Maclean's ranking issue causes controversy
U of M ranked last once again
JENELLE PETRINCHUK STAFF
PHOTO: DAVID IAN LIPNOWSKI
It proved to be an interesting year for the ranking issue, as 26 of the usual 47 participants opted not to provide information for the rankings, causing much debate on whether or not Maclean’s is a useful or reliable source to find information on Canadian universities.
On August 14 a letter was sent to Maclean’s from 11 universities (including U of M) stating that the universities were unsatisfied with the methodology used in the rankings. It was argued that because Maclean’s weighted certain variables differently, the rankings were not properly reflecting the universities.
An example of a concern U of M president, Emöke Szathmáry has stated is the weight given to entrance grades, accounting for 11 per cent of the ranking, compared to graduation rate, which accounts for two per cent. Szathmáry has said that the lower entrance requirements are the result of the university being the only medical-doctoral university in Manitoba. This is not explained in the Maclean’s rankings.
The data needed from Maclean’s included information on the student body such as entrance grades, student retention and the number of international students, as well as information on faculty, finances, and libraries.
“Not providing the data really was based on the very serious issues that we have with the methodology and those issues remain,” stated U of M’s director of public affairs, John Danakas. Another concern of the U of M was that collecting information for the survey also required university resources in terms of having someone compile the certain information requested by Maclean’s, instead of just using what was available.
Fletcher Baragar, an assistant professor of economics at the U of M, says Maclean’s may not be the best place to get information on universities but it still provides useful and at least interesting information on Canadian universities.
“I think it’s useful [but] like any place that you get information from, especially if they’re giving statistics or rankings, you have to be aware of where the statistics come from and what they’re covering and what they’re not covering,” he said.
Baragar agrees that if certain variables are weighted differently in an index, the overall rankings will change dramatically. He said this is a problem but doesn’t necessarily mean Maclean’s is irrelevant.
“One thing it does, is it says, ‘here’s a lot of different aspects of universities, university activity and university life that Maclean’s and the Maclean’s panel thinks are important,’ and it shows that ranking a university is important in a number of different dimensions.”
Although the information for all universities wasn’t provided for Maclean’s, most of the information needed was either available publicly or through federal granting agencies. Information was also taken from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.
Any information that could not be collected from the non-participating universities was taken from last year’s data.
Alex Usher, director of EPI Canada — an organization that also provides insight into education-related issues through various publications and research — said that this year’s Maclean’s piece “was an impressive issue.” He said he doesn’t think using last year’s data will make a significant difference.
“Let me put it this way: I don’t think institutional data changes that much from year to year . . . no one is expecting to go from last to first or first to last in a year, unless someone’s got a really imaginative way to cook the data.”
Danakas admitted that one can never say whether or not outdated data would reflect poorly on a university and that it could in fact reflect more positively on an institution than if newer data had been used, but still sees a problem.
“The point is, the methodology isn’t valid,” said Danakas, “and the publication’s willingness to use older data even makes those issues even more serious.”
Certain categories also rely heavily on university funding. In the finance category, the operating budget, scholarships and bursaries and student services are all taken into consideration.
Although Baragar agrees with the idea of assigning different weights to variables he does think the U of M is contradicting itself in terms of the funding categories.
Baragar argues that the U of M administration has frequently commented on Manitoba’s tuition freeze and lack of funding for the university. “And many of the categories in the Maclean’s rankings reflect directly, funding availability, like library holdings,”
he continues. “So on one hand they’re complaining about the funding but on the other hand they say, ‘well we’re actually doing a really good job and these rankings don’t reflect it.’ There is a bit of an inconsistency there, I think.”
Usher doesn’t see the point in measuring financial inputs for the survey. “I can understand why you’d want that approach in the United States where there is significant heterogeneity in there of resources,” he said, “In Canada, let’s face it, everybody’s working off the same government budget.”
He explained that the older the university is, the more time it would have to build up endowments and a donor base. “So often what you’re seeing is in many cases a function of the age of the institution,” he said.
Danakas stated that at this point there have been no decisions made on whether or not U of M will be participating in the survey next year.
“We do believe that it’s important that those who are interested [in the U of M], including prospective students, have accurate meaningful data and information available,” said Danakas.
In October, the U of M launched an accountability website that provides information for prospective students.
