[Article] Trinity['s Arts Faculty] moves up the world college rankings

Something I received today which is quite interesting given the reduction in funds aimed at Arts & Humanities due to ARAM. And unless something has changed recently, but Barrett is wrong if he thinks money is going towards Engineering ('over-funded' last I saw at least!).

Information on ARAM here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054920662

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Irish Independent 08/11/2006

www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=50&si=1719972&issue_id=14863



Trinity moves up the world college rankings

TRINITY'S arts faculty has achieved the highest-ever Irish ranking position in the international university league.

TCD's arts and humanities department came 39th in the latest international rankings.

It beat some of the world leaders such as Cornell, Brown and Pennsylvania in the US as well as St Andrew's and York universities in the UK.

The list is headed by Cambridge, with Oxford, Harvard and the University of California in Berkeley the runners-up.

It was compiled by London-based 'Times Higher Education Supplement' which placed Trinity in 78th place overall in the world university rankings - up from 111th place in 2005. The publication is giving separate rankings for various faculties and Trinity's arts and humanities department has come up trumps. Its social sciences faculty reached 93rd place.

The arts ranking has come as a pleasant surprise as there were fears the humanities were suffering as a result of Trinity's controversial reforms which have seen the number of faculties at the university fall from 11 to just five departments.

Trinity economist Dr Sean Barrett claims in the current issue of 'Administration' that there is a shift away from arts to the sciences and engineering.

But this has been denied by the university whose spokesman welcomed the international recognition of Trinity College's arts and humanities, which he said form a central pillar of education at the city college.

"To be ranked 39th in the world is an achievement to which all of our teachers and researchers have contributed," he said.

"The arts and humanities have always played a pivotal role in helping society address the issues of its time. Their importance in Irish society is evidenced by school leavers and mature students continuing to enrol in great numbers for courses in these subjects.

"The arts and humanities are an integral part of the college's up-dated strategic plan and Trinity will continue to build on this world-renowned scholarship and teaching in the future," he added.

Meanwhile, the same issue of 'Administration', which is published by the Institute of Public Administration, confirmed that Atlantic Philanthropies contributed €178m to Irish third-level colleges under PRTLI: the programme for research in third level institutions. Government funding to the three PRTLI cycles amounted to €427m.

Atlantic Philanthropies chairman Frank Rhodes said the programme has had a significant impact on university culture and research.

europerson

^^^Love the tags.^^^

Congratulations to the Arts Faculty. It will be interesting to hear what Dr. Barrett has to say in tonight's Hist debate.

What's on tonight?

Tacitha

Tonight is : The Leaving Cert is failing Irish Students, with Barrett speaking for the opposition.
To be fair, the Administration article doesn't discuss where money is going within TCD, just general trends in what is considered desirable in undergraduate education and what isn't. And since ARAM is still operating at 40% and was last year at ten, I think, these rankings can't really reflect its workings.
Our arts faculty seems good to me, and it's nice to be riding high in the rankings, but I still think they're nonsense.

notjim

That's incredibly impressive!

So there is an important point here and that's that a very quick and good value way of improving a universities reputation is to fund arts, humanities and maths: these subjects don't require labs, meaning less expense and a shorter lead in time. What you need is some good hires.

Obviously, we want and need to improve science too but this shows how, quite apart from research in these areas being an important part of the university's mission, it is useful to support arts, humanities and mathematics.

Tacitha

On the other hand, you can fund your arts subjects all you like, and they'll never show up on the Shanghai "World Academic Rankings" - to quote the creators:

"The Ranking Group tried hard but was unsuccessful to find additional indicators that are special for humanities and social sciences."

We should invest in arts, humanities and maths if we think they're important. If we don't, we shouldn't. But it seems dangerous to me to do anything in order to improve our place in rankings - criteria vary in the different ranking systems, change by the year, and aren't always all that sensible to start with, so we just end up chasing shadows.

Dave3x

Yes, but Science offers a return on investment. Arts and humanities usually don't.

Tacitha

Some science in some circumstances offers returns, but that's generally when research is undertaken on a large scale, within a large economy.
If university departments in science were offering financial returns at a local level, they presumably wouldn't need to skim teaching money from the rest of us?
And that's before we start discussing "returns" other than finance returning directly to the university.

notjim

Dave3X: Well for a start; it probably isn't true, research in the social science has a direct economic benefit, research in the arts humanities has a benefit too, it is hard to monetize, but there is a genuine desire among people generally for this research to exist, the investment is rewarded. Maths is of direct economic value.

Second, a University's reputation affects its popularity with prospective students, the international standing of the University is part of the product the students are buying with their fee. If there was an unregulated student fee as in America, improving our Arts/Humanities reputation would allow us to increase the size of our fee, improving our income. Since we can't do that and are instead given a fixed income per student from the Government, improving the University's reputation in this way increases the actual monetary value of what we are force to sell for a set amount, it increases the value for money gained by the government.

Finally, of course, we should not confuse the University's actual mission: Teaching and Research, with the beneficial economic role we play.

Thirdfox

Law is classed as a social science or humanity? (or neither?)

Congrats for the Orts block!

Tacitha

Tacitha wrote:

Tonight is : The Leaving Cert is failing Irish Students, with Barrett speaking for the opposition.

Where and When?????

There are posters everywhere (though I didn't look before!) - Mary Hanafin is coming for it. Think it's half 7 but can't remember for sure.

And the Hist's website is down for some reason.

There are always posters everywhere... thats why I don't see them anymore..

The Phist needs a blimp!!