U. of Chicago: Is University Strength Declining?

interesting. What is your back up for that statement re Oxford ?

@Chrchill Penn is pretty much always in the top 20, but admittedly quite rarely on the top 10 lately. Yale and Columbia also almost always fail to crack the top 10. It has a lot to do with which departments each school is strong at and whether that lends itself to a high ranking given the criteria used by most of these international rankings. Unless of course we are talking about Harvard and Stanford which are strong across the board and would come on top no matter what. Also the relative standing changes if we are talking about college rankings vs research output rankings.

Penn has top three Business and medical schools and a low top ten law school. But it just is not an overall academic powerhouse. Except for Wharton, Penn has no global name recognition. Columbia and Yale certainly do.

Unfortunately, Cue7 is mostly right. UChicago has not been doing well in acquiring NIH funding. The new ranking for NIH funding just came out for the fiscal year 2016, and UChicago dropped to #31 in the nation having received just $140 million. Alarm bell already went off at the administrative level. The division is aggressively pushing all PIs to land more grants and reverse the current trend.

The Law School is also a cause for concern. Their new hires are not that impressive (though I’m not in law so what do I know).

While my alma mater has been doing incredibly well on raising its ranks in the US News (which I’m immensely happy about), its strength has been slowly in decline for the past few years. The Biological Sciences Division and the Law School led the way.

I’m not that concerned about Divisions of the Humanities, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, and the Booth School. They seem to be doing very well.

Could not disagree more. The Law School is a strong and prestigious as ever. Tied at Fourth with Columbia. As a partner in a top national firm, I can tell you with authority that Chicago Law graduates are as highly prized as any.

@Chrchill

Let’s leave the law school matter to the side for a moment. What do you think of @Poplicola comments about declining NIH funding and the concern from Chicago’s biological sciences decision?

Per @Poplicola comments, if the new NIH funding numbers are correct, Chicago’s dropped in funding yet again, and are now #31 in the country. Similarly, i already posted the rankings on UChicago’s declining health system.

To you and others so pro-Uchicago, what’s your take on this?

I’ll be honest, given the disproportionate importance of a hospital system/bio division for a university, this seems like a big red flag that counter balances all your optimistic conjectures.

Yeah, I don’t know what the justification might be for downgrading the law school, either. It had some key faculty members get other jobs – federal court of appeals judge, Harvard Law School dean, Stanford University president, President of the United States. Things like that don’t exactly diminish prestige. It lost one important faculty member to a romantic break-up, but kept the other half of the couple who is, if anything, the more prestigious of the two. It lost another well-known faculty member who is somewhat crazy, so on balance it’s not much of a loss.

If one of my kids were going to law school, and they asked my advice, the only law schools I would tell them they were nuts to turn down to go to Chicago would be Yale and Stanford. There are another 4-5, including Harvard, where there would be arguments either way, and after that nothing you would think about turning down Chicago for, unless maybe it was one of another 4-5 law schools and you got a full-tuition scholarship. That hasn’t changed appreciably in 30 years.

The Law schools rankings have ben very consistent and steady for years: 1. Yale, 2. Harvard and Stanford, 3… Columbia and Chicago… The clear top 5.

I just know that competing schools have been raiding the faculty at UChicago’s Law School for the past decade. Really hope they are able to replenish the talent there. I’m less concerned about the drop in LSAT score since I believe that’s consistent across the board. Looking at the Law School’s new hires, their research prowess seems uneven. Some have incredible research output; others, less so. Again, I don’t know anything about law so I’m probably ignorant when it comes to assessing a Law School’s standing.

Out of curiosity, how stringent is the Law School’s tenure process? I know the Law School has one of the lowest % of faculty tenured so presumably the standard is exceptionally high.

Biological Sciences Division & Pritzker are the biggest cause for concern in my opinion. As I’m in the biological sciences, I can comment on this Division’s decline. Other Divisions are doing quite well I’d say. The Booth School remains exceptionally competitive. The Harris School seems to be expanding. Nothing negative to say about the physical sciences, mathematics, divinity, humanities, and social sciences at my alma mater.

I think the purpose of this thread is to look beyond the rankings. We all know UChicago has done exceptionally well in rankings across the board. That’s a fact and I’m not disputing it.

@JHS @Chrchill and @Poplicola

I’ll leave the law school matter to the side, as you both are certainly more well informed here than most. (I thought the two point drop in LSAT - a drop no other top 5 school experienced, and the loss of Sunstein, Epstein, Kagan, Schill, etc. was notable, but I’m far from in the know here.)

Re the hospital system/medical plant, what are yours and others thoughts? Again the numbers (beyond the rankings) seem significant - a big drop in NIH funding over the past decade, a drop in national prominence in key specialty areas, etc.

Perhaps I can start a new thread that just focuses on the decline of UChicago Medicine/Hospitals, but for now, it seems efficient to keep it here.

Pritzker has always been the ugly child of the Grad schools. Top ten, if that. They sold their name for a cheap prize because they were ranked low. The cash infusion from the Pritzkers was not enough to get it to top 5 status, considering that two spots out of the top 5 Med Schools are securely taken by schools that are not really top 10 anywhere else (Johns Hopkins, UCSF) and the rest is being duked out by the usual top school suspects: Duke, Yale, Harvard, Penn, Stanford, etc. Pritzker needs to do something really really dramatic elbow its way into the 3 remaining spots in the top 5. This situation is what Prizker faces not just in the rankings but also when it competes for grants, students, donors, etc.

Ideas:

  • UChicago should go back to the Pritzkers and ask for more. (Its not unheard of, Polsky gave more…)
  • UChicago should partner up with Mayo Clinic - to send its students to learn there

I think the loss of NIH funds is being interpreted too negatively. The new Cancer center which has shiny new digs has enough private funds through partnerships with companies like Abbvie to do cutting edge research. And maybe that is the way to go - start a new model - maybe this is their “something dramatic” - stop competing fiercely for a limited highly-competitive resource like NIH and put more in high ROI efforts like business partnerships/funding. (The other advantage being commercialization of these discoveries will earn the university dollars, unlike NIH funded reasearch which earns nothing but praise).

Its play for Data Intensive Science and its new Genomic Data Commons may also be one more shot of distinguishing itself from the competition, and preparing for the future. (This strategy sounds like what Booth did with CRSP, which paid off astonishingly)

@FStratford - thanks for the informative response!

Along with Pritzker being the “ugly child” of the grad schools, what is your take on UChicago Medicine/the hospital plant? Rankings are a rough barometer, but it appears as if UChicago Hospitals is no longer nationally prominent and is, in fact (outside of a few specialties) a definite second fiddle to Northwestern in the city of Chicago.

Also, re funding - it’s fine if the University looks for private funds, but on a per capita basis, is it really outgunning other top schools for such funds? If you look at Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford, U of Penn, etc., is Chicago right there in terms of general fundraising?

My guess is no - that Chicago lags in fundraising across the board - NIH funding and private funding - for its medical plant. This is a big problem for the university.

What do others think?

@Cue7 @FStratford

Keep in mind that UChicago Hospital is now ranked #3 in the city, behind both Northwestern and Rush. If I remember correctly, it used to be ranked #1 in Illinois.

I think it’s great that the University is diversifying its source of funding. However, I do think the NIH remains an important indicator of institutional health. NIH funding has flatlined for the past few years, but institutions such as Vanderbilt have been gaining ground even in tough funding climate. Competitive institutions such as Hopkins, Penn also saw their NIH funding grow (albeit modestly) during this period. That being said, I do have confidence in the administration to reverse this trend.

Also want to point out that while Pritzker has risen in the US News ranking, its perceived pedigree hasn’t changed that much (ranked about #18 in the nation).

Residency director score ranking:

Harvard, Hopkins, UCSF
Stanford, Penn
WashU, Duke, Columbia
Michigan
Cornell, UCLA, U of Wash, Vandy
Northwestern, Yale
Baylor, Emory, U Chicago, Pitt
Mayo
UTSW, UVA
NYU, Oregon, UCSD, UNC
Brown, Case Western, Dartmouth, Gtown, Sinai, Rochester, USC, U of Wisconsin
Indiana, Tufts, Colorado, Iowa, U of Minnesota
Boston U, Ohio State, U of Alabama, Wake Forest, U of Utah
Miami, Einstein

Physician peer score ranking:

Harvard, Hopkins, UCSF
Stanford
WashU
Penn
Columbia, Duke, Michigan, U of Wash, Yale
Vandy
Cornell, UCLA, U Chicago
Northwestern, UNC, Pitt, UTSW
Emory, UCSD
Mayo
Baylor, NYU, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin
Sinai, Oregon, Alabama, UVA
Case Western, Dartmouth, Minnesota, Rochester
Brown, Indiana, Ohio State, USC

Just throwing ideas out there.

@Cue7 @Poplicola Its hard for me to judge UChicago Medicine right now because it has been distracted by a couple of things - expansion and the trauma center.

It has been going through rapid expansion it seems to want to dominate not just the south side but also the south suburbs thorough both build outs and M&A. This is a huge distraction to any administrator. Once all the buying and building is done, we shall be able to tell if they have a plan on how to use all these real estate and resource in their hands and go back to their mission as a research and teaching hospital.

I think the low regard for it in recent years was partly due to the trauma center debates that gave it so much bad publicity nationally and locally…

One thing is notable though - UChicago Medicine is highly profitable (which is why it maintained its stable Fitch bond rating) so it has resources within its disposal for when it plans to shake things up. There has not been any news recently though, except more M&A so…

The “decline” of UChicago’s hospital system is like due to both Rush and Northwestern expanding faster and heavily investing in new plant. Northwestern effectively has rebuilt their medical campus in Streeterville in spectacular fashion in the past 15 years. NU has also been successful in bring in complementary health providers such as the Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Rush has also invested significantly in new facilities, with a giant new spaceship-shaped facility visible from the Eisenhower that was constructed in 2012. Rush’s future expansion plans also dwarf those of UChicago.

Thanks @Zinhead and @FStratford for the commentary.

Unless I’m mistaken, isn’t the stagnation of the hospital system/biological sciences division a serious inhibitor to Chicago’s claim as a “world-class” research institution? By all accounts here, UChicago Medicine is now second or third fiddle in the city (behind Northwestern, possibly behind Rush).

Further, UChicago’s research output in the sciences seems middling - in terms of papers published in major journals (like Nature), it’s typically ranked in the 20s or 30s in the USA.

(See here: http://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2016/institution/all/all/regions-North%20America)

(Interestingly, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, and Columbia - possibly the front runners for comprehensive top research Us in the world are all in the top 10 or so. The next band of research us - Duke, Penn, Cornell, etc. all are ahead of Chicago here too.)

Again, given the importance of the medical system for a top, comprehensive research U (which UChicago strives to be), the stagnation/decline of UChicago Medicine/BSD seems to be a significant concern.

Further, I am unclear if a turnaround is coming. Yes, Chicago is in the midst of a fundraising campaign, but it will pale in comparison to Hopkins, Harvard’s, and others campaigns.

Is this a mark against its attempts to stand alongside Stanford, Yale et. al. as the very tippy top research universities?

If so, the argument goes toward my thesis - that despite undisputed improvements in some areas (like the College), Chicago is losing ground in other vital areas, and losing ground fast. Also, if so, the optimism that abounds in this thread may be misguided (not for the College, which is doing great, but for the University as a whole).

So far you have identified one area in which it may be losing ground - biological sciences.

You seem very convinced of your thesis of overall decline, but I’m not seeing it.

My point, @ThankYouforHelp is that university strength now (overall) is behind where it was at some point in the past.

Data from, say, 2004 shows a college in very good shape, and other divisions in great shape. BSD and the medical plant was undoubtedly stronger a decade back to now - they were clearly the top in the city, at least.

Now, the picture is much blurrier to me because of the vital importance of bsd/medicine to a school’s overall research output

If you were to ask a school official - would you rather have a college in the top dozen, and a medicine/bio research plant in the top 15-20, or a college in the top half dozen and a med/bio research plant in the top 30-35, what do you think the answer would be?

I fear the success of the college has masked other areas worthy of serious scrutiny.

The Nature Index appears to be for a single year and doesn’t control for the size of the institution. I suspect that the ranking that puts Rush above UofC is focused on patient care rather than research. Bio is not my field, so I don’t know how to parse these rankings but, presumably, they vary by subfields. Since bio is likely to be my kid’s undergrad major, I’ve done enough comparisons of bio departments to know that it’s a discipline that can be structured very differently at different universities (and presence/absence of a med school further complicates comparisons, as do various affiliated institutes/research facilities). From what I’ve seen, my impression is that ec & evo biology at UofC is getting better – not worse.

I honestly doubt Chicago is declining. For a large research university, there will always be departments on the rise and departments in temporary decline. For instance, the college has exploded in popularity in recent years. The only worrying aspect is the lack of a proper engineering/computer science department, especially if these fields continue to gain prominence in the future.