Campus News

Four New Top College Rankings: Menlo College Students See ROI!

In their list of America’s Top Colleges 2021, Forbes ranked Menlo College among the top 16% of colleges in the country.

PayScale ranked the College in the top 7% of the best universities for a bachelor’s degree based on their 2021 College Salary Report.

For the twelfth year in a row, the Princeton Review recognized Menlo College as a top business school and a “Best in the West.”

Niche ranked Menlo College as the #16 most diverse college in America. The College is also distinguished as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) – only 1% of all colleges and universities have both of these recognitions.

Menlo Competes at the NAIOP SV University Challenge

In November, students of the Real Estate Center program took part in the 2021 University Case Study Competition in Santa Clara. The competition is sponsored by the commercial real estate development association known as NAIOP, and this year’s audience included Menlo trustees, faculty, and staff, along with hundreds of Certified Real Estate professionals from around the Bay Area. Wiley Gross ’22, Team Captain Michaela Haynes ’22, and Wolfgang Lachance ’23 represented Menlo with their proposal for a new development project in Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park. Their pitch was singled out for its professionalism and ambition – characteristics that are surely shared broadly among Oaks everywhere.

Wiley Gross ’22 (right), Team Captain Michaela Haynes ’22 (middle), and Wolfgang Lachance ’23 (left) receive real estate honors. Photo by Angela Schmiede

An Exploration of LGBTQ Life in America

Dr. Michelson’s seventh book, and her third with social scientist Dr. Brian F. Harrison, LGBTQ Life in America, uses a series of questions and fact-based answers to explore falsehoods, myths, and misconceptions about LGBTQ people. The result is an examination of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expectations and norms, as well as the history of discrimination and mistreatment of LGBTQ people and how that persists today. Some entries reach back centuries for historical context, or to show how the lives and treatment of LGBTQ people has changed over time; others compare the U.S. to other parts of the world—but the focus is on current events and realities in America.

By Melissa R. Michelson, PhD, Dean of Arts and Sciences

Published last month by ABC-CLIO Press, our book is appropriate for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of LGBTQ people and issues, but we deliberately wrote it with younger readers (high school and college students) in mind. In fact, we hired multiple students as test readers of the book to ensure that we were hitting that mark. The book was truly delightful to write. Most of my books (including my two previous books with Brian) describe my current research (with the notable exception of my textbook on California politics). This book was more of a research adventure, and I learned a lot—not just from the deep dive into academic sources and news stories, but from talking to Brian, our editor, and our research assistants about what myths and misconceptions we should include and how to approach answering them. Instead of reading the book from cover to cover, readers can choose from among the 49 questions that interest them—for example, “Is being LGBTQ a choice?” (question #3), or “Are bisexual people just confused gay (or straight) people who can’t make up their mind?” (Q23), or “Can children really know that they are transgender from an early age?” (Q30) and read a factbased summary of the research answering that question. We expect it to be an indispensable source for people of all ages who want to know more about LGBTQ people, their successes and shared history, and the current challenges they face.