Message from the President

Rankings of colleges and universities by U.S. News and World Report

On August 17, 2007, U.S. News & World Report released its annual listing of “America’s Best Colleges,” which has Berry ranked as 118 among the nation’s best liberal arts colleges.  As I mentioned during the inaugural address, Berry was reclassified as a liberal arts college because of revisions in the basic classification system used by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, upon which the U.S. News classifications are based. According to U.S. News & World Report, liberal arts colleges emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half their degrees in the arts and sciences. 

We are pleased to be included in this category because it reflects both our aspirations as an institution as well as the quality of the education that we offer.  The institutions that Berry often studies for purposes of comparison are located primarily in this category, as are the top undergraduate colleges in the south such as Davidson College, Washington & Lee University, Furman University, the University of Richmond, University of the South (Sewanee) and Rhodes College.

Of the 266 colleges in this category, U.S. News & World Report ranks the top 125 and then sorts the remaining schools into two additional tiers.  Berry received an overall score of 46.   Other schools with similar scores include Hampden-Sydney College, Presbyterian College, Susquehanna University, Calvin College, Fisk University, and Hampshire College.  Six other schools in Georgia are in the national liberal arts category, two of which are also ranked among the top 125 schools:   Agnes Scott College and Spelman College.

Berry is also included on the U.S. News & World Report list of national liberal arts colleges whose students graduate with the lightest debt loads.  We are number 21 on that list.

While being recognized as a national liberal arts institution speaks to Berry’s aspiration and reputation, it is important to note that many of these same liberal arts colleges have expressed strong dissatisfaction with the ranking model used by U.S. News & World Report.  In May of this year, a majority of the 80 presidents attending the May meeting of the Annapolis Group, an organization that represents the national leading liberal arts colleges, agreed to no longer complete the subjective “peer assessment” portion of the magazine’s annual survey, which accounts for 25% of its ranking system.  Because the presidents view these rankings as flawed and misleading, many of colleges have also committed to not highlighting the rankings in their promotional materials.   

I believe the leaders of the Annapolis Group have it right, and Berry is now in a position to join in this stand.  We understand that the U.S. News & World Report  rankings measure only a couple of things well (entering student profiles and graduation rates) and miss things that are vital to us such as the nature of faculty and student engagement, the ability to think critically and communicate persuasively, and the importance of work and service to others as maturational experiences.     

Along with these other colleges, Berry recognizes the need to be accountable for its educational endeavors.  Berry will join with other like-minded colleges to develop an alternative model of assessing the quality of a student’s actual educational experience, perhaps along the lines of the work being done by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).  

For now, however, Berry will choose to highlight its distinctive educational approach in its promotional materials rather than seeking refuge in rankings that we, at heart, find misleading and uninformative.  Regardless of our past success in these rankings or our prospects for continued recognition, it is important to emphasize that the only true measure of our educational experience is whether we can enable good students to become great people and great citizens.

Regards,

Stephen R. Briggs
President