Unless its courses (taught by its own faculty in its own buildings) are restricted to its own students, whether each school/division has its own faculty and separate buildings makes no difference.
1 Like
This discussion got me to thinking about Barnard, which does have its own faculty and own restricted courses. In addition, Barnard students are allowed to take courses at Columbia College/Uni. But not sure that Barnard counts those âother coursesâ in its CDS. OTOH, is Columbia excluding (co-registered, for lack of a better term) Barnard students from its student class counts, such that a Columbia Uni class of 24 with 5 Barnard students shows up as 19 in Columbiaâs USNews reporting?
3 Likes
Itâs a start, after flatly denying it when the professorâs post first came out. But they didnât own up yet to some of the other clearly wrong data, like counting all of their patient care costs as student instruction.
4 Likes
Columbia placed in a tie for 18th in its category in the current version of U.S. News: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities.
2 Likes
Well thatâs quite a penalty. Columbia would no doubt prefer to be unranked rather than being tied with Notre Dame.
2 Likes
Or maybe it just goes to show how slim and minimal the differences are between the Top 20 schools, and that one should just pick ones favorites and ignore the rankingsâŠ
11 Likes
Given how they handled it and missed even extended deadlines, they got what they deserved.
Even more so, because even after they published the common data set last week, they still have not been forthcoming how these numbers ended up being âmiscalculatedâ.
I canât help but think that this came from, or at least knowingly tolerated by, âthe topâ. Otherwise, one would have expected someone (the provost?) being held accountable by now.
2 Likes
Columbia had always been anxious to be widely recognized as a true peer to HYPSM (as are other top 10 schools like UChicago, Penn, Duke- Columbia is definitely not the only one).
However, it looks like Columbia was willing to sacrifice their intergrity in their effort to achieve that ambition. This looks very bad for them.
1 Like
Iâve not seen evidence of focus on integrity from Columbiaâs administration across the board, so this latest example seemed on brand. No reflection on the excellent faculty or students. They have had a reputation for a while as the most money grubbing of the ivys. They have multiple grad programs that are top ranked for being the worst return on investment (not the ranking they are seeking) because they heavily market expensive programs in fields that canât justify the cost. And the way they shamelessly and aggressively direct market to kids to try and pull them into their extremely high cost high school programs is disgusting. They also donât seem to mind padding their undergraduate classes with these HS students whose only qualifications were their parents being able to afford the tuition. Comparing the difference between how Princeton handles a similar program, itâs night and day.
6 Likes
Sacrificing integrity comes with a price as Columbia was recently hit with a couple of class action lawsuits by the students, further damaging the institutional reputation. The cornerstone of any institutions of higher education is academic integrity, which is enforced â and should be examplified â by the administration with the strictest of standards. Yet, Columbia by their actions chose to examplify the opposite: cheating is okay as long as you donât get caught. Thatâs a powerful message to all of its constituents. The damage Columbia has brought on itself is far reaching and will be long lasting.
5 Likes
Agree, it had to be tolerated at the top, especially because faculty in CC have been complaining for awhile now about the class sizes being too large. I have some hope now, especially with a huge change in top admin coming, that there will be some positive change.
@divarose - Can you elaborate on what âhuge change in top adminâ is coming at Columbia as I havenât heard anything about this?
Hearsay - but heard theyâre hiring someone who can cook the books well without getting caught.
. 
2 Likes
The long-time University president is stepping down next year:
And Barnardâs president got hired-off by Dartmouth:
So Barnard was a good step on her career ladder: from college president at Ivy League university, to university president at different Ivy League, with many times the staff, budget and endowment to manage.
3 Likes