UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 19, 1996
5A
Measuring up
Continued from Page 1A
★★★
Even the author and founder of The Fiske Guide to Colleges, Edward Fiske, has objections to statistical rankings. The problem with using statistics to rank colleges, Fiske said, stems from attempting to quantify something that is inherently qualitative.
A former education editor for The New York Times, Fiske created his guide in 1982. Written in a journalistic genre with $ \epsilon $
"You cannot ask the question 'Which is the better college?' without adding the words 'for whom'?" Fake said.
short profile of 300 of the "best and most interesting" U.S. colleges and universities, the guide uses input gathered from student surveys and questionnaires.
"We look at non-quantifiable factors that we believe are the most important ones in judging quality, such as the nature of academic pressure or the quality of the student body." Flake said.
Fiske does gather some data on the selectivity of schools' admissions policies, the number of students receiving financial aid and the demographics of the undergraduate student body.
Each year, the University Relations center receives multiple copies of Fiske's student survey with the request that they be given to a cross-section of students.
The survey asks the student 22 questions like: "How would you rate the quality of teaching you have received?" "What departments are the most important in setting the tone of the campus?" "How useful is the career advising?" and "How would you rate your college town?"
Tom Hutton, director of University Relations, distributes the surveys to student leaders, such as members of Student Senate and the Association of University Residence Halls, and to student employees at the University Relations center.
Grey Montgomery, KU student body president, said that he was happy to respond to Fiske's questions but that he thought the small number of surveys distributed could not accurately represent an entire university.
"I think it's kind of absurd that the University can pick students to respond," Montgomery said. "Picking student leaders obviously throws in a little bias."
Hutton admitted the surveys weren' handed out randomly.
"I suppose giving them to the best and brightest students could be tilting the survey," he said.
The danger of survey tilting worried Fiske in the past, but he said it never had been a problem.
"College students will tell it like it is, and since they mail the questionnaires directly back to us, they have proven to be quite frank," Fiske said.
The University does not lobby the guides, but occasionally Hutton will call a few guides just to keep them up to date, he said.
"I do keep in contact with some during the year," Hutton said. "Just to give them information about scholarships or new buildings."
★★★
There are ways other than Fiske's subjective surveys to measure the best buy or the strongest programs among colleges. U.S. News and World Report's 10th edition of America's Best Colleges hit the bookshelves in September, ranking KU
"You cannot ask the question 'Which is the better college?' without adding the words 'for whom?' "
Edward Fiske
Founder of The Fiske Guide to Colleges
No. 11 in public universities — a ranking for which the University has worked hard
To ensure that universities don't juice the statistics on which the magazine relies, an entire staff dedicates nine months each year to research their annual rankings, said Robert Morse, editor of U.S. News and World Report.
"Fudging is not widespread, but it does occur." Morse said.
U. S. News and World Report ranks the best colleges in the country by combining the results from academic reputation surveys gathered from college presidents and deans with statistics on admissions selectivity, alumni endowment funds, the average time it takes to graduate and the number of freshmen who return for their sophomore year. Those numbers can be manipulated by the universities to improve their placement. But not, Morse said at KU.
"I know this is not the case at the University of Kansas," Morse said. "They take care in their reporting of data."
Deborah Tester, director of KU's office of institutional research and planning, said that her office received up to 150 requests from guides for information about the University of Kansas each year.
"We do not fudge on any of our numbers," Teeter said. "I will back any numbers from the University."
Because of the growing number of lists and guides, Teeter said, the University, along with many institutions, is following a national trend: establishing a standardized form to report each university's information.
Arthur Rothkopf, president of Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., has pursued standardized data sets for several years.
Rothkopf has called on other presidents and chancellors in the opinion pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education to use standard data. Last year, Rothkopf met with guidebook representatives, magazine publishers and college presidents at a Lafayette forum to lay the groundwork for a form that would standardize the collection of basic institutional information.
A rough draft of Rothkopf's common data set was sent to 3,000 deans of admission for their comments, and Rothkopf hopes the data set will be adopted by guide publishers and those in higher education in time for the guides published in the fall of 1997.
David Airgood, director of public information at Lafayette College, said the Committee on Higher Education Accreditation, the body that sanctions a learning institution, wanted the data set to be among its first initiatives.
"They are trying to get the common data set part of the accreditation process so that universities would risk their accreditation if their numbers are fudged," Airgood said.
But for the man who would sign off on KU's numbers, Chancellor Robert Hemenway, establishing a standard data set seems impossible, even though KU continues to work on the project.
"Nobody can keep data the same way," Hemenway said. "I think the Fiske Guide and U.S. News have good reputations and are useful, but there are a lot of fact complications, and with so much variety, how can you arrive at a standard data set? And should the guides be so uniform?"
Try as it may, the University of Kansas cannot make it onto every college ranking guide in America.
★★★
How can this be when KU already is No. 11 in the same category in U.S. News and World Report? Money Magazine, unlike U.S. News, includes the number of a university's graduates who find jobs immediately after college, as well as graduates who earn doctorates — numbers KU does not keep.
KU is absent from the top of Money Magazine's top 100 buys for college.
But that will change in the near future, Hutton said.
Institutions similar to KU, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas at Austin, compile numbers of graduates who find jobs or earn doctorates.
"When a company spends 30 minutes on campus,you have to be a careful consumer."
Robert Hemenway Chancellor
"It would be nice to know what happens to our grads after KU," Hutton said.
Patti Straus of Money Magazine said a college's lack of data hurt its ranking.
"The only thing we can base our rankings on is numbers," Straus said. "And unless the university keeps them, we can't rank them."
A Board of Regents mandate will require each Kansas state university to track the placement of baccalaureate degree students and the number of students going on to graduate work.
This new data, Teeter said, will not be kept just to score big with the listmakers.
"That may be a byproduct, but it is not the reason we would do it — it is useful to know how others are faring." Teeter said. "And indirectly, that's what magazines are trying to do."
★★★
Then there are the guides that breeze into town, pass out a few fliers and write an all-about-KU expose. One such guide is the *Princeton Review*. The *Princeton Review*, not associated with Princeton University, has published for six years.
"This is all very unscientific," said Ed Custard, co-author and senior editor of the Princeton Review. "We rank colleges only for fun. We want to give an indication of the college's personality."
In a telephone conversation from his office, with the sound of laughter and barking dogs in the background, Custard explained that each year, representatives from the Princeton Review visited 300 campuses for a few days. With the permission of the administration, they set up a table in a central campus location to distribute 70-question surveys to any student who strolls by.
He said Princeton Review employees and hired students gave out the filers. Custard estimated that 205 surveys were returned from each school.
Findings like these, Hutton warned, are not always legitimate.
Pluses for KU in the review were intercollegiate sports, student publications, beer, the town of Lawrence and off-campus food. Minuses included registration, lab facilities, student government, parking and inefficient administration.
"We rank everything from jock schools to Birkensstock-wearing, tree-hugging, pot-smoking schools," Custard said. "But a school would not be in a guide if we didn't think the school was great."
Hemenway agreed.
"They have a hired work force to hand out filers," he said. "These are not qualified survey takers."
"When a company spends 30 minutes on campus, you have to be a careful consumer," he said.
★★★
Kathryn Tuttle, KU's acting director of admissions, says guides and rankings never can fully determine the right school for an individual, even if KU does send out thousands of copies of the Fiske Guide's comments to high school seniors like Madhu Puri.
"I think they give some sense of quality,"
"Tuttle says, but these are not."
I think they give Tuttle says. "But these are not the ultimate answers to match a student to a school."
But because of America's love affair with lists and listmakers, Teeter says, the guides will continue to be consulted.
"Getting this information out to people is very important if they are going to invest a large amount of money into education," she says. "America does have a scoreboard mentality."
Tuttle says: "We don't need the lists to go on in life, but we do like to be on them. They have to be used with a grain of salt, but if KU gets a good ranking, it makes us more known nationally. It's good public relations."
By Jeff Ruby
Kansan staff writer
Lawrence gives Popes less than rousing reception
The Smoking Popes played crooner-punk rock to a not-exactly-sold-out crowd at the Replay Lounge on Sunday night.
Few of the arcade/venue/greasy burger joint's patrons tapped their Converse All-Stars to the band's hour-long spirited set of melodic punk rock. Then again, the Replay's crowd usually is coolly aloof.
Hailing from the cushy suburbs of
Chicago, the Smoking Popes mixed fluid vocals with in-your-face guitar rock in a style that has been described by indie rock magazines as "Mel Torme meets the Buzzcocks."
tra."
REVIEW
"Usually it's more like Sinatra meets the Ramones," said Josh Caterer, vocalist and guitarist. "We were deliberately trying to combine two styles: Play the music aggressively, but crooning vocals. The way it fit together was interesting to us. I intentionally try to sound like Sina-
The band looked more like gas station attendants than students of Old Blue Eyes while banging out variations on the theme of "boy-meets-girl, boy-loves-girl, boy-dumps-girl because-he's-sick-of-her" in tunes with names like Just Broke Up and Gotta Know Right Now.
a telltale sign that the four-piece band has not hit the big time yet — despite a tour with the Goo Goo
Dolls, airplay for their 1995 single Need You Around, and contributions to the Clueless, Boys and Angus soundtracks — they had to carry in and set up their equipment.
The group, which takes its name from Mickey Rourke movie The Pope of Greenwich Village, was all business Sunday night. There was no chatter or goofing around between songs. Granted it was a cold night, but bassist Matt Caterer didn't even take off his jacket.
The group drew material from its
Capitol Records debut — 1995's Born To Quit — and from its upcoming album Destination Failure, which they just finished recording. The nippy night air and sparse crowd had no effect on lead singer Josh Caterer's smooth-as-honey voice, which mated perfectly with the band's caffeinated drumbeat, thumping bass and buzzsaw guitars.
Opening bands Jonathan Fire Eater and Spent showed up and played adequately, considering how cold it was.
The Smoking Popes, who routinely sell out The Metro, a huge downtown Chicago venue, play songs that are instantly hummable.
Their low-key, intimate show at the Replay, 946 Massachusetts St., was a treat for people who know the band may be destined for national acclaim.
It goes to show you: In any little corner bar at any moment, a talented, energetic band could be playing a remarkable gig that no one knows about.
GET CONNECTED TO KU!
The Office of New Student Orientation is currently accepting applications for the position of:
Orientation Assistant
Interested candidates are strongly encouraged to attend one of the following Information Sessions:
Wednesday, November 13 · 7:00 p.m.
Pine Room, Kansas Union
Thursday, November 21 · 7:00 p.m.
Pioneer Room; Burge Union
Monday, November 25. 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Jayhawk Walk, Kansas Union
Application and job information available at 45 Strong Hall
* Deadline is Friday, December 6, 1996 *
The University of Kansas School of Fine Arts Department of Music & Dance presents the
University Dance Company
with Cohan/Suzeau and works by Claire Porter, Guest Artist Jerel Hilding Willie Lenoir Joan Stone
8 p.m.
November
21 & 22, 1996
Lied Center
General admission tickets on sale in the KU box offices:
Murphy Hall, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS; SUA office,
864-3477; $6 public, $4 students and senior citizens.
Both VISA and Mastercard accepted for phone reservations.
Partially funded by the KU Student Senate Activity Fee.
Can For-Profit Organizations Run Hospitals Ethically? Bio-Ethics Club Presents Senator Sandy Praeger
Discussion on Columbia's interest in acquiring Lawrence Memorial Hospital
7:30 pm, Tuesday, Nov.19 Alderson Auditorium, Kansas Union
GIRL SCOUTS Make A Difference in the Life of a Girl Work at a Summer Camp June-August,1997
Join other energetic people who love to work with girls age 6-17 at a day or resident camp. Positions available:
Counselors
Specialists (crafts, archery, games, dance & drama, farm, ropes course, backpacking.)
Horseback riding staff
Administrative positions
Administrative positions
Health Supervisor (RN, LPN, EMT)
Call (303) 778-8774 ext.247 for an application and job description today
application and job description today!