Category: higher education

Anonymous website: third tier or bust

This morning’s Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) reports that an anonymous website critical of Missouri Valley College‘s administration — and the school’s fourth-tier ranking in U.S. News‘ annual listing of America’s Best Colleges — “has students and professors on the Marshall, Mo., campus buzzing.”

Like several similar Web pages that have popped up in recent years, Missouri Valley College: A Different View appears to be written, pseudonymously, by a frustrated professor or administrator. The site’s author — who goes by the nom de plume “W.H. Black,” the name of Missouri Valley’s first president — lambastes the college’s president and trustees, accusing them of corruption, lack of vision, and an unhealthy obsession with the institution’s athletics program.

Unfortunately for the campus, this news breaks the same day as the college’s “first-ever Senior Day Employment Symposium” (according to a PDF newsletter from MVC president Bonnie L. Humphrey). Funny how these things seem to happen at the worst of times.

College presidents ponder a ‘rankings revolt’

Some college presidents are mad as hell about the U.S. News & World Report rankings racket and they’re not going to take it anymore. That is, if they can get enough other college presidents to join them in a boycott of the annual U.S. News rankings.

This week’s issue of a U.S. News rival — Time magazine — reports on a move by some college presidents to withdraw from the annual rankings game (see The College Rankings Revolt). But as Time reports, the revolt hasn’t exactly reached critical mass yet.

This year … a small but growing number of schools are starting to fight back. Or preparing to fight back. O.K., contemplating fighting back. The heads of a dozen private colleges are waiting for the final draft of a letter they will probably sign and send within the next few weeks to their counterparts at 570 or so small to midsize schools asking whether they would be willing to pull out of the U.S. News survey, stop filling out part of it, stop advertising their ranking or, most important, help come up with more relevant data to provide as an alternative. Says an early draft: “By acting collectively, we intend to minimize institutional risk and maximize public benefit.” Translation: We can’t afford to go solo.

The article notes that Reed College dropped out of the ratings game back in 1995 and, while U.S. News dropped Reed from the second to the fourth quartile, “the iconoclastic school has suffered no shortage of qualified applicants.” In fact, the school reports that its applications have reached an all-time high, so perhaps turning its back to the rankers was a smart move.

It will be interesting to see how this latest rankings revolt turns out. If it turns out at all.