Macleans slaps back

Well, Maclean's came out swinging this week in reaction to news that more than 20 Canadian universities (about one-fifth) have made statements saying they would no longer cooperate with the long-time universities issue. (Earlier posts can be found here and here.)

The "letter from the editors" (which may be taken as the views of the Editor & Publisher, Ken Whyte) published in this week's magazine, essentially says (although it doesn't use these words) that the universities are crybabies and hypocrites. It said, almost mocking the language used by the university presidents "we have come to the conclusion that their complaints are oversimplified, arbitrary, and of questionable validity." The editorial focussed on the biggest school, the University of Toronto, as an example.

"Much as some of them complain about being subjected to rankings, it would be fair to say that university presidents in Canada are obsessive about their standing relative to one another, and to their colleagues abroad. The University of Toronto, a ringleader of the Maclean's protests, can hardly issue a public statement without boasting of its world-class status and ambitions. For example, its 2005 "Stepping UP" plan explains that the university's "vision" is "to be a leader among the world's best public universities."

"A worthy objective, to be sure. So how does U of T measure its progress? By rankings -- or as it prefers to call them "benchmarks" and "performance indicators." It measures itself against national and global peers in five areas: student entering averages, faculty honours, faculty teaching awards, research yields and research publications and citations. Four of those five are covered in the Maclean's ranking. And yet U of T is one of the institutions that now says it can no longer make this sort of information available to Maclean's, because Maclean's will use it to "rank" the university.

"All of this leads us to believe that U of T wants desperately to be considered a leader and a world-class institution, but would rather claim those titles than be objectively measured for them."

The magazine intends to publish its 16th annual universities issue in its November 2 issue, as planned, it says, plus three other special issue through the year.

The published letter from the editors comes as CanWest News Services reported that more universities -- to a total of 22 -- are jumping on the anti-Maclean's bandwagon as it passes, "casting doubt on the magazine's claim it'll be able to produce a credible ranking by its November publication date." The University of Western Ontario was the latest to say it won't provide answers to Maclean's lengthy questionnaire.

Tony Keller, editor of special projects said Friday that the federal and provincial governments will be able to provide some of the information, but acknowledged some of the key data about student population is only available from the institutions themselves. These include average entering grade, graduation rates, retention rates, and the percentage of foreign students. He said his staff will ask the universities for this information next week.

"I would be very surprised if they were unwilling to make that information public, and the public would have reason to be disappointed."

Richard Fisher, chief marketing officer for York, predicted Maclean's will be disappointed.

"The questionnaires include all of those questions, so unless they can get it elsewhere, there's no way they can get it," he said, adding it as "very unlikely" York would be responding positively to any further queries from Maclean's.

"The Nov. 2 is their deadline, not ours. It's their problem, and it's not really our job to worry about how they make it," said Fisher. "There's no way these numbers can hold and be rigorous."