A response to the THES World University Rankings
date posted: 2006-11-17 10:37:05http://www.ateneo. edu/index. php?p=120&type=2&sec=31&aid=2989
(Note: On Oct. 5, 2006, a global survey of higher educational institutions — the Times Higher Education Supplement - Quacquarelli Symonds [THES-QS] World University Rankings — was released. Among thousands of universities surveyed, 4 from the Philippines made it to the top 500. These are the University of the Philippines [299th], De La Salle University [392nd], Ateneo de Manila University [484th], and the University of Santo Tomas [500th]. [The complete results are posted in QS Top Universities Website.] To enlighten the community regarding the results of the THES survey, the University President writes the following response .)
The context of the Times rankings is the process of internationalizatio n of universities; in particular, they are intended for students looking for places abroad to study. Ateneo understands that internationalizatio n in the university is important in our globalizing world and, thus, we understand the purpose of these rankings. However, each university and each country have their own priorities. The priority in the vision/mission of the Ateneo has been the formation of leaders in Christian and Jesuit values and contribution to overcoming poverty and national development. Thus, we have responded to internationalizatio n by what is the most advanced student mobility and study abroad program in the country.
- JGSOM’s Junior Term Abroad creates opportunities for college juniors to spend one semester in any of the Ateneo’s many partner universities. This year, 114 Ateneo college students are spending a semester in universities in Asia (particularly China, Japan, Singapore), in Europe and the United States. We will have 150 students annually in study abroad programs in the next two years and this will continue to grow.
- We have students from the Schools of Science and Engineering, Social Sciences, Humanities and the Graduate School of Business who also spend a semester or year abroad. We also have summer student cultural programs to Europe (through our European Studies Program) and Asia (particularly Macau, Hong Kong, and China). In the next years, we want to tap more partners in these countries and to go into new partnership agreements with other countries in Europe, (Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) and Asia (Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand).
- Those who cannot go abroad are offered the opportunity of studying with foreign classmates through our inbound students. Our agreements have also allowed us to host a mix of international students on campus from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Germany, the US, Japan, Macau, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
These programs follow our priority of leadership formation, since we believe that leaders of tomorrow will have to be increasingly global in their perspective. We do receive international students. However, a focus on attracting foreign students (the purpose of the Times rankings) has been a secondary priority for us.
From our international exchanges, we see that we are highly respected among those who have come to know us. Just in the last few months, when China decided to set up Confucius Institutes for the teaching of Chinese language and culture in about 100 universities around the world, the Ateneo de Manila was the first (and so far the only) university designated in the Philippines. In addition, the World Press Photojournalism Institute in the Netherlands has also chosen the Ateneo as partner for its program in photojournalism. We will exert more effort to better communicate this to the outside world. Our alumni abroad can help us a lot in this regard.
There are other efforts to increase the number and quality of our active international partnerships and programs. We have been benchmarking for quality (IEEE standards for ECCE, attendance of conferences, networks) and sending our students to regional competitions, among others. However, because of our small size and relatively few programs until recently, our international reach has been limited. In surveys like this, size matters, both in the number of students and the diversity of programs.
In a world dominated by science and technology, it was only in the last ten years or so that the Ateneo has established itself in science and technology. We were thus small, both in terms of number of students and diversity of programs. But we must also remember that it was this small size and the focus on formation and the core curriculum (esp. philosophy, theology, literature) that our alumni treasure most. It is to the formation they obtained in this focus of the Ateneo that they attribute their own growth in leadership. Thus, while the smallness makes us less widely known outside the Philippines, the same characteristic has formed important leaders in business and government in our country and has established Ateneo as a well-known and great school in the Philippines .
Today, we are a University of about 7,585 undergraduates and 3,300 graduate students. Relative to its size, the proportion of Ateneo graduates in local and regional leadership positions in the academe, government, and business is impressive. We have a growing number of alumni abroad who have become leaders in the international world. We believe that a great part of their success comes from Ateneo’s focus on formation and on core curriculum courses such as philosophy and theology. As mentioned above, we are becoming better known through our growing international contacts and through our students studying abroad; our culture of forming leaders and contributing to national development is highly respected.
The area of research, particularly research published in ISI journals, is an area where we realize we have to do much more. The tradition of the Ateneo de Manila, and the tradition of the great majority of universities until the last few decades, has been that of preparing leaders for society. In recent decades, the role of the leading universities has moved towards the creation of new knowledge, namely research. The Ateneo de Manila, in particular the Loyola Schools, has invested much to increase research efforts. We have chosen certain areas where we feel we can make a significant difference, and we are excellent in these areas. But we realize that much more needs to be done. This will require, however, careful discussion and planning, because we do not want to lose focus on our priority goals of leadership formation and contribution to national development. These latter goals, we believe, are still Ateneo’s most important contribution to the Philippines.
The rankings challenge us to improve our efforts in internationalizatio n and research, but it has to be recognized that the criteria, purpose, and survey instrument (please refer to Notes below) also do not reflect certain aspects that make the Ateneo an excellent Philippine university. As mentioned above, the formation of leaders and contributing to national development is our priority; however, these priority concerns of ours are not given weight in the Times rankings.
Rankings in the Times survey are important because they measure how the world perceives us. But just as a person has to take what people think of them in the context of their own values and priorities, we, too, have to reflect on these perceptions and measures within our own view of our vision and mission. Thus, while we will work on strengthening our research and publications in ISI journals (because these are the dominant measures in the Times and other surveys), we need to do this in a way that does not move us away from our vision/mission and our traditional strengths: leadership formation and contribution to national development. These have to continue to be our priorities as a Jesuit university committed to the service of faith and the promotion of justice and as a university in a Philippines whose greatest challenge is overcoming poverty and national development .
Notes:
The survey criteria:
Peer Review - 40% (name recall and contacts)
Recruiter Review - 10%
International Faculty Score - 5%
International Students Score - 5%
Faculty/Student Score - 20%
Citations/Faculty Score - 20% (number of researches in ISI journals and/or the number of times publications have been cited by other work)
The survey asked the Ateneo to supply only the following:
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