<p>Xiggi, come on now. Your problem with the PA is that the results don’t jive with your view for undergraduate academic excellence. It is the outliers that are being rewarded for some unknown reason (to you) and it bugs you.</p>
<p>I have always said, and never talked in circles when it comes to the PA that it is a proxy for measuring faculty strength and breadth and depth of distinguished academic programs.</p>
<p>It just so happens this is #1 of the directions given by USNWR:
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<h1>2 says:</h1>
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I see that you did not dispute this…perhaps we agree on what each others stances are for “correcting” the peer assessment survey.</p>
<p>The PA survey says what UCB said it said in post #141.</p>
<p>There is a link to the survey in the first post in this thread.</p>
<p>There is no science (or statistical analysis) in the survey.</p>
<p>If people are arguing that there is science in the survey or anywhere else in the rankings they are mistaken.</p>
<p>USNWR says in the survey what UCB wrote.</p>
<p>That’s it.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I don’t care what other people wrote about science, and statistical correlations regarding PA. I care what you write.</p>
<p>I’m not arguing that there is some statistical analysis with PA. </p>
<p>You’re arguing with me about people acting like PA is some kind of scientific piece of work and you disagree, and then you come up with what you would like changed in PA and act like that would be more scientific or have more statistical analysis, or be more accurate?</p>
<p>Xiggy, you sort of misse dthe rest of my statement. </p>
<p>“Education, particularly at the university level, is a highly personal undertaking and it varries from individual to individual. I do, however, believe that the Peer Assessment score measures perceived quality of undergraduate institutions (not education) based on the strengths of their academic departments, the quality of their faculties and facilities, ties to academe, research and industry and the wealth of resources. How good an education one gets, on the other hand, depends almost entirely on that person and how much effort they put into their education.”</p>
<p>The Peer Assessment rating is a reputational rating, not a factual rating. I have never said otherwise.</p>
Alexandre, the PA should solely measure the UNDERGRADUATE quality of academic programs. If a university president or provost is only aware of the GRADUATE reputation of a certain school and not its UNDERGRADUATE, then he/she should check DON’T KNOW next to that specific school on the PA form.</p>
<p>Undergraduate faculty is very different from graduate faculty. How many of Michigan’s top graduate school professors teach undergraduate students?</p>
<p>The idea that any president or provost of a college or university would be aware only of what’s going on in the graduate programs of her own school and its peers–and totally ignorant of what goes on at the undergraduate level—is just preposterous on its face. It’s undergraduate education that pays the bills. Presidents and provosts are keenly aware of where they stand relative to their competitors at the undergraduate level, and doing their job requires that they pay close attention to their peers. They are certainly better positioned to know more than the self-appointed amateur experts on CC who bloviate endlessly on the very same subject, yet insist with equal certitude that no college president or provost—smart and competent people who have devoted their entire professional careers to the subject, and whose reputations and livelihoods rise or fall with their making correct judgments on it—could possibly know what the casual part-time outside observers know. Such utter horse manure. Such self-importance. Such arrogance. Such hubris. Sometimes CC disgusts me.</p>
<p>“Undergraduate faculty is very different from graduate faculty. How many of Michigan’s top graduate school professors teach undergraduate students?” </p>
<p>Hmmm, virtually all of them. Michigan faculty are required to teach undergraduates. Of course, most Law School and Medical school professors do not teach undergraduate students. But the top Anthropology, Biology, Business, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, History, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology professors all teach undergrads classes.</p>
<p>As an Econ majors, I had classes with the likes of Bill Adams, Charles Brown, Paul Courant, George Johnson, Gary Saxonhouse, Gary Solon, Hal Varian etc… all of which were among the top professors of Economics at Michigan back in my days.</p>
All the professors at Michigan’s Chemical Engineering Dept are expected to teach one or two courses a year, at least one at the undergraduate level. This was the same when I attended the University of Wisconsin which had the #1 ChE department at the time. All the big name professors taught undergraduate courses and most enjoyed doing that.</p>
<p>Every philosophy professor at Michigan taught undergraduate classes. In fact they all taught more undergraduate than graduate classes, as there were far more undergrads than grad students–and far more undergraduate courses than graduate courses-- in the department. The idea that there are separate “graduate” and “undergraduate” faculties is more than a little bizarre. It reflects a profound misunderstanding of how higher education works at research universities. And it’s unfortunate, frankly, that these sorts of wildly misinformed views get propagated on CC. To that extent, CC actually does a serious disservice to those it is trying to serve.</p>
<p>Baghdad, Would you mind explaining how TK Wetherell has integrity issues like Machen when he revealed the online test scandal to the NCAA and then ordered an investigation to rectify the issue?</p>
<p>Aside from the fact that this guy rated schools he wasn’t familiar with, what are the issues with this survey? He gave his own school a 5. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? Why would he, say, give his school a 3 and say it’s not one of the best in the country? Isn’t he supposed to believe that (or at least make the world think he believes it)? A good football coach is going to go out there every week telling his team he believes that they can win even if they are the Detroit Lions. </p>
<p>Florida A & M / 1 / 2.0
Florida Atlantic / 1 / 2.1
Florida International / 1 / 2.1</p>
<p>Sure, these seem underrated, but it’s not like Machen is significantly influencing these numbers. Should he have given them a 3 or 4 even though he doesn’t believe it?</p>
<p>There are issues with the PA survey. This public document shows that. For all you know, if Machen wasn’t familiar with a school he guessed or looked at its rating from last year and plugged in the same number. However, I don’t see how he’s gaming the system. Maybe instead of looking at it as he wants to undercut Florida schools, maybe he holds his FL peers to higher standards because he knows them better. It’s all speculation really, but do we have any proof that Machen believes UF will gain anything by him rating those schools I mentioned above as 1?</p>
<p>I agree with you. People are really complaining about 3 or 4 schools. If, for example, Machen had given UF, Georgetown, Brown and Dartmouth a “strong” rating, this thread would probably only be 2 pages.</p>
<p>Since it is a reputational and opinion survey, you have to expect (and in fact hope) that the respondents will have somewhat differing views from each other. I think that bclintonk has shown convincingly that Machen’s rankings are fairly mainstream, that very few of his rankings are completely out of whack and that given where he has worked, he has a lot of knowledge about schools in differing areas of the country.</p>
<p>I feel badly for him, that his supposedly “confidential” PA rating was anything but. I’ll bet he is asking for a new shredder for his birthday In fact, I’ll bet the shredders in the offices of lots of public university presidents are humming right now…</p>
<p>I wonder who at the G’ville Sun thought to ask for this rating? Its funny, in a sad kind of way (and I am a UF supporter) Not only is his rating list all over the FL papers, but it even hit the NYT. Ouch. He should have remembered the big battle the UF school paper waged trying to get the autopsy photos of Dale Earnhardt several years ago, claiming public information and open records. Bet Machen won’t make that mistake twice.</p>
<p>But I agree, the PA is too subjective and prone to cronyism. One way to push up ones ratings is to push down others. If this exposure in any way burst the artifically inflated bubble of the “value” of the US News rankings, then I am glad this came to light. </p>
<p>He rated Tulane a “4” and Emory a “3”. That was interesting.</p>
<p>So what have we learned? That Machen is proud of his institution and sees it as on par with the very top schools. There are some that would agree, others that would find it laughable. I agree with those who said that if these ratings were all transparent and not confidential, their reliability and validity would likely improve, and perhaps be meaningful in some capacity. For now, its more like an academic beauty pageant. That said, UF wins the swimsuit competition!</p>
<p>The Gainesville Sun is owned by the New York Times newspaper. US News & World Report is owned by the same owner as the New York Daily News newspaper. Maybe the NYT’s is trying to blow-up competitor US News’ College Ranking setup?</p>
In fact, I’ll bet the shredders in the offices of lots of public university presidents are humming right now…</p>