Study tips hat to English department

For eons, it seems, the university-ranking systems in the United States have been dominated by the popular U.S. News & World Report's annual list of the top schools ranked by department in the country. A new for-profit company, however, has emerged, and is ready to challenge the snobbery of reputation-based rankings that has been a component of U.S. News & World Report's system for years.

Academic Analytics, owned in part by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has compiled its own data and released in mid-November its third annual ranking of university programs based first and foremost on scholarly productivity of the department. The system examines each of 7,300 programs across the United States, looking at the number of professors in a given program, the number of journals and books they have published, how many times their work has been cited, as well as honors, awards, and grant money received.

The company suprised many with its results by ignoring the hoity-toity statuses and reputations of some of the country's most established universities. Unsurprisingly, Harvard earned first place in this year's English department standings. Second was Boston University, upsetting more than just the Boston College crowd. And third: BC.

The University of Georgia and Columbia University round out the top five.

The new ratings system, as of yet unproven, left many schools, most notably those in the Ivy League, perturbed, to say the least, brushing off the numbers as nothing more than the result of a flawed, commercialized ranking system.

Many are waiting anxiously for the long-anticipated National Research Council's rankings, which have not been updated since 1995.

If the numbers match up with Academic Analytics controversial results, the novel system may finally gain a more respected reputation.

Mary Crane, professor and chairperson of the English department, believes in the credibility of this new ranking system, giving smaller programs such as BC's a shot at some deserved praise.

"Our graduate program is so small, it is often hard to get ranked," Crane said.

"But we are a very productive department, and I think [Academic Analytics] gives a good sense of how active university programs are in their respective field."

The English department, though ecstatic to know their productivity and talent pool of professors stacks up against the larger universities BC often struggles to compete with, has not done much boasting of its accomplishment.

The weekly English department bulletin, sent out to professors and graduate students, acknowledged the exciting news, but beyond that, the school has seemed hesitant to make these ranking results known, perhaps because of the controversy surrounding them.

As BC continues on the path toward major research university stardom, many of the smaller, specifically humanities-oriented programs seem to have been left behind.

Ten years ago, Crane asserts, the English major was the most popular choice for undergraduates, with over 1,000 members; now those numbers have dropped to around 700, falling behind both the communications and finance majors.

While the school looks to bolster its reputation in the research field, they have chosen not to focus much attention on the one department that has the highest publication productivity rating.

The English department is not up in arms; however, as the faculty fully intends to continue with the school's tradition of making teaching one of its highest priorities, showing pride in both their success in the research field and in the classroom.

"One thing about [the English department] we are very proud of is that teaching is so important to us," Crane said. "Our goal at BC is for the department to be very active in our research, but also to bring that to the undergraduates."

Regardless, the new rankings have shaken their prestigious counterparts, reopening the conversation as to what constitutes a strong university program in today's increasingly competitive world, outside of century-old legacies and cushiony endowments.