What is it that contributes most to the status of a university? Conventional wisdom assumes that deans take action to ensure that professors write more papers; this impresses other professors and attracts brighter students, and thus raises the status of the university. However, years of more or less idle thinking on the subject led me to the conclusion that the status of a university is initially set by what could be termed the general populace, which is almost always local and which includes both potential students and non-academics. Their attitude towards a university is established by intangibles, but in general the university must be seen to be contributing to the general good. This leads to the bright students, who in turn attract bright professors that then do their job of maintaining and possibly increasing that status by writing the papers -- papers which, incidentally, are read only by other professors.
What started my thinking on this subject was a story, probably apocryphal: in the early 1970s a couple of professors from the University of Toronto were in Europe and when someone asked where they came from, they answered, “Toronto.” The University of Toronto was at that time and still is probably the top-rated university in Canada.
“Is that part of the University of Waterloo?”
It was not intentional on the part of the Europeans, but they had deeply hurt their guests and when aware of the facts any academic will understand why.
Waterloo opened its doors in 1959, the year this author graduated from another Canadian university. The raison d’être for the existence of Waterloo, the first new university in Canada in 40 years, was that it would offer a technically-oriented co-op program. Waterloo thus started life essentially looked down on by virtually all other universities in Canada as being low on the pecking order.
So why, just a dozen years later, did some European academics assume their visitors were connected with the University of Waterloo? For, when they thought of Canada, they thought of the University of Waterloo.
The reason was a software package called Waterloo Fortran (WatFor/WatFiv) developed by Paul Cresse, Paul Dirksen and J. Wesley Graham at the University of Waterloo.
To explain why Watfor/WatFiv had such an impact we must go back to the dawn, the 1960s, of computers in education.
Punched cards were the means of preparing a program and then submitting said program over a counter to a clerk and then waiting six or eight hours and often till the next day, to get the results. The author, as did anyone involved in computing at that time, often waited hours after submitting a 200-card deck only to discover that two characters had been transposed in one of the cards. WatFor/Watfiv was a self-contained program that would accept a Fortran program, translate the code, and then execute the program, all in seconds. The Waterloo program enabled a student to personally insert his/her cards in a card reader, then walk a few feet to a printer where the job would already be printing -- a remarkable transformation in the process of learning how to write code, especially in the mistake-prone early part of the learning curve.
The program was made available at no cost to other institutions that used the same IBM equipment, which turned out to be the majority of schools, with the result that in a short period WatFor was in use around the world. Students from most disciplines took at least the introductory course in Fortran and certainly a great many grad students used it in their research with the result that in a very few years literally hundreds of thousands of students worldwide from all disciplines and all levels from BS to PhD were familiar with WatFiv and thus with the existence of The University of Waterloo. Thus the impression of the European hosts that someone from Canada might be connected with Waterloo University.
This writer did co-author a couple of basic textbooks on Fortran using WatFor/WatFiv and had occasion to visit Waterloo and meet with the creators of the program. They were academics but WatFor was a Computer Centre project; the goal was not to generate papers or make money, but to make life easier for students at Waterloo. Cress and Dirksen were honoured in 1972 with the Grace Hopper award for their contribution to computing.
Certainly by the early 70s Waterloo was known world-wide but this did not make it a highly-respected institution from an academic point of view. I can remember when one of the Florida state universities won the US NCAA football championship and it was, of course, all the news for a few days. The president of the University in an interview lamented that the stories were not saying anything about the intellectual strength of his school in that they had six Nobel Laureates on faculty. He had made the assumption that expending funds on six Lazyboy chairs and generous stipends would make the institution a “great” university. A problem still ongoing, but not to laureates.
But I noted that over the next decade or so Waterloo’s standing as an educational institution increased at a much faster rate than would normally be expected. This resulted in Microsoft selecting it amongst Canadian universities to host their first Canadian research facility and in addition faculty and graduates spawned new businesses in the area, a sort of silicon north.
It is conjecture on my part but the visibility engendered by WatFor so shortly after its founding meant that Waterloo not only attracted better students but it greatly increased the pool from which they could select faculty, in all disciplines. Thus “standards were raised” without having to resort to the usual “buying of faculty”. Waterloo did not rest on the laurels bestowed by Watfor but did a great job of playing the cards that they were dealt since now they are rated in the top 50 world-wide in engineering and #2 in Canada, a position envied by many institutions much senior in age to Waterloo.
Watching an institution reach world-class status from its founding just in my professional lifetime started me wondering how institutions achieved that status. These observations are confined to North America and possibly the UK and lack rigour in the academic sense, so they must be classified as conjecture. In fact no research is involved; I base my comments on information retrieved from over 50 years of general reading and conversation.
As an academic I had assumed that, aside from being the first, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge, that sometime in the distant past at each of all great institutions “standards” had been raised, papers published, and unlike the efforts at most institutions, the effort was successful and world-class status was achieved. However, after some years of contemplation I concluded that institutions are first recognized by the community as having contributed to the general good, which in turn attracts better students that in turn attracts the professors that then produce the learned papers and thence the recognition.
Let us start with Harvard. As with Oxford and Cambridge, it could qualify under the rules of primogeniture, but look at it another way. The early settlers, many having come from the East Anglia area of England, initially sent the brighter or richer students back to Cambridge. I would argue that when Harvard was established it would have been more thought of in the terms of today’s community college, a place for those lacking either the resources or intellectual capacity to attend a regular college, and as such not highly regarded. However, very quickly it demonstrated that if satisfied a real need in the community and soon even those students who could afford to go to Cambridge stayed at home. I would suggest that many of the other Ivy schools followed the same path, a combination of providing what could be deemed a service to the community with being “first” in their area. It then just took common sense in selecting faculty and students to maintain the standing. In the case of Columbia, I understand that when it was still King’s College it introduced formal training for teachers, thus making a great contribution to the community -- this at a time when all colleges confined themselves to instruction in the liberal arts, so that graduates could start life as “gentlemen”. Today I would assume that many institutions will gloss over ever having been involved in the training of teachers, as opposed to research in education.The land grant colleges of the US are a special case. They were specifically tasked with the goal of turning out specialists in agriculture, engineering, and other professional vocations and as such for decades were not thought of being serious citadels of learning. They did start with students that would have otherwise had no opportunity for post-secondary education and, despite being derided as aggie and home ec havens, reached that level of approval in the community that they became suitable options for all students and professors and ultimately, for many of them, achieving world class status. MIT is a land grant school as is Cornell as are the great midwestern and California state universities (although recent administrations in California have apparently decided that the solution to the budgetary crisis is to ensure that all state educational institutions are removed from any “best university” list.) One episode of Frasier had his avaricious agent Bebe shaming him into undertaking a questionable but lucrative advertising gig by suggesting that he would probably be satisfied with sending his son to a state university. The line got laughs because of Frasier’s patented snobbery but in fact was somewhat anachronistic. Many state universities now have application/acceptance ratios comparable to the Ivy League. The author remembers chatting with a recruiter at a job fair at the private mid-level institution where he taught. The recruiter said that he was an alum but had started his education at the state university. After a year he decided to return to his home city and enrol at my school. He said that none of his credits were accepted and that he had to start again as a freshman. Today I know this institution would be pleased if they received applications from applicants that did not quite make the cut at the state institution.
As I trawled through my memory banks it appeared that I could make an argument for almost any institution that it satisfied the conditions I had defined, but I recognized that it would take a formal research project that could investigate in detail a sufficient number of institutions to confirm my hypothesis. One way to confirm a hypothesis is to prove there is nothing that can contradict the basic premise. The one institution that I could think of that could prove me wrong was the University of Chicago. Chicago did start life as a Baptist-related college but then John D. Rockefeller got involved around the end of the 19th century. Some estimates are that he contributed some 100 million dollars, circa 1900. Roughly translated, that means that if Bill Gates abandoned totally his goal of clean water, etc., his 40 billion just might get a world-class university off the ground. A more telling indication of the amount of money Rockefeller contributed is found in the stories of O. Henry, where I noted that in at least four tales when O. Henry sought a phrase that was the equivalent of “he spent money like a drunken sailor” he made a reference to Rockefeller and the U. of Chicago. The U. of Chicago “raised standards’ by scouring the world for the most prolific researchers it could find and it worked - Chicago fairly quickly became a world-class institution. However, on practical grounds this counterexample could actually demonstrate the futility of trying to achieve world stature by simply “raising standards”.
We are talking about where a school stands in the rankings that are now generated by different organizations, and whether a school can, and if so, climb in those rankings. So something must be said about the US News and World Report annual rankings, not the first but they set the standard that has been more or less followed by other rankings. First issued in 1983, they caused quite a commotion, but I would say not too many surprises: the top of the list was occupied by the usual suspects. However there was one occupant of the top ten that was not expected and so justified a separate story in that edition. Now I am going by my memory -- I did try to google that first list but did not find anything -- but the surprise was Stanford making the leader board. Stanford was already well known as a good university but not outstanding and that possibly the sunshine instead of academics was of more interest to professors and that the students had an inordinate interest in partying. How did suddenly it have both the bright students and faculty that so impressed the list makers? A major reason was Stanford’s involvement with the development of Silicon Valley, really through the efforts of one man, Professor Frederick Terman. One must remember that what Stanford was encouraging, or I should say allowing, its faculty and students, e.g., Hewlett and Packard, to engage in would at that time result in both professors and students being subject to disciplinary action in most other institutions. Thus Stanford easily satisfies my criteria of an institution, already reasonably well known, to greatly increase its visibility by contributing to the common good. I can contribute a personal note. The author spent several years in the early sixties involved in the first computers and in providing consulting services with respect to rocket controls to NASA in the Washington DC area. By the mid sixties I had decided to get a PhD in this new field of computer science and decided to go to Stanford -- several years reading of technical and business literature gave almost through a process of osmosis the impression there was something going on there that was not happening elsewhere, and obviously a great many other potential students came to the same conclusion. I certainly did not know any of the professors. However, because of my experience with computers a nearby university made me an offer I could not refuse and that is where I went for my PhD. Frost has a poem that talks about “the road not taken”.
The US News and World Report rankings are criticized for placing too much emphasis on SAT scores, but that confirms my argument that the IQ of the students defines the strength of an educational institution. However this paper is addressing the chicken or egg problem, which comes first - “high standards” or “bright students”. And what, if anything, can be done to climb in those rankings?
Let us review how an institution achieves a high standing relative to its peers. I have presented two examples, Waterloo and Stanford, where I argue that providing a service to the community, resulted in a dramatic increase in visibility that in turn attracted better students. In the case of Waterloo it moved from complete obscurity to being known, to the academic community at least, worldwide. In the case of Stanford the spawning of Silicon Valley brought to an institution already reasonably well-known in academic circles world-wide fame. I add another personal note: Stanford now attracts outstanding students from around the world. One of those students, accepted at Stanford, could not leave enough of his Chinese behind to pass his English exam and so instead came to my institution where he was one of the best of my PhD students. Thank you, Stanford. Conversely Chicago “raised standards” in the conventional sense by both building an outstanding physical campus and recruiting an outstanding faculty, thus attracting the outstanding students that resulted in its worldwide fame.
The facts suggest that the Chicago example is not a practical way of improving the standing of a university. The Waterloo and Stanford examples are routes not easily followed; the conditions that brought about both are not easily replicated and in each case the results were due to individuals rather than policy at the institutions. Continuing our review we note that many top-ranked institutions achieved their status by dint of “being first”, i.e., being the only institute available and/or finding a niche and of course following good management practices in the selection of students and faculty. Many other institutions, while not being first, proved their worth to the community, i.e., the great state universities in the US and their equivalent in Canada. There are new arrivals from developing countries and former colonies on the ever-increasing number of lists of “best universities”, Hong Kong being an example. There are eight universities for a population of a little more than 7 millions. Three of those universities are in the best lists for all universities and near the top for Asian universities, a remarkable achievement. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) must be singled out, just founded in 1991 and this past year ranked #1 in Asia. How did they do it? The requisite conditions are a solid kindergarten through high school system followed by competitive entry policies for both students and faculty. In the case of HKUST they identified a niche in the educational structure, as did Waterloo forty years earlier. Although HKUST must reserve 80% of undergraduate slots for locals they can harvest in all of China for graduate students; in 2014 China is expecting to graduate 7.2 million from colleges.
The quality of pre college education could be the reason for some US land grant schools not making any “top ten” list, but the author would also argue that there is another reason that buttresses the argument that the bright students come first followed by the professors and then the status. Most State Universities are of roughly the same size and one would assume that at least prior to the current financial problems each institution received approximately the same support. However, most states have in the past favoured a single institution; thus the incoming freshman class in the favoured institution in the larger states would, I argue, have a higher SAT, the first step on the way to renown for that institution.
This policy could be followed by emerging nations but they face the double curse of inadequate pre college schooling and constrictive admissions and hiring policies. However, the example of Hong Kong cited above shows that with a solid precollege education system and competitive admissions it is possible for more than one institution to shine. I will still argue that it is the high calibre of the student bodies that starts the rise in status.
It would appear that it is a difficult if not impossible task for a university, not already there, to reach the top ranks. But don’t virtually all schools work hard at “raising standards” with the goal of improving a university’s standing? Given that it is usually easier to maintain a spot than to improve it, it suggests that a university well down the list, as previously argued has little chance of displacing an occupant of the top tier. However a modest improvement is feasible and in fact most administrations are realistic so that their goal is to move up, even five or ten positions, in the list, rather than a jump to the top. But almost all concentrate on increasing the paper output (hopefully reflecting increased meaningful research). The hypothesis put forward in this paper is that while it is important, it is not sufficient, that somehow a university must also create an “image” in the eyes of the general populace.
So what must or can be done? A comparison can be made with sports where in most leagues it is well-known that the same teams are near the top year after year: Manchester United in the Premier League, the Yankees in American League baseball, etc. The author recommends that Academic Deans see the picture Moneyball. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland Athletics, a team whose owner keeps it perennially short of funds. Thus the team inevitably loses any player that emerges as a “star” to a better financed team. So already we see the equivalence with academia where the top schools regularly hire away emerging academic stars. Beane has adapted the practice of using massive statistics on each player but with the goal of identifying those players where despite personal statistics the team ends up winning more often when they play. It emerges that all is not what it appears; seemingly high performance individuals apparently contribute less to a team’s overall performance than hitherto unrecognized players. Now the part of the picture which should be studied carefully is where Brad Pitt as Billy Beane is meeting with his scouts. The A’s have lost three players who had blossomed into stars while under contract at Oakland but now all are leaving for pennant contenders with more money. Each of the scouts has suggestions for the positions, and recognizing they cannot afford replacements of the same calibre each is pushing his favorite “compromise”, i.e., players with a lower batting average, more error prone, etc., but still in their eyes the “best of the rest”. Billy stuns them all by rejecting all their recommendations and instead plans on hiring three players who on the surface just do not compare to the scouts’ choices. In fact one of the players is on the verge of quitting baseball because of lack of success and Billy plans on moving another of the choices to 1st base, a position he has never played. A fearful argument develops which of course Beane, as did Lincoln with his cabinet, wins. After a terrible start the following year by the middle of the season the team is contending and does make the playoffs, with all three new players having outstanding years. What the statistics demonstrated to Beane is that in their past careers despite not having stellar individual statistics they did strengthen the teams’ overall performance. With a season approaching 200 games, with playoffs, baseball produces a plethora of statistics.
When watching that discussion between Bean and his scouts a Dean should imagine himself as Bean and his department chairs as the scouts. Then transpose the statistics from batting averages to papers published, etc. A department chair recommends someone with 200 papers, the best their money can afford, in a field where the leaders have 300 papers but the Dean should point out that while the applicant is marginally better in the individual paper count, he or she will contribute nothing to the department. Similarly with the other statistics. The Dean has to impress on the chairs that the goal is to improve the overall performance of the college which represents the sum of the departments and that is not accomplished with individual players who are not on the “A” list. Instead when these extra funds come along, as they do periodically, do not rush out for the “next best researcher” but look for an outlier, possibly already on board, who could do something that would attract positive attention.
Another comparison with education is that Beane had the same goal with the Oakland Athletics as do hundreds of universities. Beane knew that he did not have the resources and thus the depth to win a world series, just as most Deans realize they are not going to reach the top ten. But what Beane did with these limited resources, which caught everyone’s attention, was to make the playoffs, just as most schools would be satisfied with a modest climb in the ratings.
We are approaching the end of this ramble through the field of academic status and can draw some conclusions. The U. of Chicago approach is too expensive, the Stanford method is already too much replicated (mostly unsuccessfully) to now have the novelty that would do the job. The one method that could be carried out by any institution is the Billy Beane method, excepting that whereas Beane could see results over a few months, in an academic environment it would take decades for results to emerge. But since this is a modification of existing practice and requires only a little extra contemplation it could be adopted with the understanding that it must be applied for at least a decade. There is a phrase, “Everyone complains about the weather but no one does anything about it,” that in academia has an equivalent, “Everyone complains that there is too much emphasis on papers and no one does anything about it”. A difficult problem since an important function of universities is research, or more specifically the education of researchers, and that does require first class research. This latter point was emphasized by Tom Martin, a former president of my institution, and incidentally author of a delightful description of academia in “Malice in Blunderland”. And the major way of announcing results and imparting this knowledge is in the form of papers, even those now delivered via the Internet. However the “modification to existing practice” suggested above calls for less emphasis on the number of papers and more on quality and intangibles so it is a step in the right direction.
So what can be done if an institution desires to make a “great leap forward” in status? In many parts of the world population shifts and increased standards of living will provide opportunities to existing and new institutions this will only require the adoption of common sense management practice with respect to the recruiting of students and faculty. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of existing institutions it appears we must go back to the what started this discussion, Waterloo. I say unfortunately since serendipity is a contributing factor and is not something that can be conjured up with hard work. But it is the model that works and does consist of two steps, and only the first is due to serendipity: (1) make the name of the institution known in as big a geographic area as is possible for a positive reason (thus eliminating sports championships and mass shootings) and (2) have the recruiting process for both students and faculty open and competitive. It is no longer possible to produce a single software program as did Waterloo that will have the impact of WatFor and even a cure for cancer will not do the job since unfortunately we hear an announcement every few weeks for another “potential cure” and when the the real one does come along it will take years to prove out. Something like the discovery of graphene at Manchester University by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov almost satisfies the requirements: it is simple to explain, i.e., “take a roll of scotch tape…”, and within a remarkably short time it has resulted in a Nobel and also a list of potential products ranging from condoms to tennis rackets, not to speak of the potential in communications, energy storage and many other fundamental applications. Manchester was already a world-class institution, although not in the very top ranks due to possibly as one UK publication phrased it, “Manchester will always be punished for not being in London”. It will be interesting to see what happens.
So summing up, this very non-scholarly discussion describes how universities can achieve status: do something that will change the world, or a part of it, in a positive way. Simple, isn’t it?
by Graham Campbell in 2014