<p>You're totally off topic. The rankings are what they are - I was just wondering if the University has ambitions to move up from its #57 spot. They'll need more than just a new building in 2011, they will also need to hire faculty, pay for their research or get grants, and plan to build another new building pretty soon to keep up with all the top ranked programs that are also spending a billion dollars on new science buildings.</p>
<p>As far as your claims regarding physical sciences go, I think you're a little off now - for example, in chemistry, Chronicle's Faculty Scholarly Index 2005 ranks Harvard and Yale as the top two chemistry programs in the nation. Part of this is that Harvard and Yale have recently built new chemistry buildings and have been poaching faculty from other schools you mentioned. They also do very well in engineering -- for example, Yale ranks #4 in the country in electrical engineering and #3 in the country, after Caltech and Berkeley, in mechanical engineering. A totally separate survey by ISI/Sciencewatch placed Yale at #1 in engineering in the U.S. overall and Harvard was also in the top five (see sciencewatch.com). Of course, if you are basing your opinions on prejudice, you may not recognize changes in the past 10 years in the academic pecking order.</p>