September 08, 2007

President Marx signs statement on college rankings

Today, a brief statement concerning various college rankings appeared on the Amherst website. The statement was signed by Tony Marx and the presidents of 18 other liberal arts colleges. All in all, I think it’s a nice, tidy conclusion to a news story that got way too much attention in the first place.

According to the statement, Amherst and the other schools will make all data submitted to college guides publicly available on their own individual websites. Additionally, all the colleges will cease to mention the rankings in new publications.

The concluding paragraph is interesting:

Finally, we encourage all colleges and universities to participate in an effort to determine how information about our schools might be improved. As for rankings, we recognize that no degree of protest may make them soon disappear, and hope, therefore, that further discussion will help shape them in ways that will press us to move in ever more socially and educationally useful directions. [emphasis added]

This paragraph, to me conveys a couple of things. First, it signals a rather abrupt conclusion to the boycott efforts of Lloyd Thacker, (which we’ve previously discussed here and here.) while landing a jab at the impracticality of his efforts. Now that the “highest-ranked” liberal arts colleges have made their own independent statement, Thacker’s efforts to boycott US News, which were relying on the participation of schools like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore and Wellesley, now seem like they have nowhere to go. It’s good that Marx and the others recognized the futility of fighting the rankings and now, with this statement, can move on to more important business on their respective campuses.

Also, I think the final sentence bears the distinct fingerprints of Tony Marx. Marx has been on the record saying that rankings should consider the number of lower-income students enrolled. Was Tony Marx indeed the author of this statement? Maybe the Amherst Student will find out when it reports on the story.

P.S. This is the 300th post on Am’erst. Congrats to Brian and Parker for creating it and pushing it this far and here’s to many more!

Dave Nardolillo '98 | September 8, 2007 02:59 AM | Administration

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