As a high school senior, Lauren Fortin said the college application process often turns into a contest to see which students can land a spot at the best colleges. Some of the main factors that determine “the best college” are academic ranking lists.

“Among the top students in my grade, the ranking of the school they select is very important. It becomes a competition of who can get accepted into the best school,” said Fortin, who is from Rhode Island.

Last week, Syracuse University rose four spots to No. 58 on the 2015 U.S. News and World Report National Universities Rankings. But while rankings matter to some prospective students, many SU students and faculty say raising rankings shouldn’t be the sole focus.

This slight shift in U.S. News and World Report rankings are not the embodiment of the values or priorities of SU, Chancellor Kent Syverud said in an interview with The Daily Orange.

“U.S. News very imperfectly, and occasionally inaccurately, reflects some of those values,” he said. “It is the case that we cannot ignore metrics that others impose on us if constituencies we care about are making decisions based on them.”

Regardless of how accurate the rankings are, Syverud said that if key constituencies, including some alumni, parents or prospective students, care about academic rankings, then the university must also pay attention to them too.

“I do believe that if our U.S. News ranking was collapsing sharply year after year after year, it would be very hard for us to achieve success in some metrics that really matter to our communities,” he said. “So I have to pay attention to it to that degree while not letting it warp our values.”

Syverud’s approach to the rankings differs from former SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who put less emphasis on the rankings.  SU’s national academic ranking peaked in the late 1990s at 40th, but fell to a low of 62 in 2011 and has not risen above 50th place since.

Colin Morgan, a senior finance and supply chain management double major, said he agreed and that rankings were a factor in his college search, specifically the Martin J. Whitman School of Management ranking.

“Rankings are important. Rankings impact the value of an SU diploma,” said Morgan. “The focus of a university should be on the university, not on the community.”

But choosing a school based entirely on rankings seems unwise to Eric King, a sophomore magazine journalism major.

“The way these rankings are derived can be backwards. Also hard to determine,” he said. “You should not select a college based off of where it lands on some list.”

Professor of philosophy and former Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Gorovitz said he hopes Chancellor Svyerud has “an unwavering focus on academic quality, which if he is successful, will inevitably lead to improvements in academic rankings.”

“Universities should not make decisions about allocation of resources or investments in order to influence rankings,” said Gorovitz. “Universities should do what maximizes the quality of the mission at their core, which is academics.”

Mary Lovely, a professor of economics in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a member of the University Senate, said many college tours she has visited with her son use their rankings as a marketing tactic to attract prospective students.

“These rankings do have an impact on a school’s communication and marketing — it just may not reflect reality,” she said. “Is there a lot of science behind them? No. Do they have an impact? Probably yes.”

Syverud’s heightened emphasis on the student experience on campus and in the classroom has been loud and clear, Lovely said.

His focus has been centered internally, from the College of Arts and Sciences dean search to career services to off-campus life, she said.

“It is not just about raising a ranking, he is focused on the entire experience a student has when they come to Syracuse,” she said. “A lot of people on the faculty very much agree with that.”

While having a higher academic ranking would be nice, the chancellor does not need to place it as the university’s top priority, she said.

During his tenure as Dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, David Rubin, professor and dean emeritus at Newhouse, said rankings were not used in forming policy.

Universities are so diverse in programs from art to engineering to business, the idea that an entire university can be encompassed in one ranking is unrealistic and artificial, Rubin said.

Overall, Syverud said the purpose of the university is to provide a valuable education to students, not to make a profit or attain a high ranking.

“This university doesn’t exist to make money and this university does not exist to have a high ranking in U.S. News or in anything else,” said Syverud. “This university exists to add value to students and their education and produce knowledge for the world and the community.”

Published on September 22, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Jen: jbundy@syr.edu