name, there are 15 full-time members, and four affiliate members that participate in women's field hockey and men's lacrosse. The current commissioner is Bernadette McGlade, who began her tenure in 2008.

Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private research university in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison and Randolph Clark as the Add-Ran Male & Female College. It is affiliated with the Christian Church.

The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The MW officially began operations on January 4, 1999. Geographically, the MW covers a broad expanse of the Western United States, with member schools located in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Gloria Nevarez took over as Commissioner of the MW on January 1, 2023, following the retirement of founding commissioner Craig Thompson.

The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the higher of two levels of NCAA Division I football competition. Its 10 members, in the states of Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia, include two private Christian universities and eight public universities. Additionally, the Big 12 has 12 affiliate members — eight for the sport of wrestling, one for women's equestrianism, one for women's gymnastics and two for women's rowing. The Big 12 Conference is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Brett Yormark became the new commissioner on August 1, 2022.

The University of Cincinnati is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,000 students, making it the second largest university in Ohio. It is part of the University System of Ohio. The university has four major campuses, with Cincinnati's main uptown campus and medical campus in the Heights and Corryville neighborhoods, and branch campuses in Batavia and Blue Ash, Ohio.

Kenyon Lee Martin Sr. is an American former professional basketball player who played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a power forward, he played for the New Jersey Nets, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA, and the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of China. He played college basketball for the Cincinnati Bearcats and was named the national college player of the year during his senior season. Martin was drafted with the first overall pick in the 2000 NBA draft by the New Jersey Nets. He was an NBA All-Star in 2004.

Kevin Edmund Youkilis, nicknamed "Youk", is an American former professional baseball first baseman and third baseman, who primarily played for the Boston Red Sox. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, he was drafted by the Red Sox in 2001, after playing college baseball at the University of Cincinnati. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, and the New York Yankees. He later served as a special assistant to the Chicago Cubs and former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein.

Robert Edward Huggins is an American college basketball coach. Nicknamed “Huggy Bear,” he is currently the head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers men's basketball team. Huggins previously held the head coaching positions at Walsh College (1980–1983), the University of Akron (1984–1989), the University of Cincinnati (1989–2005) and Kansas State University (2006–2007). He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. Huggins is currently the winningest active head coach in NCAA D-I basketball.

Florida Atlantic University is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-campus State University System of Florida and serves South Florida. Established as Florida's fifth public university in 1961, FAU has quickly grown to become one of the largest institutions in the state by enrollment. Florida Atlantic University is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". Florida Atlantic offers more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs within its 10 colleges. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Miami-Dade County. Founded in 1965, the school opened its doors to students in 1972. FIU has grown to become the third-largest university in Florida and the eighth-largest public university in the United States by enrollment. FIU is a constituent part of the State University System of Florida. In 2021, it was ranked #1 in the Florida Board of Governors performance funding, and had over $246 million in research expenditures.

Jacksonville State University (JSU) is a public university in Jacksonville, Alabama. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in six academic schools leading to bachelor's, master's, education specialist, and doctorate degrees in addition to certificate programs and continuing education opportunities. In the Fall semester of 2011, JSU began offering the school's first doctoral degree, Doctor of Science in Emergency Management. In 2016, the university gained approval to offer its second doctorate, a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree.

Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university in the state of Georgia with two campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in Kennesaw and the other in Marietta on a combined 581 acres (235 ha) of land. The school was founded in 1963 by the Georgia Board of Regents using local bonds and a federal space-grant during a time of major Georgia economic expansion after World War II. KSU also holds classes at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Dalton State College, and in Paulding County (Dallas). The total enrollment exceeds 43,000 students making KSU the second-largest university by enrollment in Georgia while also having the largest freshman class in the state as well.

Liberty University (LU) is a private Baptist university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer L. Towns, Liberty is among the world's largest Christian universities and the largest private non-profit universities in the United States by total student enrollment. Most of its enrollment is in online courses; in 2020, for example, the university enrolled about 15,000 in its residential program and 80,000 online.

Louisiana Tech University is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Middle Tennessee State University is a public university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight undergraduate colleges as well as a college of graduate studies, together offering more than 300 degree programs through more than 35 departments. MTSU is most prominently known for its Recording Industry, Aerospace, Music and Concrete Industry Management programs. The university has partnered in research endeavors with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the United States Army, and the United States Marine Corps. In 2009, Middle Tennessee State University was ranked among the nation's top 100 public universities by Forbes magazine.

New Mexico State University is a public land-grant research university in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the state's oldest public institution of higher education and one of two flagship universities, along with the University of New Mexico. NMSU has campuses in Alamogordo, Doña Ana County, and Grants, as well as research centers and programs in all 33 counties in the state.

William Marsh Rice University, known simply as Rice University, is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.

Sam Houston State University is a public university in Huntsville, Texas. It was founded in 1879 and is the third-oldest public college or university in Texas. It is one of the first normal schools west of the Mississippi River and the first in Texas. It is named for Sam Houston, who made his home in the city and is buried there.

Dallas Baptist University (DBU) is a private Christian university in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1898 as Decatur Baptist College, Dallas Baptist University currently operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Hurst.

Birmingham is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% from the 2020 Census, making it Alabama's third-most populous city after Huntsville and Montgomery. The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289, and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States. Birmingham serves as an important regional hub and is associated with the Deep South, Piedmont, and Appalachian regions of the nation.

College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional players, as baseball's professional minor leagues are more extensive, with a greater history of supplying players to MLB. Moving directly from high school to the professional level is more common in baseball than in football or basketball. However, if players do opt to enroll at a four-year college to play baseball, they must complete three years to regain professional eligibility, unless they reach age 21 before starting their third year of college. Players who enroll at junior colleges regain eligibility after one year at that level. In the 2020 season, which was abbreviated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 300 NCAA Division I teams in the United States.

In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA), the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA). Each of these various organizations is subdivided into one to three divisions, based on the number and level of scholarships that may be provided to the athletes.

Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the court. Each team also works in unison to prevent the opposing team from grounding the ball on their side of the court.

Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically 4–12 kilometres (2.5–7.5 mi) long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road and minor obstacles. It is both an individual and a team sport; runners are judged on individual times and teams by a points-scoring method. Both men and women of all ages compete in cross country, which usually takes place during autumn and winter, and can include weather conditions of rain, sleet, snow or hail, and a wide range of temperatures.

College football refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.

Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.

College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. While it is most widespread in the United States, it is also prominent in Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingdom also has a university league. The institutions typically hire full-time professional coaches and staff, although the student athletes are mostly amateur and are not paid. College soccer in the United States is sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the sports regulatory body for major universities, and by the governing bodies for smaller universities and colleges. This sport is played on a rectangular field of the dimensions of about 70–75 yards sideline to sideline (width), and 115–120 yards goal line to goal line (length).

College softball is softball as played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education, predominantly in the United States. College softball is normally played by women at the Intercollegiate level, whereas college baseball is normally played by men.

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the programme at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball.

The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as the American, is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I, with its football teams competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Member universities represent a range of private and public universities of various enrollment sizes located primarily in urban metropolitan areas in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States.

The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association is an NCAA Division I college athletic conference.

The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Division I FCS level in 2022. Originally established as the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) in 1978, it was renamed as the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001, and then rebranded as the ASUN Conference in 2016. The conference headquarters are located in Atlanta.7

The 2022 UTSA Roadrunners football team represented the University of Texas at San Antonio as a member of Conference USA (C-USA) during the 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season. They were led by head coach Jeff Traylor, who was coaching his third season with the team. The Roadrunners played their home games at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

The 2022 Conference USA Football Championship Game was a college football game played on December 2, 2022, at the Alamodome in San Antonio. It was the 18th edition of the Conference USA Football Championship Game and determined the champion of Conference USA (C–USA) for the 2022 season. The game began at 7:00 pm and aired on CBS Sports Network. The contest saw the host UTSA Roadrunners defeat the North Texas Mean Green 48–27 to claim the conference title for the second straight season. Sponsored by tax services and consulting firm Ryan LLC, the game was officially known as the Ryan Conference USA Football Championship Game.

The 2021–22 Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders men's basketball team represented Middle Tennessee State University during the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team is led by fourth-year head coach Nick McDevitt, and played their home games at Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee as members of Conference USA (C-USA).

The 2021–22 North Texas Mean Green men's basketball team represented the University of North Texas during the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team was led by fifth-year head coach Grant McCasland, and played their home games at UNT Coliseum in Denton, Texas as a member of the West division of Conference USA. They finished the season 25-7, 16-2 in C-USA Play to finish as regular season champions. They defeated Rice in the quarterfinals of the C-USA tournament before losing in the semifinals to Louisiana Tech. As a No. 1 seed who didn’t win their conference tournament, they received an automatic bid to the National Invitation Tournament where they defeated Texas State in the first round before losing in the second round to Virginia.

The 2021–22 Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters basketball team represented Louisiana Tech University during the 2021–22 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The team was led by sixth-year head coach Brooke Stoehr, and played their home games at the Thomas Assembly Center in Ruston, Louisiana as a member of Conference USA.

The 2022 Louisiana Tech Bulldogs baseball team represented Louisiana Tech University in the sport of baseball for the 2022 college baseball season. The Bulldogs competed in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and in Conference USA West Division. They played their home games at J. C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park, on the university's Ruston campus. The team was coached by Lane Burroughs, who was in his sixth season with the Bulldogs.

The 2020 Marshall Thundering Herd men's soccer team represented Marshall University during the 2020 NCAA Division I men's soccer season. It was the 42nd season of the university fielding a men's varsity soccer program. The Thundering Herd, led by fourth-year head coach Chris Grassie, played their home games at Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex as members of Conference USA (C-USA).

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United States, it has resulted in 102,417,985 confirmed cases with 1,113,229 all-time deaths, the most of any country, and the twentieth-highest per capita worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic ranks first on the list of disasters in the United States by death toll; it was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer. From 2019 to 2020, U.S. life expectancy dropped by 3 years for Hispanic and Latino Americans, 2.9 years for African Americans, and 1.2 years for white Americans. These effects persisted as U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 exceeded those in 2020, and life expectancy continued to fall from 2020 to 2021.

The FIU Panthers are the athletic teams representing Florida International University, an American public university located in Miami, Florida. The Panthers currently compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletics as members of Conference USA. The men's soccer and swimming & diving teams compete in the American Athletic Conference. Until 2011, they were known as the FIU Golden Panthers.

Dale F. Halton Arena at the James H. Barnhardt Student Activity Center is an indoor sports venue located on the main campus of UNC Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is the home venue of the Charlotte 49ers men's and women's basketball teams and volleyball team. Halton Arena was named for the former president and CEO of Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Charlotte. She was a benefactress to the university and served on the university's board of trustees. The building was funded entirely through private donations and student fees.

Horner Ballpark is a baseball field in Dallas, Texas. It is the home park of the Dallas Baptist Patriots baseball team of the NCAA Division I Missouri Valley Conference. It opened on February 15, 2013, and has been highly acclaimed by national media, including D1Baseball.com.

The Florida Atlantic Owls are the athletics teams of Florida Atlantic University. The Owls participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Division I as members of Conference USA. On October 21, 2021, Florida Atlantic accepted the invitation to join the American Athletic Conference (AAC) and will become a full-member on July 1, 2023.

Howard Schnellenberger Field at FAU Stadium is a college football stadium located at the north end of the main campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. Opened in 2011, it is home to the Florida Atlantic Owls football team and is intended to be the first part of FAU's multi-use development project, "Innovation Village" as a replacement for Lockhart Stadium

Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena, formerly known as FAU Arena and RoofClaim.com Arena and commonly known as The Burrow, is a 2,900-seat multi-purpose arena located on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University.

The FIU Panthers are the athletic teams representing Florida International University, an American public university located in Miami, Florida. The Panthers currently compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletics as members of Conference USA. The men's soccer and swimming & diving teams compete in the American Athletic Conference. Until 2011, they were known as the FIU Golden Panthers.

Infinity Insurance Park, formerly known as University Park Stadium and FIU Baseball Stadium, is a baseball stadium located on the campus of Florida International University in Westchester, Florida, United States. It is the home venue of the FIU Panthers college baseball team of the Division I Conference USA. The facility opened on January 26, 1996, with a 1–0 FIU victory against Bethune-Cookman and was built on the same site as its predecessor, which had stood since 1965. All-American Evan W. Thomas threw a complete game shutout. University Park Stadium has a seating capacity of 2,000 people. The largest crowd in the stadium's history was 2,473 on February 26, 2002, when FIU defeated their cross-town rivals the Miami Hurricanes 7–1.

Burgess–Snow Field at JSU Stadium is a 24,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Jacksonville, Alabama. It opened in 1947 and is home to the Jacksonville State Gamecocks football team. It was also home to the Jacksonville High School Golden Eagles football team until 2004, when they moved to a new stadium on the high school campus. It also served as home to Jacksonville Christian Academy's football team from 2005 until September 27, 2007, when JCA opened an on campus football field.

Fifth Third Bank Stadium, known as Kennesaw State University Stadium until 2013, is a stadium near Kennesaw, Georgia, that is primarily used as the home for the Kennesaw State Owls football team as well as the KSU women's soccer and women's lacrosse teams. It was built as a soccer-specific stadium and opened May 2, 2010, with the first match played on May 9. The facility is the result of a public-private partnership between Kennesaw State University and the now-defunct Atlanta Beat of Women's Professional Soccer.

American Sports Network (ASN) was a sports brand owned by the U.S. television station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group through its Sinclair Networks subsidiary. Formed in July 2014, the multicast network component of ASN produced broadcasts of sporting events that were aired primarily across stations owned by Sinclair, and syndicated to non-Sinclair stations and regional sports networks.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, the company is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations, owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets and is the largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Sinclair also owns four digital multicast networks, sports-oriented cable networks, and a streaming service (Stirr). On June 2, 2021, it was announced that Sinclair is a Fortune 500 company, having annual revenues of $5.9 billion in 2020.

Fox Sports, also referred to as Fox Sports Media Group and stylized in all caps as FOX Sports, is the sports programming division of the Fox Corporation that is responsible for sports broadcasts carried by the Fox broadcast network, Fox Sports 1 (FS1), Fox Sports 2 (FS2), and the Fox Sports Radio network.

The Kentucky Wildcats men's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of the University of Kentucky (UK).

The South Carolina Gamecocks men's soccer team represents the University of South Carolina and, as of the upcoming 2022 college soccer season, competes in the Sun Belt Conference. The team is coached by Tony Annan, who succeeded Mark Berson as head coach after the 2020 season. Berson had been the Gamecocks' only head coach since the program's inception in 1978 and had participated in 20 NCAA Tournaments, reaching the Quarterfinals on four occasions. Since 1981, South Carolina has played its home games at Stone Stadium, which is affectionately called "The Graveyard" by South Carolina fans due to an adjoining cemetery.

The SEC Network is an American multinational sports network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Communications. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, and other content focusing on the conference's member schools. The network is estimated to have 70 million subscribers, more than any other dedicated sports network.

Stadium is a digital television and internet sports network operated as a multi-platform sports network. Stadium includes a 24/7 linear feed distributed across both digital and broadcast platforms, as well as on-demand (VOD) digital content including additional live games and events. Stadium is a joint venture between Silver Chalice and Sinclair Broadcast Group. The network is headquartered at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.

Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post or reply to texts, images and videos known as "tweets". Registered users can tweet, like, 'retweet' tweets and direct message (DM), while unregistered users only have the ability to view public tweets. Users interact with Twitter through browser or mobile frontend software, or programmatically via its APIs.

Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.

William Marsh Rice University, known simply as Rice University, is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.

The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States and two universities in Canada—the University of Toronto and McGill University. AAU membership is by invitation only and requires an affirmative vote of three-quarters of current members.

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its southern and western border with the United States is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a U.S.-based education policy and research center. It was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Among its most notable accomplishments are the development of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), the Flexner Report on medical education, the Carnegie Unit, the Educational Testing Service, and the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are often structured so that the inflation-adjusted principal or "corpus" value is kept intact, while a portion of the fund can be spent each year, utilizing a prudent spending policy.

Florida Atlantic University is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-campus State University System of Florida and serves South Florida. Established as Florida's fifth public university in 1961, FAU has quickly grown to become one of the largest institutions in the state by enrollment. Florida Atlantic University is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". Florida Atlantic offers more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs within its 10 colleges. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

The State University System of Florida is a system of twelve public universities in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2018, over 341,000 students were enrolled in Florida's state universities. Together with the Florida College System, which includes Florida's 28 community colleges and state colleges, it is part of Florida's system of public higher education. The system, headquartered in Tallahassee, is overseen by a chancellor and governed by the Florida Board of Governors.

Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Miami-Dade County. Founded in 1965, the school opened its doors to students in 1972. FIU has grown to become the third-largest university in Florida and the eighth-largest public university in the United States by enrollment. FIU is a constituent part of the State University System of Florida. In 2021, it was ranked #1 in the Florida Board of Governors performance funding, and had over $246 million in research expenditures.

Louisiana Tech University is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Middle Tennessee State University is a public university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight undergraduate colleges as well as a college of graduate studies, together offering more than 300 degree programs through more than 35 departments. MTSU is most prominently known for its Recording Industry, Aerospace, Music and Concrete Industry Management programs. The university has partnered in research endeavors with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the United States Army, and the United States Marine Corps. In 2009, Middle Tennessee State University was ranked among the nation's top 100 public universities by Forbes magazine.