8C - Tuesday, September 8, 2009

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RANKINGS: IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

U.S. NEWS
From Page 5C

to collegeresults.
sity had a gradua
percent in 2006,
of UCLA and U

students graduate in six years or tutions that beat
less and how many freshmen return U.S. News rankin,
the next year. Another 20 percent Still, some stati
is faculty resources, consisting of well for the Ui
class size, faculty pay, the highest Michigan had a
college degrees obtained by profes- ratio of 15 to 1
sors, student-faculty ratio and per- Princeton boaste(
centage of fulltime faculty. and the Massaci
Then, there is student selectiv- of Technology ha
ity (measured by standardized test according to a Nor
scores), accounting for 15 percent. University websit
The next 10 percent is financial lowing higher e
resources or "average spending per gan also ranks os
student on instruction, research, institutions con
student services, and related edu- donations with a r
cation expenditures." Five percent Princeton, Yale, H
accounts for graduation rate per- institutions ranke
formance, which the publication News claim alums
calculates by finding the differ- as high as 60 percE
ence between the year's gradua- _
tion rate and the rate U.S. News FORBES
had predicted for that class. The From Page 5C
final 5 percent considers the rate
of alumni donations.
Unsurprisingly, Michigan measurement cou
boasts statistics justifiable for its But Forbes attests t
not-too-shabby rank: according sound, as the webs

org, the Univer-
ation rate of 86.9
below only that
C-Berkley, insti-
Michigan in the
gs.
stics do not bode
niversity's rank.
student-faculty
last year, while
d a 5 to 1 ratio
husetts Institute
d a 6 to i ratio,
th Carolina State
t devoted to fol-
ducation. Michi-
utside the top 30
cerning alumni
ate of 18 percent.
!arvard and other
d higher by U.S.
ni donation rates
ent.

of consumer review forum free from
the control of university administra-

tors. and the University
Rounding out the list's compo- which usually hover
nents are four-year graduation rate igan in the U.S. N
(16.66 percent), average student were ranked at 215
debt (16.66 percent), and number respectively.
of awards won by students and fac- Simply put, Mic
ulty. Among the awards considered undergraduate comr
are the Rhodes Scholarship and than 25,000, gets the
Fulbright grants for students and Forbes's stick again
the Nobel Prize and Guggenheim 12th-ranked Wabash
Fellowship for faculty. male school") with a
Although the University might of 250 students.
not boast the most Nobel Prize
winners, how it could fall below WASHINGTON
schools like Furman University From Page 5C
and Maryville College is befud-_
dling. As already mentioned,
Michigan boasts an impressive by money spent or
graduation rate, and the number of number of PhDs awa
former Wolverines in the Obama and Engineering and
administration should help in the alums who go on to o
"Who's Who" department. Finally, TheWashi
Why, then, such a deplorable weighs service to t
rank? According to the Forbes measured by percent
website, small liberal arts schools in ROTC, alums in t
rank higher "due to their quality and grants given toc
of faculty and the personal atten- vice projects. Michig
tion they can provide." As Forbes institutions to sendc
bluntly puts it: "generally speak- unteers to the Peace

ing, big state scho
poorly." The Unive

ols performed
rsity of Texas
of Wisconsin,
r around Mich-
ews rankings,
5th and 335th,
higan, with an
munity of more
e shorter end of
st schools like
h ("a tiny, all-
freshman class

ing to the Peace Corps website.
Any rankings system that casts
Harvard outside the top10 is pretty
anomalous - but keeping in mind
President Kennedy's designation of
the Peace Corps on the steps of the
Michigan Union, any rankings sys-
tem that gives priority to student
service seems pretty noble as well.
GLOBAL
From Page 5C
analysis is a way of seeing the
schools through the eyes of the
world at large."
That is good news for Michigan
students: GLM has the University
ranked third, behind only Harvard
and Columbia.
GLM's ranking system is cer-
tainly an innovative idea, given
the increasingly digital, Twitter
addicted world. But should GLM's
rankingsgrowin clout, universities
might try to inflate their rank with
obnoxious viral videos. It'll be a sad
day when a university tries to gar-
ner attention via "I'm On a Boat"-
tvme vYnrne ardn

n projects, the
rded in Science
the number of
btain PhDs.
ington Monthly
the community,
age of students
he Peace Corps
community ser-
an is one of six
over 2,000 vol-
Cons_ -acr-

id be imperfect.
that the method is
ite serves as a sort

ALUMNI
PAST
MILLER
From Page 5C
for life and already we are mak-
ingourinfluence feltevenbefore
we have received our diplomas,
and everybody knows, that the
full brunt of our influence isn't
supposed to be felt until after
we have our diplomas well in
hand.
In short, the way we col-
lege people are going to raise
the standards of conduct and
thought is already apparent. It
will not be long before the Unit-
ed Press willsay, "As Ann Arbor
Goes, So Goes the Nation."
That's how important each and
every one of us light beacons
are and the best way to prove it
is to examine our well-lit com-
munity.
Everybody knows that the
only first-class indication of the
extent of a civilization is the
home. Even Mr. Landon acutely
remarked, "Everywhere I go
in America I see people living
together in families, " so you
see I'm not alone in my opinion.
We must look to the home, and
in this case, the Ann Arbor stu-
dent's room. It will show how
the light of learning has illumi-
nated such a vast city as ours.
Buy since we can't properly
enter any house, come with me
as we look for a room. That is,
make believe you actually want
to live in Ann Arbor as many
college people already do.
AYERS
From Page 5C
(which is what most people do).
I was a bit hesitant at first to
talk with the other prisoners
about why I was in, because I
expected that there would be
hostility towards an anti-war
or anti-draft position. But I
decided that it would be stupid
to keep saying that I was in for
trespassing (which is legally
correct), because that-kind of
becomes an admission that my
position is weak or that others
don't understand and feel
oppressed by the same things
I do.
When I started talking
about it I was amazed at how
many people were not only
open to talk about the war and
the draft, but seemed actually

pleased to be able to tell what
their experiences had been and
what they were going to do.
One young guy was particularly
articulate in telling about how
they'd been trying to draft him
and how he'd been dodging
it. He's planning to refuse
induction because he doesn't
like "what's going on over
there."
The only open hostility has
been from the police. One of
the turnkeys (jailers) has come
down to our cell a number of
times and, with a smile, has
sarcastically asked the other
people in the cell, "Well, you
learning anything from these
college boys?" A hillbilly kid
from Ypsilanti shut him up
yesterday when he replied,
"Yeah. Im learning how to
dodge a draft."
KACZYNSKI
From Page 5C
According to Kaczynski, his
professors rarely came to class
prepared, and even if they did,
they couldn't evenfigure outthe
problems they had assigned.
It seems the resentment
Kaczynski felt toward his
professorsstayedwithhim-10
of the 16 bombs he sent during
his Unabomber spree were to
institutes of higher education.

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