When the Kansas University School of Law plummeted in the national rankings earlier this year, it raised plenty of eyebrows in the legal community.
The fall also got the attention of top administrators at KU, who shortly afterward agreed to hire two new staffers at the law school - one in student recruiting, the other in career services - to bolster areas that had slipped, according to the U.S. News and World Report magazine rankings.
The reaction is another sign that KU - and academia in general - takes rankings seriously.
"This puts the pressure there, and gives you the momentum to financially get these things done," said Steve McAllister, who steps down as the school's dean Monday. "In some ways, the ranking helped shake us and made us do something we knew would be beneficial but couldn't do in tight financial times."
The law school's fall, from 63rd to 100th nationally, highlighted a mixed bag of rankings in the last year as KU continues to strive toward Chancellor Robert Hemenway's goal of becoming a top-25 public university.
Other U.S. News rankings released in the past year:
¢ Overall, KU climbed two spots to 42nd among public universities.
¢ The School of Business tied for 30th among public universities, up from 33rd the previous year.
¢ The School of Engineering dropped from 40th to 45th nationally.
¢ The School of Education improved from 25th to 20th.
¢ The School of Pharmacy's doctoral program cracked the top 25 for the first time, ranking 16th.
¢ Overall, 26 KU graduate programs were ranked in the top 25, one more than the previous year. And 13 programs were in the top 10, also one more than the previous year.
New sets of rankings come out later this month and again in April.
Though U.S. News and World Report tends to be the most-cited ranking system, others exist. For example, Fiske Guide to Colleges lists KU as one of 20 "best buys" for public universities, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine lists KU 22nd for in-state students and 26th for out-of-state students for universities that "give students the best bang for the buck."
"We're headed up," said David Shulenburger, provost and executive vice chancellor. "We're working on all elements that make this a better university. That's what I spend my time doing and the chancellor spends his time doing. The rankings will take care of themselves."
McAllister, the law school dean, said he was confident the school would rebound in next year's rankings. U.S. News and World Report analysts said the law school especially was hurt by slipping graduate-day employment rate. It also had a lower bar exam passage rate, lower reputation scores among lawyers and judges and higher applicant acceptance rate, which meant the school became less selective.
"My prediction is next year we'll go back up significantly, and we'll go up again the following year, back to where we were before," McAllister said. "As long as we turn that direction and bounce back, there won't be any long-term effects."
John Nalbandian, chairman of the KU Department of Public Administration, said he's seen the long-term effects the U.S. News and World Report rankings can have.
But for him, the rankings are positive. His department has been ranked first in the nation for city management and urban policy master's programs since the magazine began its ranking in the area in 1998.
Receiving the national recognition helps recruit students and faculty and keeps alumni donating money to the program.
"It really is important to us," he said. "The longer you're around, the more you appreciate the difficulty of being very good over a long period of time. That's really the mark of excellence - can you sustain it over time?"
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