From the Dean

Associate Dean Art Overholser was asked by our student newspaper, Stress & Strain, to discuss rankings, such as that of U.S. News & World Report. I thought his column did an excellent job of putting rankings into perspective and making the points that the School of Engineering is not only highly competitive among schools of our type and size, but it is also making significant strides to reach our aspirations and goals. I thought our engineering alumni would be interested in his thoughts, as well.
       -Dean Kenneth F. Galloway

The Ranking of
Engineering Schools

Last fall at Freshman Family Weekend, the visiting parents assembled in the Recreation Center to eat lunch and listen to Chancellor Gee. During the question-and-answer session, a father stood up among hundreds of people and told the chancellor that Vanderbilt's U.S. News ranking had fallen from 20th to 22nd. The father asked Chancellor Gee to show cause why he shouldn't take his daughter out of Vanderbilt. Always fast on his feet, Mr. Gee answered that (1) U.S. News is very good at selling magazines but not so good at ranking universities (2) the formula for calculating rankings is adjusted every year, so the rankings shuffle in ways that cannot truly reflect a one-year change in the quality of a university and (3) Vanderbilt, whether 20th or 22nd, is among a tiny fraction of institutions at the top of the pyramid of American higher education.
       I am not the chancellor (for which we should all be grateful), but I am sometimes asked to explain why the School of Engineering has such a "low"

Art Overholser brings a wealth of perspective, ideas and enthusiasm to his role as associate dean.

ranking. That, as I shall argue in this column, is the wrong question to ask. Our ranking is quite good, reasonably accurate and on the rise.
       If you will visit the U.S. News engineering undergraduate rankings at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/cat13wi.htm, you will see that as of fall 2000 the Vanderbilt School of Engineering ranked 44th. Our previous year's ranking was 46th. There are about 350 four-year engineering schools in this country, so we are in the top 15 percent, which is not too bad. But a closer look is needed.
       First, note the close scores and ties in the rankings. We are actually in the 16th group, tied with Yale, Washington University and Notre Dame. Not unreasonable company for us to be in. I think we are somewhat underrated, but not by a great deal.
       Second, consider that the rankings are dominated by large, public engineering schools like Illinois, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech and Purdue. In many ways, these giant engines of engineering education deserve their rankings. I took my own doctoral degree from Wisconsin, and I am glad that I did. But I would rather be an undergraduate at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt and other small, private engineering schools offer a different experience-a four-year residential environment, relatively small classes, access to faculty, attention to undergraduate education, ready access to education in the liberal arts, cultural and social opportunities and the chance to be of direct service to society while still a student.
       So let us compare Vanderbilt with other private engineering schools. That group also clusters because of ties. We rank in the 14th group, with Yale, Wash U and others, right behind Brown, and not far below Harvard, Columbia and Penn in the absolute rankings. Again, not bad company.
       Of course we would like a higher ranking. We should be as highly ranked as Duke, which offers an engineering education of similar quality. How can we achieve a higher ranking? As best I can tell, the U.S. News rankings of undergraduate engineering schools are based entirely on opinion polls of people like Dean Galloway and me, both of whom have a vote. This is in contrast to the graduate rankings and the overall university rankings, which involve some quantitative elements such as selectivity and standardized test scores. Since the engineering ranking is an opinion poll, improvements will come only over time, as the trajectory of VUSE becomes increasing visible to people who vote in the poll. That trajectory is unambiguously positive-a new building, in-creased giving by alumni and friends, freshman classes of the highest quality, able young faculty members, increased productivity in funded research and educational innovations such as freshman seminars and wireless laptop computers. Over time, I am sure these accomplishments will be reflected in higher rankings.
       Before I close, I want to discuss VUSE in the context of Vanderbilt's overall ranking. University rankings are usually higher than those of their schools, departments and units. Very few units of the University are ranked higher than the ranking of 22nd enjoyed by Vanderbilt as a whole. (Among those few is our own Department of Biomedical Engineering, whose undergraduate program ranks 13th.) However, along with engineering, less highly ranked programs contribute greatly to the quality and overall ranking of the University. It would be a mistake to conclude that engineering is an inferior player on the Vanderbilt team.
       As our rankings continue to rise, it will be in part because of you.
       -Associate Dean Art Overholser