Holding our own in the Maclean’s rankings
Tis the season for university rankings, and while many observers regard this game with a jaundiced eye, here is an overview of the results.
Concordia tied for eighth among the “comprehensive” universities in the annual Maclean’s magazine rankings. Last year the university was rated ninth. Cameron Tilson, Senior Planning/Policy Analyst, and Interim Director, Office of Institutional Research, explains:
“Concordia’s overall ranking (and to a lesser extent, the other Quebec universities that participate) continues to be adversely impacted by our performance in the financial indicators, i.e., total operating expenditures per weighted FTE; proportion of our operating funds allocated to student services, libraries, library acquisitions and student financial support.
“It is encouraging to see that we have improved in 11 measures. Particularly notable is that we have taken over first place in our category for average size and number of peer-adjudicated grants in the social sciences and humanities.
“Of the indicators that decreased, the most notable item is the proportion of faculty with a PhD. Results in this category were affected this year by more stringent reporting of all categories of full-time faculty, including extended-term and limited-term appointments.
“We continue to drop in the proportion of alumni who donate to the university. This is based on a five-year total (in this case, the period May 1999 to April 2004). The decrease could possibly be explained by the growing number graduates (and therefore alumni) as result of increasing enrolment, as well as some negative publicity that affected fundraising for a few years.”
The National Post published rankings last week of universities’ research activity under the title “Gainers and Losers.” Six universities had increases in research income of more than 50 per cent in 2004. Concordia’s increased by more than 77 per cent.
The increase moved Concordia up from twenty-sixth place last year to twenty-fifth place out of the 50 research universities listed.
On Nov. 2, the Globe and Mail published their annual “Universities Report Card.”
The university got good ratings for “faculty members’ knowledge of subjects,” “sense of personal safety,” “online library resources,” “overall educational experience,” “overall quality of off-campus environment,” among other categories.
Concordia did not fare as well in such categories as “sports and recreation facilities,” “food services,” “residences,” and “availability of needs-based scholarships.”
Participants were self-selected via a website. Although the newspaper claims 26,000 students participated, Tilson said that in past years no more than 200 or 300 participated from Concordia.