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EDITORIAL: Reputation can't be ranked
Editorial | 9/11/07
Posted online at 8:27 PM EST on 9/10/07
/ Last updated at 1:40 AM EST on 9/10/07
Since U.S. News and World Report began publishing its annual college rankings nearly 30 years ago, the list's popularity has grown by enormous proportions. Also on the rise, however, is a sense of antipathy among schools toward the way the rankings are put together. The "reputation ranking," a survey sent to university administrators asking them to rate the prestige of hundreds of schools across the country, is a particularly egregious factor in the process.
While many schools scramble to ascend the rankings hierarchy, institutions are mounting resistance. Over the past few months, more than 60 presidents of liberal arts colleges have signed a letter stating their refusal to fill out the reputation ranking, which accounts for 25 percent of each institution's overall placement, making it the most heavily weighted factor in the evaluation process.
The reputation ranking is a flawed concept, and Brandeis' administrators recognize that. Lorna Miles, the University's spokesperson, and John Hose, assistant to President Jehuda Reinharz, both acknowledged the biases imbedded in reputation surveys in interviews with the Justice. Hose called them an attempt to "quantify something that is unquantifiable" and noted the absurdity in a Brandeis administrator estimating his general feeling toward institutions about which he may know next to nothing. Just how much passion could Mr. Reinharz muster when appraising, say, the University of California at San Diego?
A public statement from the administration emphasizing this view would go a long way toward reinforcing our standing on a moral gradient, if not a college ranking. Administrators who fill out the reputation survey-Mr. Reinharz, Provost Marty Krauss and Senior Vice-President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy-should withhold their subjective opinions and provide answers about only one school: our own.
Brandeis is also failing to align itself with parallel institutions in opposition to this unfairly subjective process. Of the schools that have objected to the reputation ranking, many are similar to Brandeis. Dickinson College, for instance, has a comparable endowment and, like Brandeis, supports both graduate research and a core liberal arts curriculum.
Brandeis admittedly finds itself in a difficult position. The urge to remain in league with the leaders of the higher education realm is an admirable one, should not impede the proliferation of unbiased information about our school and others.
While many schools scramble to ascend the rankings hierarchy, institutions are mounting resistance. Over the past few months, more than 60 presidents of liberal arts colleges have signed a letter stating their refusal to fill out the reputation ranking, which accounts for 25 percent of each institution's overall placement, making it the most heavily weighted factor in the evaluation process.
The reputation ranking is a flawed concept, and Brandeis' administrators recognize that. Lorna Miles, the University's spokesperson, and John Hose, assistant to President Jehuda Reinharz, both acknowledged the biases imbedded in reputation surveys in interviews with the Justice. Hose called them an attempt to "quantify something that is unquantifiable" and noted the absurdity in a Brandeis administrator estimating his general feeling toward institutions about which he may know next to nothing. Just how much passion could Mr. Reinharz muster when appraising, say, the University of California at San Diego?
A public statement from the administration emphasizing this view would go a long way toward reinforcing our standing on a moral gradient, if not a college ranking. Administrators who fill out the reputation survey-Mr. Reinharz, Provost Marty Krauss and Senior Vice-President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy-should withhold their subjective opinions and provide answers about only one school: our own.
Brandeis is also failing to align itself with parallel institutions in opposition to this unfairly subjective process. Of the schools that have objected to the reputation ranking, many are similar to Brandeis. Dickinson College, for instance, has a comparable endowment and, like Brandeis, supports both graduate research and a core liberal arts curriculum.
Brandeis admittedly finds itself in a difficult position. The urge to remain in league with the leaders of the higher education realm is an admirable one, should not impede the proliferation of unbiased information about our school and others.
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