Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992 TAG: 9203180062
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They were there again this year, but a few slipped some, and that has administrators worried that a slashed budget is hurting academic reputations.
Virginia Tech's graduate engineering school was ranked 23rd this year, down three from last year in a March issue of U.S. News & World Report magazine.
But a key figure there lies in the ranking of faculty resources - 53rd.
"We were in the 30s last year, and we thought that was low," said Wayne Clough, dean of the college. "With the budget cuts, we lost faculty positions. And we'll be losing more through early retirement."
The program lost 19 positions with the first round of budget cuts, Clough said.
"We want our faculty resources to be something that supports our reputation, not something that will pull us down," Clough said.
Overall, though, he was pleased with Tech's standing - especially with the high marks from peer colleges. "This says that our faculty is working very hard to keep our national ranking," he said. "It also says it's possible to lose a national ranking as part of the budget cuts."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was ranked first in graduate engineering, followed by California's Stanford.
At the University of Virginia, budget cuts also have affected programs, said John Rosenblum, dean of the Darden business school.
But he said the slip from ninth to 11th probably was related more to the imprecision of polling. "Every year, you move up or down a couple of slots," Rosenblum said. "We could be ninth again next year."
Stanford was ranked first in the category, followed by Harvard University. Virginia was ranked third for its business ethics and fifth for its management programs.
Polls like U.S. News' are good and bad, administrators say.
"All of us probably have mixed feelings about them," Rosenblum said. "In one sense, they bring a competitive edge to the enterprise and cause us to be concerned about how the market perceives our offerings. In that sense, it's positive. Nerve-wracking, but positive."
But the polls don't take into account the fact that all business schools - or law schools or liberal-arts schools - are not alike. And they seem to penalize colleges for trying new things that may not be successful right away.
"In that sense, they tend to promote short-run thinking, rather than long-run research and experimentation," Rosenblum said.
UVa was ranked sixth in the United States in a new category, called "executive education," or continuing education programs for managers.
Harvard was ranked first in that category.
UVa was ranked 10th in English programs - the only Virginia school listed under liberal arts.
UVa's law school held onto its rank of eighth this year, and Washington and Lee University and the College of William and Mary were both listed as the "best of the rest" - in the 20 schools following the top 25.
George Mason University's law school was in the following group, and the University of Richmond in the group after that.
Yale University had the best law school, according to the survey, followed by Harvard.
by CNB