UR #1 Up-and-Coming Liberal Arts College

[SFspidur]

U.S. News and World Report is out with its new college rankings this week, and UR basically held steady within the margin of error, moving from #27 last year tp #28 this year among national liberal arts colleges.

Perhaps more impressively, UR tied with Allegheny College as the #1 "up and coming" liberal arts colleges in the country. UR was also the #11 best value among national liberal arts colleges.

 

[Spiders05]

It's interesting to me that an up and comer falls a spot.

 

[spider fan]

Barnard College, Colorado College, and University of Richmond are each shown as number 28.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/page+3

 

[Eight Legger]

Since we're not a college, I reject this recognition. It is akin to being named the #5 team in the Mid-Major Top 25.

 

[SFspidur]

We lobbied very hard to be reclassified into the National Liberal Arts College category.

 

[WebSpinner]

to me, if the magazine cannot even figure out what a college is and where it fits, attempting to grade or rate them is laughable.

 

[SFspidur]

U.S. News relies upon the Carnegie Foundation classifications when it comes to defining institutional categories. It was with the Carnegie Foundation that we had to lobby to argue that our focus was on undergraduate liberal arts, and they agreed to move us from the masters level university category to the liberal arts college category. Liberal arts is the correct category for us given the educational experience we offer.

We certainly have other programs, as do others in the liberal arts categories, but the institutional focus is on that liberal arts core. W&L and Wesleyan University are the two schools UR typically points to as being in a similar mold...liberal arts college with a small number of strong grad offerings.

Even after we were moved to liberal arts, the Carnegie Foundation tried to move us back to masters a couple years later and we had to appeal to remain in liberal arts. We were pushing the limits of Carnegie's definition of liberal arts college by having very close to 4,000 total full-time students and by giving more graduate degrees than they'd like to see, but I think we pulled back a bit on our grad offerings since that time.

 

[WebSpinner]

geez, a think tank full of pinheads decides if an institution fits THEIR template of what something should be or is. guess the mag has to utilize some entity's formula but feel we are a better judge of what we are, strive to be than a bunch of arrogant elitists in new york or london. if you have ever been a captive in an arrogant education seminar or speech, you know why you would question any of this material.

 

[NyNjSpider]

It's ridiculous that those elitists labeled us "Liberal" Arts. They might as well call us a "Victim" Arts college

 

[Eight Legger]

My comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I didn't realize we had lobbied to be included in that category. Still a little strange to think of us as a college, but it's good recognition however you slice it. We should drop down to the high school level too and REALLY clean up!

 

[MolivaManiac]

Yeah, I'm not totally overwhelmed by the peer group we are listed with in this ranking.

 

[WebSpinner]

will let SF, our resident info guy, do the research but how many institutions in this class have a D-1 athletic program? most of these schools are foreign to us because they don't play D-1 football or basketball or even chess. does this mean they are not excellent academic schools, no, just that they don't get the visibility on the sports level. shows just how important our athletics are to getting more press, exposure on the national level. the pinheads in academia could care less and probably do not want us polluting the pool of small colleges who do only D3 sports.

 

[SFspidur]

Among the small group of listed up-and-comers, only #6 Davidson is also D-I. Among the top 50 national liberal arts colleges, #14 Davidson, #14 Navy, #18 Colgate, #18 Army, #31 Air Force, #32 Bucknell, #32 Holy Cross, #39 Lafayette, and #49 Furman join UR as D-I representatives.

The up-and-comer list is an odd one as is frequently the case with these sorts of lists...a mix of great schools getting better and ok schools improving their standing.

The actual liberal arts college rankings are pretty reflective of our peer group. We're a little bit bigger than a traditional liberal arts college, but not by much at it's undoubtedly the focus of our institution. We're by no means a national research-level university, and we're not even a "masters level" university. We're a liberal arts college with a few solid graduate programs in law and business.

 

[WebSpinner]

thanks SF, can always count on you and if you ever need references, you got them.

 

[spideroo]

Respectfully disagree with SF that the liberal arts college rankings includes most of our peers.

This year, the 20 colleges and universities enrolling the largest number of students who also applied to Richmond are (in alpha order): Boston College, Brown, Colgate, Cornell, Davidson, Duke, Elon, Emory, George Washington, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Tufts, UNC Chapel Hill, UVa, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Washington & Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, and William & Mary.

I am fairly sure the top 3 would be UVa, William & Mary and Wake Forest. Best guess is that next three would come from a group that includes Vanderbilt, Emory and GW or Georgetown, with W&L probably close.

We have not been a liberal arts college for a very long time.
This post was edited on 9/19 4:29 PM by spideroo

 

[WebSpinner]

roo, don't think in admission or academic ways, so what is the definition of a "peer" institution? do students only apply to like schools? is it what your offer? is it the other schools you compete with for students (we are not like uva but a ton of students apply to both), what is that definition. think our size, what we offer seems to fit liberal arts rather than a masters' school. elaborate on your thoughts of just the other schools we compete with for students and why that should change our status. thanks.

 

[spideroo]

Spinner, I think the presence of a top-20 undergraduate business school, a top-20 professional MBA program and a top-100 Law School help explain why both prospective students and prospective faculty members see UR as much more than a liberal arts college. What we offer is very, very different.

That one-third of every graduating class now comes out of the B-school and another 40-50 graduates per year come from Jepson has really made UR look more like Santa Clara, Gonzaga, Villanova and other universities. (And D-1 sports, too!)

How many of your friends (or your friends' kids) think of UR as being a peer of Colby, Bates, Wesleyan or others in the liberal arts college category?

 

[SFspidur]

Admissions overlap does not really define the type of institution you are....as you note we have strong overlap with UVA and many other similar schools, and that doesn't make us a research university.

And yes, I do believe that UR is viewed as a liberal arts college by applicants. We're very much in a similar mold of a W&L or a Bucknell...offering a bit more than some other liberal arts colleges, but based on the same liberal arts core.

UR calls itself a "liberal arts university", and perhaps that is indeed the most apt definition, but the term hasn't really caught on in the broader educational community.

I don't think of UR as all that similar to Villanova, which has 10,000 students, a nursing school, an engineering school, nearly two dozen masters programs in the arts and sciences, and several PhD programs. Yes, we're more like Villanova than we are UVA, but we're a lot more like W&L and Bucknell than we are Villanova.

 

[spideroo]

You can tell how twisted the rankings have become when SF pulls Bucknell University and Washington & Lee University from the Liberal Arts Colleges Ranking and says those schools and University of Richmond are great examples of Liberal Arts Colleges.

That we had to lobby to be reclassified (twice) is proof enough for me that we are in the wrong category.

 

[WebSpinner]

do not know what the definitions are related to how the think tank categorizes institutions or how many categories there are but seems both you guys have good arguments. know i have always thought of UR as a liberal arts school but again, do not think in academic terms just what i feel. maybe there should be a liberal arts "hybrid", one who's main function is liberal arts but which has attractive accessories. maybe the fact that the pinheads did classify us both times as liberal arts rather than masters, after listening to our arguments is "proof" that we are. no matter what anyone else says will always know what we are in my mind.

 

[SFspidur]

"College" and "University" names are of course just that...names. UR has tried to position itself as a rather unique blend of liberal arts college and some more advanced programs, and that's fine.

These are undergraduate rankings and lists, and to the eyes of an undergraduate, UR is certainly a liberal arts college. The majority of our postgraduate students are in law, which is in most regards completely separate from the undergraduate experience. The same is true of continuing studies.

Our undergraduate faculty are essentially focused only on undergrads, and we have a strong core of liberal arts course requirements.

The fact that we had to lobby twice to be included in liberal arts colleges indicates to me that that's very much what UR believes itself to be. It's the "pinheads" looking at a sheet of data rather than experiencing UR on a day-to-day basis who have needed to be convinced.

 

[SpiderVol]

Agree completely SF.

 

[Spiders05]

Let's talk about the important things - Ring Dance now asking for attendees to wear black dresses and the women are no longer to be escorted by their father.

http://thecollegianur.com/2012/09/20/black-dresses-no-escorts-for-class-of-2016-ring-dance/28539/

 

[WebSpinner]

Westhampton women, cling to their traditions and maybe she got no response from the juniors but bet if she had included all Westhampton women, she would have gotten an earful. hope some of the women will still bring their dads in for this. not sure why she made a unilateral decision on something that is not even hers, don't think she went through this ceremony and does not feel right that she just decided to change a tradition not of her own. will apologize if she approached other W women and the alum members but bet she did not.

 

[KESpider]

Don't just read the article, read the comments too. Some of them I find flabbergasting. Guess I really am approaching the fossil state.

 

[KWeaver]

I just spent a good 45 minutes reading the comments. There is some important discussion there, and yet I am only concerned about the fact that I will never get those 45 minutes back. How embarrassing.