President's Column: Go Public or Perish

by Bonnie Patteson,
President and Vice-Chancellor

To many academics, the annual Maclean's Ranking of Canadian universities is a bit of a yawn. Not to say that we are not curious about the results, but as an academic exercise it is easy to criticize the indicators selected and/or how they are calculated, let alone their meaning! Often questioned is the relevancy of several specific indicators used including, for example, library holdings per student, in a time when access to the masses of digitally available resource materials may well be more important to some disciplines than books purchased for the shelves.

Yet, the indicators and rankings are public. They are of interest to the public. And, as a recent survey of the "Nexus" generation demonstrated, they too are used by potential students in their search for the "right" university.

We are fortunate to have retained our first place ranking within Ontario universities of a similar nature and a fourth place position in a Canadian context. Trent draws high marks from Maclean's in many categories not the least of which are in the number of national awards earned by both faculty and our students. Several other highlights are included in Trent's public news release available on our Web site.

Despite what one might believe about the survey's flaws, it does carry a powerful public relations impact and it has the greatest circulation and sales of any issue in the magazine's history. In a time when universities operate in a highly competitive environment, our standing in such widespread public document matters. We ought to be very proud that we continue to rank as one of only two Ontario universities in the top 15.

So too, we should be concerned that we continue to drop in the institutional reputation part of the survey, the results of a major opinion survey of 4,697 high-school guidance counsellors, university academics and chief executive officers across Canada. Only a few years ago, we ranked in each and every category in the top five - highest quality, most innovative, leaders of tomorrow.

We can and should put both individual and collective effort into sharing the news about that which ensures our graduates success in the future and that which is reflective of the excellence that exists at Trent. Every day you interact with people beyond our university walls. The public needs to hear how the quality of the liberal arts and science programs here prepare students for the 21st century workplace. Each of us, in our own way, needs to assume the responsibility to help the public become aware of what we do, how we do it and its significance to society. It is in everyone's best interest.