U.S. News & World Report this month declared three of the University’s graduate programs to be among the nation’s best in its annual “America’s Best Graduate Schools” report.
The College of Education, Lundquist College of Business and Knight Law School all made the well-known ranking.
The College of Education was ranked 13th-best graduate program in its discipline in the United States, sixth-best among public graduate institutions, with an overall score of 71 out of 100. The top 50 schools in education ranged in score from 50 to 100. Harvard University was granted first place.
The Special Education program at the College of Education was ranked third in the nation by education school deans.
“Special Education faculty and staff have done a wonderful job of conducting, disseminating and applying research to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities,” Special Education Professor George Sugai said in an e-mail. “In particular, we are doing both prevention and intervention work in a variety of areas. … The University and Community benefit directly from these efforts.”
The law school tied with three other universities for the 69th-best law program in the nation and placed in the top 50 in reputation as ranked by peer institutions, lawyers and judges. The University’s program holds an overall score of 43 out of 100. Scores in the top 100 law schools ranged from 36 to 100, with Yale earning the top spot.
“While I am pleased with the recognition some of our outstanding programs are receiving, like most law deans across the country I have significant concerns about the overall methodology used in magazine rankings and the undue weight students sometimes give them,” law school Dean Laird Kirkpatrick said in an e-mail.
Kirkpatrick urges students to choose a law school based on a broad range of
criteria that may not be captured by the ranking.
The business school tied with five others for 68th-best business program. The school ranked 58th last year and 70th in 2003.
Andrew Verner, associate dean of the business school, said it is difficult to see how any school can improve or deteriorate in one year as much as the rankings would suggest.
“Last year we were up 12, this year we’re down 10, a net gain of 2 over two years, which may be more indicative of the slow but real progress we are making,” Verner said in an e-mail. “That’s assuming, of course, that any rankings system bears some relationship to reality.”
Business school dean Jim Bean said the school is making good progress, and its new home in the Lillis Business Complex allows for the establishment of exciting new programs.
“We’re certainly pleased to be ranked,” Bean said. “It’s a score in a game that we don’t generally play.”
There are several business programs that Bean said he is especially proud of.
“The one that’s most highly ranked is the Warsaw Sports Business Center,” Bean said. “We also have an excellent center in entrepreneurship. Our finance and marketing departments have recently been ranked very highly.”
Still, there are some concerns about U.S. News & World Report’s ranking system.
“It fills a need in that students and people across the country need a way to sort out all the options that they have,” Bean said. He added that the ranking system is based on a single formula that will be better for some schools and worse for others.
“Its objective function and ours don’t line up very well,” he said.
Rankings take into account the amount of money spent per student and the school’s reputation among professionals and academics. The study examines ratings for placement success, quality, faculty resources and selectivity in a number of ways.
“Rankings should always be judged on the basis of the evaluation criteria that were used,” Sugai of the education school said. “In our case, special education faculty have generated a significant proportion of the research and training dollars at the University of Oregon.”
He said the school’s ability to leverage federal dollars for its work has been phenomenal, especially in the context of limited local resources. Sugai added that the Special Education program’s high ranking is due in large part to the success of the
program’s faculty.
The Oregon Health & Science University, with which the University intends to establish a partnership by fall term 2006, also scored highly in the survey. The Portland-based university tied for 35th place among medical schools with a score of 51 out of 100. U.S. News & World Report ranked OHSU third in the nation for primary care, and the university had the third-best reputation among medical school deans and senior faculty for family medicine.

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