UA Graduate Programs Ranked

The faculty in two University of Arkansas doctoral programs have earned those programs national rankings.  The doctoral program in food sciences at the Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences is rated the fourth best in the country in the “Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index”.  Cornell University is ranked in first place. In the “aggregated field” of language and literature, the University of Arkansas is ranked in 10th place.  The first place program is at Harvard University.

The “Index” is a new ranking system developed by Academic Analytics, a for-profit company founded by Lawrence Martin, dean of graduate studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  The University of Arkansas is one of 166 large research universities that are rated. “Large” universities are defined as those having at least 15 Ph.D. programs.

The index ranks doctoral programs based on the productivity of the faculty.  Productivity assessments are based on up to three factors: publications, which include books and journal articles published as well as citations of journal articles in other publications; federal-grant dollars awarded; and honors and awards.  Each factor is weighted on the basis of its importance to the discipline involved.  For example, publications are given greater weight in the humanities, while grant awards are more significant for sciences and engineering.

The index is based on the assumption that the productivity of the faculty is a prime indication of the quality of a program.  The index largely ignores a program’s “reputation”, which is a major consideration in the other two graduate ranking systems available.