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[psychout]

Hopefully, the decision by an employee at Clemson to go public with this information will open a few more doors. To pretend that Clemson is different than dozens of other universities that play USN&WR's ranking game is to live in a make-believe world.
The real question colleges must face is whether they truly believe criteria (like peer evaluations and alumni giving) are valid ranking criteria and ultimately contribute to improve their universities. If USN&WR uses valid criteria to rank schools then it's a game colleges should play- though as with Clemson's decision to downgrade nearby ranked peer institutions, it's hard to see how this criteria could be useful. It will also be enlightening to learn when the first case of graft payments are made public exactly how the universities and USN&WR will react. If universities determine that the rankings do nothing to improve their product then they should ban together to undermine the rankings.

[charlesr]

link?

[irhack]

http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/06/19350n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

I think you need an account.

The administrator still works for the university, it seems like an awfully strange decision on her part to go public with this. Though she did say that they university's measures did, arguably, improve aspects of the student experience: smaller class sizes, higher graduation rates.

[whirlwind]

I've worked at Clemson for 10 years, and what Watt says is patently untrue.  She is obviously unhappy (wonder why she is no longer in IR?) and marginalized.  I have filled out the surveys on other institutions, and I have NEVER been asked to downgrade or otherwise diminish any institution. I often provide data for IR, and have NEVER been asked to alter it; nor has it been. The administration here has been insistent: do the right things for the right reasons, and the rankings follow.  But understand this: rankings do not drive the mission of Clemson--never have; never will.  We are clearly a different institution than we were 10 years ago, and this is because of a visionary president, a wise and popular provost, a stellar faculty, a "happy" student body of bright young people, wonderful support staff, a supportive board of trustees, and an active and vital alumni group--all of which constitute the "Clemson Family"--a unique phenomenon in higher education.  Because we are an academy and because we value its tenets (especially academic freedom), we tolerate differences of opinion and grow from discussion of ideas to achieve truths; however, to use academic freedom as a mask for promulgating lies and "disinformation" violates the premises that I hold dear.  It's as if some have taken pages from the partisan playbook: "say it often enough and loudly enough, and it becomes true."  NONSENSE.

[daurousseau]

Is this surprising from the home of the intellectually impaired Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism and the fine Strom Thurmond Institute?

[kamiakin]

A more pressing question: Is this a proper use of the word "assail?" It doesn't feel right.

[onestep]

I've worked at Clemson for 10 years, and what Watt says is patently untrue.  She is obviously unhappy (wonder why she is no longer in IR?) and marginalized.  I have filled out the surveys on other institutions, and I have NEVER been asked to downgrade or otherwise diminish any institution. I often provide data for IR, and have NEVER been asked to alter it; nor has it been. The administration here has been insistent: do the right things for the right reasons, and the rankings follow.  But understand this: rankings do not drive the mission of Clemson--never have; never will.  We are clearly a different institution than we were 10 years ago, and this is because of a visionary president, a wise and popular provost, a stellar faculty, a "happy" student body of bright young people, wonderful support staff, a supportive board of trustees, and an active and vital alumni group--all of which constitute the "Clemson Family"--a unique phenomenon in higher education.  Because we are an academy and because we value its tenets (especially academic freedom), we tolerate differences of opinion and grow from discussion of ideas to achieve truths; however, to use academic freedom as a mask for promulgating lies and "disinformation" violates the premises that I hold dear.  It's as if some have taken pages from the partisan playbook: "say it often enough and loudly enough, and it becomes true."  NONSENSE.

I can buy that the article may be untrue, but to categorically say all of these positive things without any qualifiers doesn't seem right.  I have good friends at Clemson who have very different opinions than this first-time poster.  I can't help but wonder if this post comes from a PR person or maybe from the "visionary president" himself.

[sibyl]

Ms. Watt is not in the IR office anymore; she works at a separate institute for the study of higher education -- yes, in the Strom Thurmond institute -- which is made clear in this Chronicle article.

http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/06/19270n.htm

(Free link would be appreciated, mods.)

It's clear to me that you can read this kerfuffle either way.  You can either choose to be appalled that the university would care enough to make the small decisions based on how they would look in US News, or you can choose, as whirlwind says, to make the small decisions and let the rankings take care of themselves. 

(I think that whirlwind is a little disingenuous to say that rankings don't drive the mission; President Barker's very public goal is to become a "top 20 public research university," and while the university has defined a number of good indices of what that means -- for instance, increase compensation and educational spending to top-20 levels, and produce at least two Rhodes scholars -- the president's web page proudly acknowledges the university's rise to #22 in US News and openly uses US News as the one and only arbiter of "top 20.")

Except for the allegation about the reputational surveys, nothing that Watt said was terribly controversial.  We all know that it is possible to "game" the system.  We all know that US News collects some useful information along with some pointless information.  We all know that US News' methodology is unacceptably limited, precisely because it attempts to rank colleges and universities along a single continuum.  We all know that US News sells magazines, because the survey speaks to a need on the part of parents and students, who desperately need some guidance to select from among 4000 colleges and universities.  We all know that we have to go along with the magazine because we look bad if we don't (Reed and St. John's being the exceptions) -- and because we also do want to make information available.  How much of that is controversial?

[psychout]

Here is the original report from CHE from yesterday highlighting some of Dr. Watt's remarks. I have no idea whether CHE will make this available to non-subscribers as a free link.

http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/06/19270n.htm

Hopefully some other Clemson people will get involved and administrators at other universities will discuss whether their institutions pander to USN&WR in any way.

Incidentally I don't have a dog in this fight nor do I know anything about Dr. Watt's credibility but I have written critically about USN&WR's rankings several times. Here's one link.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=1013497

[daurousseau]

Why would anyone take anything published in the U.S. New & World Report seriously? This Chamber of Commerce newsletter has been seriously distorting the news since I began reading. Unfortunately, Dad left it lying around the house, so I was dumbed down for years until I began to explore the real world.

[dolljepopp]

Free link, maybe? Mods?

[willardmdix]

The thing is, Clemson made it an official policy to get into the USNWR Top 20 and there are all kinds of ways to do that that are borderline unsavory, if not unethical. I know only what I've read here, but I know enough about how rankings deform things to believe that Clemson did indeed do what Watts said, even if it convinced itself that what it was doing was OK. Let's see their surveys from the past few years and let's continue to oppose rankings that prod already decent universities to stack the deck.

[princeton67]

Clemson: the university that under basketball coach Tates Locke paid local blacks "to pretend to be student members of a fictitious black fraternity on weekends when black athletic recruits visited the campus." (Fair Play, by Robert Simon, page 138).
The university that cleared Sociology Professor Thomas Petee after football players in his "directed readings" courses "received an average G.P.A. of 3.31 in the classes, according to statistics compiled by Professor Gundlach[ another sociology professor]. In all of their other credit hours at Auburn, their average was 2.14."
(see http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/auburn_football_players_got_top_grades_for_bogus_classes/)
The university that in 1982 received two-year penalities from the NCAA.
The university that in 1985, fired its President Atchley for having the gall to investigate steroid use in the football program.
Nice to see that Clemson is consistent in its academic, as well as its athletic, integrity.

[t_r_b]

I've worked at Clemson for 10 years, and what Watt says is patently untrue.  She is obviously unhappy (wonder why she is no longer in IR?) and marginalized.  I have filled out the surveys on other institutions, and I have NEVER been asked to downgrade or otherwise diminish any institution. I often provide data for IR, and have NEVER been asked to alter it; nor has it been. The administration here has been insistent: do the right things for the right reasons, and the rankings follow.  But understand this: rankings do not drive the mission of Clemson--never have; never will.  We are clearly a different institution than we were 10 years ago, and this is because of a visionary president, a wise and popular provost, a stellar faculty, a "happy" student body of bright young people, wonderful support staff, a supportive board of trustees, and an active and vital alumni group--all of which constitute the "Clemson Family"--a unique phenomenon in higher education.  Because we are an academy and because we value its tenets (especially academic freedom), we tolerate differences of opinion and grow from discussion of ideas to achieve truths; however, to use academic freedom as a mask for promulgating lies and "disinformation" violates the premises that I hold dear.  It's as if some have taken pages from the partisan playbook: "say it often enough and loudly enough, and it becomes true."  NONSENSE.

GO TIGERS!

GO TIGERS!

RAH! RAH! RAH!

[rowan1]

USN&WR' ranking is a big deal -especially for SLACs. And the basis for the criteria is crap. 

It is no surprise that any school plays the game.  I am aware fo one school that boosted early admissions (get your app in now and no essay) knowing full well most of the aps would not attend but would still show up on the numbers the report looked at.

Clemson is not alone