DEAN'S CORNER
Raising the profile

When it comes to evaluating colleges these days, many students, faculty, and even employers turn to the rankings provided by U.S. News & World Report. Like it or not – and no one in academia does – we’re stuck with this ranking system. Unfortunately, being a good college is no longer enough – today we have to be perceived as being good. And therein lies the challenge.

We are therefore setting out to raise the national and international profile of the college by focusing on our research and graduate education. But the endeavor soon begins to assume an odd Catch-22 aspect.

To help improve our published ranking, we need to raise the profile of our research programs. But to do that we need to attract more graduate and doctoral students and more external funding to support those students. Similarly, we need to continue attracting first-rate faculty. But many of those students and faculty choose their colleges, at least in part, based upon the very same published rankings we’re trying to improve in the first place.

Undaunted, we’re moving ahead. We’re getting the word out about the college. We’re going to work smarter as to the kinds of research opportunities we pursue. And we’ll build strong, interdisciplinary research teams that reach out to other colleges on campus.

Fortunately, part of the ranking process is objective – it also looks at the number of doctoral students per faculty member, the number of Ph.D.’s awarded, the number of faculty awards received, and the amount spent on research, so we need to focus on those factors, too. And next year the National Research Council, using a more scientific approach, will publish its own long-awaited rankings. We will therefore need to consider the conclusions of both publications.

So what’s our goal? I’m sticking my neck out, but within the next five years I want our college to be ranked among the top 10 in the Southeast, and, within 10 years, I want it to be among the top five. Yes, it’s a tall order – there are many fine engineering and computing programs in the Southeast – but I’m optimistic.

— Michael D. Amiridis, Professor and Dean