July 27, 2007

Williams, Amherst Won't Fight Top U.S. News Ratings

…is the title of a July 23 Bloomberg.com news story which reports that 61 liberal arts colleges—including Trinity, Holy Cross, Lafayette and Kenyon—have joined forces to withhold cooperation from the annual U.S. News rankings of national liberal arts colleges by refusing to cooperate with the portion of the survey which asks colleges to rank the other institutions in the survey by reputation

Amherst is mentioned as the article notes that no school ranked higher than 30 is in the group of 61.

Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore have topped the liberal arts rankings since 1997. Amherst President Anthony Marx says the criteria should be rewritten to favor colleges that enroll a higher percentage of low-income students.

Marx hasn’t agreed to sign the protest letter, spokeswoman Stacy Schmeidel said.

I commented briefly on this matter last month expressing doubt that a concerted effort to boycott U.S. News would have any real effect. I still think it won’t. The participating colleges are missing the point that regardless of whether they assist U.S. News or not, the rankings will survive due to the high demand with which each annual rankings issue is met. If anything, U.S. News may, in the future, obtain these reputation scores from other sources, such as college guidance counselors (a possibility that U.S. News has mentioned publicly). That alternative might hurt the “lower ranked” schools even more since guidance counselors, usually serving the regional interests of their students, probably know less about a liberal arts college halfway across the country than those who work in higher education for a living.

I also wrote last that the movement would likely suffer from a lack of participation from the schools which are highly ranked. My feeling is that those schools enjoy free publicity from the rankings and really have no incentive to participate in any attack on the rankings. It indeed seems to be unfolding in that way—no school ranked higher than 30 has currently signed on (although the article reports that Barnard, at 26, is leaning towards joining in). Lloyd Thacker, head of the Education Conservancy and a leader of this movement, is hoping for schools like Williams and Amherst to join.

“Yeah, I would like a big-name person to step up to the plate,” Thacker said. “I’m waiting for that.”

But that statement suggests an odd situation and a bad bargaining position for Thacker and the 61 presidents: the schools supporting the boycott need the support of the very schools they imply are inaccurately ranked.

While it’s fair to criticize the US News rankings for being arbitrary and it’s fair to criticize Amherst (and alumni, like me, who think Tony Marx should take a pocket veto on this one) of being disinterested due to the fact Amherst is ranked second, it’s also fair to ask the presidents of the boycotting colleges what their alternative ranking system would entail and what the order of the schools would look like under it. In the world of higher education, it is poor form to openly suggest that you should be ranked higher than “Liberal Arts College B”; the cynic in me thinks that attacking the methodology of the US News rankings gives the 61 presidents a more polite way to suggest those very same thoughts.

Tony Marx should steer clear of this for a couple of reasons. First, the college has its hands full with near-term projects, especially given the blockbuster announcement of last week, and would have no time to be thrust into a front-line role here, as it automatically would be. Second, whatever you may think of the US News rankings, I think it is a relatively small issue compared to the challenges that really threaten the quality of higher education in the future. Amherst should continue to focus its energy on the creative and aggressive policies it has been implementing in order to properly meet those challenges, whether it is ranked second or 35th.

What do you think? We welcome your comments and criticisms, as always.

Dave Nardolillo '98 | July 27, 2007 12:46 AM | Administration | Publications

Comments

Dr. Marek Suchenek | September 16, 2007 10:32 PM:

Perfect or not, the rankings are fairly accurate (if statistically) predictor of school's success in educating an average student. Can they be improved? Almost certainly. Should they be abolished? No.

A few decades many faculty objected being evaluated by their students, quoting very similar arguments to those brought up in the current controversy. Yet student evaluations are a fact of life and contribute positively to faculty performance as teachers and mentors. During tenure and promotion decisions, many schools use a "single number" (overall evaluation) to determine the quality of faculty teaching. So, if a professor can be "reduced to single number", why a university or college cannot?

I fail to see one good reason why not.

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