<p>"THE ONE constant in every university ranking has been Harvard’s position at the top as well as the dominance of American universities. </p>
<p>In the most recent international poll by Newsweek magazine, US institutions took 15 of the top 20 places. </p>
<p>What are the factors that have propelled Harvard to the top? ...."</p>
<p>Harvard's not the only model.</p>
<p>An Indian university is being modeled on Stanford, namely its most successful attribute: spawning an entire innovative community around it.</p>
<p>^^ Boston? ;)</p>
<p>I remember Quinn Mills when he had hair!</p>
<p>“At Harvard, when a department is losing ground to a significant degree to those at other schools, the Dean will create a committee to study the situation and if merited, will retire the existing faculty, and hire a whole new faculty, including new department leadership.” </p>
<p>In what departments has that actually happened?</p>
<p>african-american studies, for one. similarly, chemistry at princeton.</p>
<p>Including the departure of Cornel West?</p>
<p>Not so. </p>
<p>Skip Gates has been head of the department he created for a number of years, and although he is headed for retirement, he will stay on as a faculty member.</p>
<p>yes so. under president summers, the department lost star senior faculty to chicago, princeton, and stanford over the space of just a couple years. with them, it lost also its consensus reputation as the best af-am department in the country. gates has since committed himself to rebuilding the department through younger hires. i'm sure they'll be fine.</p>
<p>(edit: i acknowledge, not exactly wholesale replacement of the faculty, but still, administrative support for an overhaul after recognition of a departmental decline, relative to peers.)</p>
<p>btw, is no one going to comment on this quote from the OP?:</p>
<p>"Despite being at the top, Harvard and Prof Quinn Mills are not resting on their laurels. The Harvard don, for one, wears a Yale watch as a reminder of Harvard’s competitors."</p>
<p>That is horse manure. It still is the best department in the country. In the case of Cornel West, it was addition by subtraction.</p>
<p>From USNews BGSm 2006
English Specialties: African-American Literature
Ranked in 2005*</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvard University (MA)</li>
<li> Princeton University (NJ)</li>
<li> Duke University (NC)</li>
<li> Yale University (CT)</li>
<li> University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill</li>
<li> Columbia University (NY)</li>
<li> University of California–Berkeley</li>
<li> Cornell University (NY)</li>
<li> University of Maryland–College Park
University of Virginia</li>
</ol>
<p>consensus, man, consensus:</p>
<p>The department, though still considered by many the best in the country, has lost much of the prestige in which it once basked.</p>
<hr>
<p>“I think Harvard’s Afro Am department has lost some of its luster because it has lost five major names,” says John Rickford, director of Stanford’s program in African and African American studies. </p>
<p>In November 1996, the New York Times described Harvard’s Af Am department as a “powerhouse” and “perhaps the most celebrated assortment of scholars in America.” </p>
<p>Almost a decade later, scholars across the country do not offer such a glowing assessment. </p>
<p>Rickford says that the department continues to be the best in the country, but that if it continues to lose professors, that might change. </p>
<p>“If Skip [Gates] were to leave, or if more people were to leave, than the future would be more uncertain,” he says, adding that now, “the collegiality, the feeling that you were really setting the pace for everybody else around the world [is gone].” </p>
<p>Bobo also acknowledges that the department is not what it once was, and that his own and his colleagues’ departures have contributed to the decline. </p>
<p>by the way, byerly, those are af-am <em>literature</em> rankings.</p>
<p>Not exactly "disinterested witnesses", Princeton Troll.</p>
<p>Rickford is a former Harvard wannabe, and Bobo left in a huff when Harvard denied tenure to his wife. He shopped around until he found someplace to take both of them in a package deal.</p>
<p>Any department that could be proud of picking up Cornel West has some serious academic recruiting problems. </p>
<p>"Cornel's work tends to be 1,000 miles wide and about two inches deep." </p>
<p>Scottie seems to think picking up Brother West on the rebound gives Princeton a little patina - a little reflected prestige in a way. In the same way, he genuflects when some third rate actress announces her intention to matriculate at his alma mater.</p>
<p>as you know, west earned his ph.d from princeton, and began his academic career there before being hired away by harvard's then princeton-educated president and made one of only a dozen or so "university professors." so to the extent that west brings an institution "patina," princeton already had it before hiring him back. by your reasoning, however, harvard must have been seeking a little "princeton patina" in hiring him away in the first place! as for the rest, your personal feelings on west notwithstanding, it's pretty ridiculous to contest the fact that af-am at harvard has slipped with all of its defections. consider the effect on student enrollment:</p>
<p>"The number of students enrolled in Af Am courses has plunged from 1,056 in the 2001-2002 academic year to just 332 this year [2005]." </p>
<p>it remains a very good department, among the best, just not the consensus best anymore.</p>
<p>and about my "genuflection," well, that's one big pot calling the kettle black, considering you excitedly post threads about third-rate <em>hockey players</em> headed to harvard, as well as hometown stories about students so much as even considering <em>applying</em> ("dare she hope?")!</p>
<p>Outstanding students and hockey players are one thing, Princeton Troll, third rate teen actresses and self-proclaimed "public intellectuals" are another. </p>
<p>Brother West is a first rate entertainer - and a popular teacher since he never gives any grade below an A minus - but you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to argue that he is anything else.</p>
<p>Its a pretty sad state of affairs if you think Cornel West makes Princeton a better school. Scurrying over to the Harvard page to brag about this fraud is really pathetic.</p>
<p>I think this one was a scottie pwn.</p>
<p>"Scurrying over to the Harvard page to brag about this fraud"? i came over here to offer an accurate answer to another poster's question. i did not mention princeton's af-am program. i did not mention cornel west. you, however, always on the alert for any slight to your pro-harvard, pro-republican sensibilities, answered with graduate-level <em>english</em> department rankings and your usual tirade against west. you also, quite characteristically, "went personal," or ad hominem, as you love to say. not even accurately, either, as i don't think i've ever posted about any "third rate actress announc[ing] her intention to matriculate at" old nassau. but by your mock-populist reasoning, shouldn't all matriculants be celebrated, whatever their talents?</p>
<p>and yes, i really do think cornel west makes princeton a better school. he's universally regarded as a phenomenal lecturer, one of the very best on the faculty. he was regarded similarly while at harvard. he's a pretty decent scholar, too, certainly not a "fraud." from a previous thread:</p>
<p>a little background: cornel (one "l") west graduated magna cum laude from harvard in just three years, earned a ph.d. at princeton, his dissertation for which was later published, and has since taught at H, Y, <em>and</em> P. harvard, before its change in leadership to the impossibly tactless larry summers, made west one of its dozen or so institution-wide "university professors," its highest faculty honor. as for west's books, "race matters" was a big-time bestseller and continues to sell well. on a more scholarly measure, he's currently the highest ranking black male scholar in the google books database (higher even than harvard's skip gates) and one of the ten most-cited in google scholar. not surprisingly, many at harvard would like to have him back (see link # 4).</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West</a></p>
<p>"While West taught the introductory course Af-Am 10, “Introduction to Afro-American Studies,” the class saw enrollments of 584 in the 2001 and 316 in 1999. Today, the course enrollment has plummeted to 17 students under the auspices of Professor of Government Michael C. Dawson and Professor of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds."</p>
<p>That is all horse manure.</p>
<p>If Summers accomplished nothing else during his tenure, he broomed this embarrassing fraud out the door. </p>
<p>Awarding "University Professor" status to Brother West was a typically PC move by Summers' bovine predecessor (the Princeton man.)</p>
<p>Why don't you go back to trolling for the Princeton women's soccer team?</p>
<br>
<p>Why don't you go back to trolling for the Princeton women's soccer team?</p>
<br>
<p>first it's actresses, now it's women's soccer. why don't you point me to some of the apparently unceasing trolling i've done on these subjects?</p>