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tuesday September 24, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
UNM: No. 181 in college rankings by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
UNM slipped two spots on an annual best universities list, but some university officials have shrugged off the ranking. U.S. News and World Report ranked the University as number 181 in the 2014 edition of its Best Colleges Rankings. Results were based on data it gathered from the universities during the spring and summer. In this year’s ranking, the University fell two spots after placing 179th nationally in the magazine’s 2013 edition. New Mexico State University, on the other hand, was ranked at number 190. Princeton University garnered the top spot this year. But UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah said he is “no longer convinced that (U.S. News) provide an important comparison scale.” He said the study put more importance on input factors, such as the high school standings and ACT scores of the incoming freshman class, rather than output factors, such as where students end up after graduation. “Due to such methodology, the only public university that ranks in the top 20 is the University of California, Berkeley, at number 20, and no more than 13 (public universities) rank in the top 50 schools,” he said. Abdallah said UNM’s rank is misrepresented by the magazine because of how many universities tie in their rankings. “There may be five universities
UNM Peer Institution Rankings University of Texas at Austin 52 Texas A&M University-College Station 69 University of Iowa 73 University of Colorado-Boulder 86 University of Missouri-Columbia 97 University of Kansas 101 University of Nebraska-Lincoln 101 University of Oklahoma 101 University of Tennessee 101 University of California-Riverside 112 University of Arizona 119 University of Utah 121 Arizona State University 142 Oklahoma State University 142 Texas Tech University 161 University of Colorado-Denver 190 University of Houston 190 New Mexico State University 190 University of Nevada-Las Vegas RNP University of Texas at Arlington RNP University of Texas at El Paso RNP Florida International University RNP RNP - Rank not published Peer instituion list set by the Office of Institutional Analytics
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tied for rank 12, and 10 tied for rank 34,” he said. “If you were to group the universities by ranks, since those within the same rank are presumably similar, then UNM’s rank is 55 overall, along with eight other universities.” According to U.S. News and World Report’s website, it gathers for the study “data from and about each school in up to 16 areas related to academic excellence. Each indicator is assigned a weight (expressed as a percentage) based on our judgments about which measures of quality matter most.” The magazine then compiles a weighted composite score for universities and ranks the threefourths of all universities that scored the highest. The remaining lower-ranking universities are then labeled “second-tier” or “rank not published.” UNM’s rank has been consistent in the past, Abdallah said. He said that although the University rose above NMSU this year, “such comparisons are truly meaningless.” Still, Abdallah said that although the magazine’s rankings are not perfectly accurate, he still thinks that good publicity is essential for the University. “This and similar rankings are the window through which some students become aware of us, and I know that we will continue to improve in all rankings based on our own strategies,” he said. “In other words, these rankings are not a goal for us, but they do represent one lens through which we are compared to similar institutions.” UNM President Robert Frank said he doubts the significance of the rankings. “They change these rankings in terms of magazine sales, so it’s hard to be too excited about these rankings,” he said. “I think that these are not fair. I think UNM is more prestigious than that what it gets credit for. These rankings are not the best measure of a university’s caliber or quality in my view.” Frank said the rankings “do not have scientific basis,” and that it is irrelevant whether UNM rises up in the ranks in the coming years. “It depends on what they do to sell the magazine next year,” he said. But UNM has gotten good reviews from the same magazine’s best graduate programs rankings in the past, Abdallah said. He said the magazine ranked UNM’s rural medicine graduate program as the second best in the country. Abdallah said he is unsure whether UNM’s rank will rise or fall next year. But he still believes that the ranking is not an accurate measure of the University’s achievement, he said. “By ranking according to different criteria, UNM rises or falls compared to its peers,” he said. “Rankings only matter if they reflect our values, and they should be placed in context.”
Matthew Brown / Daily Lobo Christin Apodaca stands next to her piece “Stream of Consciousness” during the juried art show inside the John Sommers Gallery in the Art Building on Friday. Apodaca was the second place winner in the show, which runs through Friday.
Art contest returns to UNM Student revives tradition of juried art exhibition by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
After decades, UNM’s art arena reopens to showcase student projects, and to vie against each other for prizes. Paintings, photographs and other artworks were displayed in the John Sommers Gallery in the Art Building Friday night as part of a juried art exhibit. The exhibit was the first at UNM in about 20 years and featured 37 undergraduate student artists. The 37 exhibited students were selected from a pool of 100 — only three walked away with an award. The exhibit runs through Friday. Rob Rix, a third-year MFA student in sculpture who organized the show, said he was excited to bring back a long-lost art tradition on campus. “Nobody currently working here remembers it happening in the time that they’ve been working here … I decided that it was time to bring it back,” he said. Rix said he decided to bring back the show because he believed no one would have done so otherwise. “I decided to bring this back for the same reason that I wear a tie to work every day,” he said. “I believed that nobody else in the department was going to do it. During the time that UNM has eliminated its standard for juried show, almost every other university in the country adopted it as a standard.” Rix said he contacted David Leigh, a UNM art alumnus, to serve as the judge for the show. Rix said 100 students participated in the event. Each was allowed to submit three art pieces,
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so Leigh had to choose from 300 pieces in total. Planning the event singlehandedly, Rix said he was even willing to pay for the event himself. “Originally, I was actually using my paycheck from the department to finance the prize money and fund the food,” he said. “But the chair got back to me. (On Thursday), I received a phone call saying the department would be reimbursing me in full for the prize money of the show.” Among the 37 individuals featured, three winners were selected in the show. The first-place winner received $300, the second-place winner $200, and the third-place winner $100. Rix said the show represents the wide array of art programs offered by the University. “We have representatives from each area: sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking,” he said. “We also have individuals who are in their first semester as freshmen to individuals entering their final year in the program.” Leigh said he based his decisions for winners on “craftsmanship, first and foremost, and beyond that, just trying to get somebody really engaged in contemporary issues and trying to visualize interesting ideas. I was just trying to find things I was excited about.” Despite his schedule, Leigh said he found the time to jury the show because he believed in its essence. “I was honored to be asked,” he said. “It was a question of whether I had the time. I made the time because it’s really important to try to capture the energy of undergraduate students and to sort of give them an opportunity to show themselves off to each other.” And he expects that the juried
show will become a campus tradition again, he said. “I think that whenever something like this could gain traction, it creates a tradition that people could look forward to every year,” he said. Raquee Rivera, a sophomore majoring in photography, said she participated in the show “on a whim,” and that she was shocked to see her pieces in it. She said that being featured in the gallery might help her in her career path. “I think of it as a little minigoal,” she said. “Maybe it will help me on the future. Maybe they would like that, maybe they won’t.” Jeremy Wood, a senior majoring in art education, said he is proud of himself for winning a spot in the gallery. “There’s a sense of accomplishment,” he said. “I’ve never really gotten myself to think that I’ll be in a gallery, and now I’m in a gallery.” Rix said he believes the show will help young artists in their future. “It gives them a real-life opportunity to apply to a show but in a more comfortable way,” he said. “There are a lot of juried shows that happen in the country, and it’s kind of a standard for artists to participate in a show, either getting rejected or accepted.” And he is optimistic that there will be another juried art show next year, he said. “There’s a gallery position here that they’re going to be attaching the responsibility to,” he said. “So it will continue every year for as long as it lasts, hopefully — hopefully forever.”
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