Interview with Katherine Will

Katherine Will is president of Gettysburg College. She also chairs the Annapolis Group, which includes more than 120 presidents of liberal arts colleges, most of whose institutions are AGB members.

Last June, the Annapolis Group made national news when some of its members started a national campaign to discredit the US News & World Report college ranking system. About a dozen presidents signed a letter urging their colleagues not to answer the survey the magazine sends to roughly 1,400 institutions. The survey asks officials to rate schools 1-5 according to their own impression of educational quality. Results of this reputational survey account for 25 percent in the formula US News uses to rank colleges and universities.

More than 60 presidents have now signed the letter, which asks colleagues to boycott the survey when it arrives next spring and to refrain from using the results of the rankings for promotional purposes.

Read transcript of interview.

Related links

• Education Week: “Colleges Build Web Sites to Enable Campus Comparisons, Sans Ranks,” by Scott J. Cech (September 12, 2007)
• InsideHigherEd: “Watered Down Call for Rankings Reform,” by Scott Jaschik (September 10, 2007)
• _____________________: Podcast, “Debate: Top Critic vs. ‘U.S. News’ Editor,” by Scott Jaschik. (June 25, 2007)
• Annapolis Group Statement on Rankings and Ratings (June 19, 2007)

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