![]() (The idea that you could measure program quality without having any real measure of faculty quality is, in itself, astonishing.) It purports to do this by aggregating twenty different factors in the humanities, broken into three categories: Research Activity (meaning the one qualitative variable noted above, plus per capita publications, which imposes no quality control for journal, publisher, impact, etc., so is largely meaningless) Student Support and Outcomes (e.g., graduate student funding, job placement ( without, as far as I can tell, any audit of the data schools reported), time-to-degree, availability of student health insurance, and several other variables) and Diversity of the Academic Environment (i.e., ethnic and gender diversity of the faculty and student body). The NRC ranking purports to be a measure of program quality or attractiveness. Only one of the 20 variables used by the NRC even has any connection to faculty quality, and that variable (major awards and grants , such as Guggenheims, NSF Fellowships, American Academy membership and the like) is only a very weak indicator, for a host of obvious reasons: only a small number of such awards occurred during the time period studied, so just one or two faculty can make a huge difference to the results on a small faculty many of these awards favor some areas of philosophy over others. While in every past NRC report, the NRC collected and published expert opinion about faculty and program quality, this time the NRC did not. The NRC ranking is not a ranking of faculty quality, so not really comparable to the PGR, even the PGR from 2004-06, the closest in time to the data the NRC collected, which was for 2005-06. A few quick points, and then some details about the results relevant to philosophy:ġ. The NRC ranking of doctoral programs for 2005-06 is finally out . Regular readers are encouraged to scroll down for new postings. UPDATE: Given the large number of (largely new) visitors coming to this post, and the various updates I am adding to it, I will leave it at the top for a few days. William Vallicella, racist right-winger (2).Texas Taliban Alerts (Intelligent Design, Religion in the Schools, etc.) (458).Sunday Classical (formerly "Sunday Symphonies") (33).Personal Ads of the Philosophers (and other humor) (754).Merciless rhetorical spankings of fanatics, villains, and ignoramuses (80).Karen Kelsky ("The Professor Is In") (3).Guest Blogger: Thomas Nadelhoffer (103).Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll (326).Deja Vu All Over Again (Repostings of Earlier Items of Interest) (366).Authoritarianism and Fascism Alerts (1762)."The less they know, the less they know it" (882). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |