San Francisco State University

President Corrigan's ViewPoint

ViewPoint by President Corrigan is published in First Monday for the faculty and staff at SFSU on the first Monday of the month during the fall and spring semesters by the Public Affairs and Publications offices. EXT 8-1665. pubcom@sfsu.edu


December 2, 2002

Do standardized tests such as the SAT provide a full and reliable picture of a student's intelligence and capacity to succeed in college? Certainly not. They reflect and reward particular kinds of intelligence, background, educational experience and test-taking skill. And do competitive rankings of colleges and universities by standardized measures such as those that U.S. News & World Report uses for its well-known "America's Best Colleges" issue accurately identify the various kinds of excellence displayed by institutions that have very different educational missions? Again, I -- and an increasingly large and influential group of educators across the nation -- would say "no."

San Francisco State University, like a great many public, urban universities, will never rank high on some of the traditional measures used by U.S. News and many publishers of college guides -- such things as the percentage of applicants a school turns down, the GPA and SAT scores of its entering freshmen, the "yield rate" (those admitted who actually enroll), faculty salaries, amount spent per student, and the percentage of students who graduate within six years. Those measures just do not fit us. But what measures would be better? How can we demonstrate our excellence?

I invite you to join me in looking for answers to those questions. Next month, I will be a panelist (with the presidents of Mills College, SUNY Stony Brook and Evergreen State) at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). Our panel is titled "From Reputation and Rankings to New Indicators of Excellence." Our goal is to come up with what AAC&U calls "dimensions of excellence that go beyond the prevailing rankings and focus on the quality of student accomplishment … key indicators of educational excellence that should be important for every degree-granting college and university."

As I think this subject through, I would like to hear from you, the San Francisco State community, about the way you would like our University to be judged. I have put this question to CUSP II, but would welcome the views of the entire campus community. What is one key, measurable indicator of educational excellence and institutional performance that you consider to be appropriate for San Francisco State? I would greatly appreciate your thoughts. Just e-mail me at president@sfsu.edu. After the panel, I will report to you about the ideas you put forward and about the panel's discussion.

I think that this is a fertile time for such a discussion. We have a real chance to broaden the perception -- and the measures -- of academic excellence. I see, for example, indications of a welcome receptivity to change in the 2003 edition of "America's Best Colleges." In an introductory essay titled "The challenges of striving to measure academic excellence," the editors admit that their ranking system has had its critics, and that the magazine has been asked to add "new measures capturing how much actual learning is taking place on campuses." While pointing out the difficulty of obtaining such data, they note that U.S. News has begun working with educators to see "whether data can be collected on various campus programs that are believed to enhance student learning." One of those programs the magazine identifies is service learning -- surely a measure we can support.

If we do succeed in altering the current, narrow approach to assessing the quality of our nation's colleges and universities, we will be doing a great deal of good, not just for San Francisco State University, but for the public understanding of higher education's role and responsibilities. Bringing measures such as service learning, or "value added" (the progress students make during their years on campus, judging from where they started) to the fore as important indicators of excellence will build awareness and respect for the values and the contributions of a San Francisco State University.


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Last modified December 2, 2002, by the Office of Public Affairs