ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996 TAG: 9603110037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
U.S. News & World-Report hits newsstands Monday with its high-profile rankings of selected graduate schools, and one of Virginia Tech's best-ranked programs hails from within its beleaguered College of Education.
But the college itself did not make the cut. At Tech, only the College of Engineering was rated, making a statistically insignificant move from 34th last year to 35th, out of 50.
Washington and Lee University School of Law made a similar move - from 21st last year to 20th in this year's rankings.
Within selected programs, the vocational/technical program of Tech's education college ranked fourth out of the nation's top five. The program trains students to teach or administer vocational programs, such as agriculture or business education, at universities or businesses.
As the college heads toward a summer merger with the College of Human Resources - a move made this year amid much controversy - one of the program's longtime professors says he hopes no change is on the horizon.
"The plan is for it not to be altered," Nevin Frantz said.
On the ranking of the College of Engineering, Dean William Stephenson said: "I would say we are highly regarded as one of the top engineering schools in the country, both graduate and undergraduate.
"You're going to see some changes; my feeling is, frankly, considering the budget cuts we have had in recent years and the fact the research environment has become very difficult, I think we are doing very well.
"I don't take these rankings as absolute."
The magazine includes the top 50 graduate schools in each field. Ratings are made up of several elements, including reputation among professionals and academic peers, acceptance rate and research funding.
The graduate school rankings, first issued in 1987, generate mixed reviews on campus.
"Frankly, even though one of our programs is rated in the top five, I really am skeptical of what any of that means," said Wayne Worner, dean of the College of Education.
In particular, Worner cited reputation-based ratings by other deans, saying many may have never visited the schools or evaluated the programs.
"I think they're interesting," Worner said. "But they're like every other rating: It doesn't really mean that much."
But the engineering school's associate dean, Mike Vorster, was pleased to see the college's reputation among deans go up from No.25 to No.21 - even if its reputation among practicing engineers went down, from 18th last year to 25th.
"It says what it says: that the academic community is seeing us making an improvement. The practicing-engineers ranking probably hasn't tweaked onto that. Their perceptions, because they're slightly more removed from what we do, would lag a little behind the academic community's perception.
But "the rankings are important because lots of people see them and lots of people read them."
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