What could be more just$c* than to cheat on academics and then lie about it. It’s just absolutely perfect. I’m sure the dean who all this got referred to is Dean Wormer, who will report that many of those full time faculty people were actually “Double Secret Faculty.”

Senora Ross?

Engineer Bill Stulla? I know he passed on a few months ago, but if the ratings are based on last year’s faculty lineup, he certainly could have been “part time” then. And, since SC has trouble counting, even if ratings are based on this year’s lineup, they would presumably count him.

I went to usc law and they pulled something similar. There was an issue with them not hiring Asian law professors even though they constantly boasted that they have the most diverse student body, including a significant percentage of Asians. Their initial response was that there just weren’t many Asian professors that were both qualified and interested in teaching at usc. Of course, we pointed to UCLA Law School and the great Asian Professors there.

What did they do next? Well they updated their faculty website to include a few Asian faces. One was a professor from the business school, who at some point apparently taught a class that law students could take. They also added an adjunct professor who taught a one unit course every other semester. Um… yeah, evidently their commitment to diversity is all about appearances.

I don’t particularly like bashing the law school because I actually enjoyed my time there, but one thing that i never liked is that they are a publicity machine and placed a huge emphasis on rankings.

Unfortunately – UCLA seems to have a problem counting as well – check the #14 US News Rankings for engineering and the NAE website and guess what…the numbers are WAY off (even more than SC’s). So, If we live in glass houses, we shouldn’t throw stones

This has always been a thorn in my side. Non-engineers point to $c’s engineering department being better than UCLA’s. I can only speak for mechanical engineering, but anybody that has taken classes at both schools can tell you that UCLA has a much more rigorous program… even an $c student. (Although they have upped their curriculum in the past few years.)

For what it’s worth, I always thought the sudden jump by U$c* a few years back was bit suspicious; others in academia and industry thought the same thing. It’s just a guess, but it seems the US News rankings weighs the “funding available per stundent” very heavily. $c wins out in the money category over most universities in the top ten. I would argue that the financial numbers are even MORE difficult to accurately determine than NAE memebers. The article from the US News itself (provided by impaulv above) says that even when $c’s NAE membership numbers fall from 30 to 13, it won’t make much of an impact. I personally think there are some bigger issues with $c’s reporting than just number of faculty in the NAE. This is reinforced by my personal experience working as an engineer at an aerospace company. $c Bachelor’s level grads were most technically unprepared compared to other major top-tier universities we recruited (UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Arizona, ASU, Colorado, UT Austin, UIUC, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech). $c Master’s level students were much better, though, regardless of where they went as undergrads. There were some bright bachelor’s students from $c, but they were few and far between (I didn’t work with any that were, anyway). Most of them ended up getting promoted out of technical positions and went into management very early. Managers with technical experience are valuable, but can you call yourself anything if you don’t have sound fundamentals for your profession?

Anyway, this is a total parallel to what’s going on with their athletics program. This is the U$c* way.