Nouvelles

Bishop’s University’s Results in National University Rankings

11 November, 2008

Both The Globe and Mail and Maclean’s magazine have recently published their annual survey and ranking of Canadian universities.

These national ranking exercises continue to create controversy among universities in terms of their criteria for evaluation of performance and their results.

However, it is evident that students and their families have difficult choices to make when confronted by dozens of Canadian university options so they rightly welcome attempts at an objective comparison of what is offered.

We are pleased that the survey in The Globe and Mail recognized Bishop’s strong performance in a number of key areas, especially because The Globe and Mail emphasizes the perspective and the experience of students currently enrolled in university. Knowing that our students give Bishop’s an “A” in categories like “Quality of Education” and “Most Satisfied Students” and an “A+” in “Quality of Teaching” is gratifying and affirming.

But our overall ranking in the Maclean’s survey as 17th in our category – repeating our performance for 2007 – is a sobering reminder that you live by the sword and die by the sword if national rankings are the way you assess your performance. Unlike The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s surveys academics and opinion-leaders for its evaluation of reputation and performance.

Already, we have committed ourselves as a University community to student recruitment as our biggest, most urgent task at Bishop’s. These recent national rankings remind us that we have both a great story to tell about the high quality education that our students are receiving, as well as a major challenge in terms of our University’s reputation in the wider milieu.

In a phrase, the outside world does not see us in as positive terms as our students do. And for recruitment purposes, our reputation in the outside world matters.

We need everyone to be engaged in connecting with the students for whom Bishop’s is the right university choice. We are bringing together the strategies and tools to support our recruiters, our students, our faculty and our alumni in this effort. We do have a great story to tell and we will get that story out in a very targeted way.

Our mission is to ensure that Bishop’s is an outstanding choice for young people who seek competence in a chosen field of study, effective spoken and written communication skills, an ability to listen, analyse, argue, and to lead in a diverse, democratic community. Happily, our students confirm that this is indeed their Bishop’s experience.

Nonetheless, our reputation among Canadian academics and opinion-leaders should be a concern. Enhancing our reputation with key opinion makers is, frankly, a longer-term challenge for us than our recruitment imperative, but clearly a linked one that requires individual and united leadership from management, faculty, staff and students.

The leadership at Bishop’s is addressing a number of issues related to our reputation in the university environment. Please contact me if you have thoughts on how we can meet these challenges. My door and my email box are always open.

Michael Goldbloom
Principal & Vice-Chancellor

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