Inside Higher Ed, Rank Hiring:
In what may be a new (and is certainly an unintended) use of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, Christopher Newport University is using them, in part, to hire faculty members.
Under a policy instituted by the provost, Mark W. Padilla, the university is considering whether new faculty hires meet certain criteria. (How much consideration is a point of dispute, with Padilla saying that the university will give “strong consideration” to these qualifications while some faculty believe that these are absolute requirements). Favored candidates should meet at least one of the following criteria:
- An undergraduate degree from one of the top 99 national liberal arts colleges or the top 35 national universities in the U.S. News rankings.
- A terminal degree from one of the 69 best national universities in the U.S. News rankings.
- A terminal degree from a doctoral program ranked in the top 35 percent of National Research Council rankings.
- Election to Phi Beta Kappa.
To varying degrees, some departments at many colleges and universities have historically favored hiring candidates with doctorates in highly ranked graduate departments, but those judgments have generally been based on departmental reputations for graduate instruction, not U.S. News rankings. U.S. News has never promoted its rankings as a tool to use in hiring faculty, and Robert Morse, who directs the rankings for the magazine, said he had not heard of them being used in this way.
Update: Brian Leiter (Chicago), U.S. News Insanity: Ranking as Faculty Hiring Litmus Test
