Is the U of O really that bad?

http://www.thefulcrum.ca/blogs/blog/38059

Column, November 17: In response to the university rankings published in Maclean's and the Globe and Mail

Is the U of O really that bad?

by Katherine DeClerq

Published: Nov 17

MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE HAS come out with their annual Canadian university rankings. These results are supposed to help high school students decide where they think the “right fit” would be for their post-secondary education. While the idea of ranking universities is a good one, the way in which they are judged may not be.

The University of Ottawa has consistently received poor ratings compared with other universities in both the Maclean’s University Edition and the Globe and Mail’s University Report. Whether the publication judges food services, teaching quality, or overall university atmosphere, the U of O has always been at the bottom of the list. And my question is why?

Who exactly are they interviewing, and what are they asking? If Acadia University is rated as having a better reputation than “Canada’s University,” then I want to know exactly why! Each report includes their methodology, but it doesn’t give any specifics. And in Maclean’s, it was the staff that collected some of the evidence from statistics provided to them by Statistics Canada and the universities themselves.

That makes these reports ambiguous. It says that our teaching quality is poor, but compared with what: the fact that we are an academic university as opposed to a more hands-on college? When they say “overall atmosphere” are they referring to student life, comfort, or diversity? The grade system doesn’t mean anything if we don’t know what they are talking about.

You also have to question how these answers are obtained. Were emails sent to students asking them to fill out a questionnaire? I never got one. Do they take responses from each faculty? I don’t remember getting a notice. So how do we know if the people rating our university are representative of ALL students’ interests?

Yes, the U of O isn’t perfect—but are we really that bad? If so, why do so many students enroll; why are our teachers and staff receiving so many awards for their work and research; and why did the former Governor General choose to work from our campus?

Sometimes, I think these reports are overrated, and I am not ashamed to say it. Yes, the U of O needs to kick it up a notch, but that doesn’t mean that we deserve to be at the bottom!

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