By Graeme Smith
Maclean’s screwed Ryerson again in this year’s university rankings issue — and nobody cares.
Nobody includes the 3,500 guidance counsellors, academics and CEOs who rated Ryerson highly in the reputation categories.
Nobody also includes students and administration at Ryerson who seen unconcerned.
Dennis Mock, VP academic, was even happy with the results.
“Generally speaking, you have to be pleased,” he said after reading the Maclean’s issue which hit newsstands Monday morning.
The rankings issue put Ryerson 19th out of 23 undergraduate universities, trailing behind universities like Rimouski and Brandon.
Ryerson came last in three categories: faculty with PhDs, library holdings per student and percentage of university budget spent on the library.
Four universities were new to the list this year. The additions bumped Ryerson out of the basement, even though it maintained the rank it had last year.
Despite the poor ranking overall, Ryerson was in the top five in all reputation categories and was named most likely to produce “Leaders of Tomorrow.” That’s an improvement over last year, when Ryerson’s reputation had been rated slightly lower.
Mock criticized Maclean’s evaluation methods and preferred to focus on the reputation categories. “Ryerson is in the psyche of people across Canada,” he said.
That’s good news for Ian Marlatt, the school’s director of communications.
“It’s nice to see that the way other people view us has improved,” he said.
Marlatt wasn’t surprised about the poor overall ranking Ryerson received. “We didn’t expect things to change at all, give that the nature of our programs is different from traditional arts and sciences universities.”
Many students share Marlatt’s attitude. “Based on their categories, I don’t think it’s a very important ranking,” said Andrew Simms, a first-year film student.
“It doesn’t mean jack shit,” said Alex Kwashka, a first-year journalism student.
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