<p>News</a> Office</p>
<p>No surprise to me.</p>
<p>That is simply AWESOME (and I don’t use that word lightly)! Thanks, Mini.</p>
<p>It’s a really big deal. It’s more than Swarthmore, more than Williams, more than Pomona, more than Wellesley. Sciences at Smith are a really big deal.</p>
<p>I am thrilled with this information. The consistent top funding Smith has received from the National Science Foundation for the last ten years is a huge testament to Smith’s outstanding academic strength in the sciences. When I read the list of liberal arts colleges Smith is competing with, it takes my breath away. Since the list is in small type at the bottom of the article, I’m including it again here, in case people missed it:</p>
<p>“In determining this statistic, Davis [associate provost and dean for academic development at Smith] calculated the publicly available information about NSF funding from 1999 to 2009 to the following colleges: Amherst, Barnard, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, Franklin and Marshall, Grinnell, Hamilton, Haverford, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Pomona, Reed, Skidmore, Swarthmore, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams, and more than a dozen other liberal arts institutions.”</p>
<p>Doesn’t that just take your breath away?</p>
<p>Wow, great news! Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Smith’s lead disappears when the numbers are adjusted for the size of the colleges being compared.</p>
<p>Smith: $14 million in NSF grants, 2,600 students -> $5,400 per current student
Haverford: $9 million in NSF grants, 1,200 students -> $7,500 per current student</p>
<p>Smith’s track record is remarkable, but not quite as outstanding as portrayed in the article.</p>
<p>Oh, if you wanted to figure it that way, you probably should only include students who major in the sciences, who would take advantage of the opportunity. Or by the number of faculty in the sciences? Or, since much of the grants is used for equipment, number of pieces of equipment per faculty member?</p>
<p>You might find that Hope College leads all colleges in all three. The issue really is whether there enough funding to create a critical mass so that students are attracted to scientific research.</p>
<p>You are right that there are far better factors to normalize by, but most of those numbers are rather hard or tedious to come by. The article referenced did not acknowledge institutional differences (size, popularity of science majors, whatever) at all though. </p>
<p>I am not doubting that Smith provides its students with ample opportunities in the sciences. I just wanted to point out that absolute award numbers may not provide a valid comparison in such a diverse group of colleges.</p>