UNM does not make the grade when it comes to liberal arts offerings, according to one non-profit educational institution, but some say that grading criteria is broken.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni released the 2014-15 edition of their annual “What Will They Learn?” report and UNM received an overall grade of “D,” according to the report.
However, UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah said the grading criteria, which is based on whether or not a school requires seven different liberal arts courses, is misguided and simply incorrect in UNM’s case.
“The ACTA has come up with a list of the specific courses that they believe are the essential ones for students to take, and they use narrow criteria to measure institutions,” Abdallah said in an email to the Daily Lobo. “While not necessarily a bad selection, it is an incomplete one as they leave out American studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology and so on.”
The ACTA grades schools based on whether they require students to take courses in literature, composition, economics, math, intermediate level foreign language, science and American government or history, according to an ACTA press release.
According to the new report, because UNM only requires math and science, the institution received a low grade. However, UNM does require composition, which was not recognized by the ACTA.
“They just get this one wrong,” Abdallah said, “English composition courses are required for all UNM students.”
UNM was just one of almost 1,100 schools graded in this year’s report, and ranked lower than 67 percent of all schools graded; however, Abdallah pointed out that several other prestigious institutions received low grades as well.
According to the report, both Yale and Harvard universities also received grades of a D from the ACTA. Abdallah also said using a single report to determine whether a college is good or bad is perhaps not the best strategy.
“I would also caution against using one survey or metric to evaluate a college education,” Abdallah said. “Note, for example, that the University of Arizona, UCLA, Georgetown, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Washington-Seattle and the University of Virginia earned a “D” while UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign earned an “F” under the grading scheme.”
Here in New Mexico, both Highlands and Western New Mexico Universities received an “F,” Eastern New Mexico University received a “D,” New Mexico State University received a “C” and St. John’s college in Santa Fe was one of only 23 institutions to receive an “A.”
According to the ACTA website, the report uses its grading criteria because it brings all institutions to the same level, regardless of reputation or prestige, and provides an objective lens for grading purposes.
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“Too many college rating systems rely on largely extraneous measures like alumni giving or selectivity to determine which colleges top their list,” said Anne D. Neal, ACTA president in a release. “What Will They Learn? looks at the most important data — the strength of a college’s education — to find out which institutions are delivering the tools students will need to succeed in career and community.”
The ACTA started the What Will They Learn? project because, as a non-profit organization in support of liberal-arts education, it saw a lack of support for courses it considers pivotal for graduates to be successful after college.
“One wonders what tuition and tax dollars are going toward when most colleges — even public ones — don’t require basic economics, foreign language, American history or even literature,” said Dr. Michael Poliakoff, director of the What Will They Learn? project said in a release. “Are we really preparing our nation’s next generation of leaders when our colleges are failing to ensure the most basic skills and knowledge?”
Daniel Montaño is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at News@dailylobo.com or on twitter @JournoByDaniel.
Pretty BOX
http://whatwilltheylearn.com/schools/states/NM.html
