Volume CXXXIII, Number 3 September 21, 2001 f

Why the rankings really are important
HUGH HILL

For those of us who've been here for a few years, we've watched the fortunes of Bowdoin sometimes fall, but usually rise in the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings. In my own time here, Bowdoin has been as low as number nine and as high as its current number five.

While many ballyhoo and dismiss the annual rankings, I have nothing but praise and enthusiasm for Bowdoin's climb in the rankings. Whether we like it or not, many people will judge Bowdoin based partly, if not in full, upon these rankings. Bowdoin owes it to us, the students, to ensure that she remains high in these rankings.

In all honesty, you are probably going to receive a high quality education no matter where you go within the top fifty or even top one hundred liberal arts colleges. Sure Amherst is going to have slightly better faculty and resources than Wheaton College, but they both cost about the same and both offer a great education.

So why do the 89% of us who are from out of state come to Maine?
Simply put, we want that Bowdoin stamp on our diplomas. We worked hard in high school to get in here, and now we want our diplomas to open some doors for us and create opportunities. I sure as heck hope that by working hard to come to Bowdoin, I will have more opportunities available to me upon graduation than my friends from home who slacked off and went to Wheaton. We are buying into the Bowdoin reputation. As students making a $30,000 annual investment in the college (and the diploma we will hopefully receive), we have a right to a return upon our investment. Bowdoin must pay attention to these rankings as they directly impact upon our investment here.

College administrators across the country, and Bowdoin is no exception, always prepare two standard responses to the release of the US News rankings. For those who have seen a drop in their rankings, they will confidently dismiss the rankings as insignifigant and irrelavent. How, they will say, can anyone reduce an academic institution to mere numbers on a standarized scale and get an accurate depiction of the place? Surely people will see beyond these non-important numbers. An attractive, if a bit naive view of the world.

Those administrators whose colleges have gone up on the scale will react exactly as our own Dean McEwan did. McEwan both treated this as an acknowledgement of Bowdoin's greatness while belittling one component of the US News ranking, the faculty resource rating (in which we placed 77th). Even those colleges who do well in the ratings feel an understandable dissatisfaction with something that people put so much stock in that is beyond their control.
US News does have a valid point in the faculty resource rating.

Bowdoin does not pay its faculty nearly enough. Our faculty is the heart and soul of this institution and they deserve proper compensation. So what should Bowdoin do? Raise the faculty salaries.

This would fullfill two of Bowdoin's obligations. First to the faculty, to whom Bowdoin owes a great deal. Second to the students, who are investing in a Bowdoin education. Bowdoin's star would rise in the faculty resource rating and, consequentially, in the overall ranking.

This is not an indictment of the liberal arts education experience. I am a great fan of the liberal educational experience and hold a special reverance for its pursuit of academic and moral excellence. This article is an attempt to argue from a practical perspective about Bowdoin's relationship to the US News Rankings.

The enhanced prestige of the college, of which the US News rankings are a vital component, will benefit us all now and for years to come. So three cheers to Bowdoin for enhancing the value of our investment, and let us hope that our stock continues to rise for years to come.