Transcript of AGB interview with Katherine Will

August 23, 2007
Dan Levin, editor of Trusteeship
Katherine Will, president of Gettysburg College

DAN LEVIN: I’m Dan Levin, editor of Trusteeship magazine, and I’m here with Katherine Will, president of Gettysburg College. Kate 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.

Welcome Kate. Tell us: The public seems to like the rankings, but many in academe seem to despise them. Where’s the disconnect?

KATHERINE WILL: Well, I think everybody on some level finds rankings attractive or fascinating or interesting. You know, America is a country that enjoys those kinds of things, so we completely understand that. From our perspective at the Annapolis Group and at liberal arts colleges across the country, our sense was that we wanted… to make sure that the public understands that the ranking methodology is not the greatest sort of scholarly approach to doing research. We also wanted them to know that we think rankings are adding to the sense of anxiety that a lot of students and parents feel when they are applying to institutions these days.

It’s a lot different than it used to be, and there’s a lot of upset and worry about whether you are going to get into the “right” school. And I guess our message would be: There are so many wonderful institutions out there in America. We have the greatest system of higher education in the world, and in fact, that’s partly because it isn’t a system. It’s very independent. There’s a diverse, wonderful group of schools out there… something for everyone. A ranking sort of leads people to think that there are really only 10, 20, or 50 places that are worth attending, and that simply isn’t true. I don’t think anyone from those top 50 schools would tell you that Gettysburg is in the top 50, and we know there are lots of other schools out there that are truly great. So, what we are trying to do is give a little bit of caveat emptor for the readers of US News to tell them that it’s not a great methodology and that trying to put one number on any college and figure out whether that’s the best one for you isn’t a good idea.

DAN LEVIN: One thing that created a lot of waves is this notion of a boycott. When you go to your board and faculty and ask them whether it makes sense for Gettysburg to participate in the reputational survey, how do you think the conversation will go? What will you ask them about?

KATHERINE WILL: Well, first of all, I want to be clear. We didn’t really think of it as a boycott. It was a straw poll taken. There were 80 presidents present at the Annapolis Group meeting in June, and a vast majority of them indicated their intention not to participate in the reputational survey, and a slightly lesser majority indicated their intention not to submit their information to US News. So the reputational survey is really the thing we object to the most because we participate in it. We give US News our insights on which schools are better. And it’s pretty hilarious… and everyone should know this… that you get a list of 360 liberal arts colleges… in our sector that would be the case. So the president, and the provost, and the dean of admissions get a list of 360 schools. And there’s a 1-5 next to them. And you never really quite know whether you’re ranking how good you think they are, or what you think their reputation is. And that’s 25 percent of the survey, so it’s a huge piece of their ranking is this reputational survey. So it’s whether you would participate in that or not.

What most people will find when they go back to alumni and their boards, is that they like it because… for instance, at Gettysburg, we love it because we think it conforms to what we already believe ourselves, which is that we are a very wonderful place…. What I think presidents have to do [is provide] some education, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do—say, “Hey this is fun and all, but its not really very serious research on what these colleges are, and what they offer, and how good they are for students. There’s some valuable stuff in there, but overall we don’t find it terribly useful.”

I think that’s what we’re going to face when we go back to talk to them.

DAN LEVIN: Would it be fair to say that more presidents, perhaps even ones from some of the very highly ranked institutions, would speak out against the rankings or clarify their role in the rankings if they had support from their boards?

KATHERINE WILL: I think boards are going to have to think very seriously about this. I’d go so far as to say I think it’s an ethical issue, because those who benefit from it [are] in the top 10 or top 25. You know, they’re wonderful schools, no one has any doubt about that, but is it really of interest to you to have a magazine… like US News… but which has no special expertise in higher education whatsoever [be the arbiter of quality]? …. [Do] you want to put your eggs in that basket?

And that’s a real question, because the leading colleges in US News’s opinion could really make an impression by saying to the public, “Hey, there’s a lot more valuable information out there than is offered in US News.”

DAN LEVIN: I’ve heard that some schools have reallocated student-aid funds in efforts to attract greater numbers of students with high test scores, perhaps at the expense of needy students. And that others have dropped SAT requirements, perhaps to cull low scorers from those that they admit. And we also know that’s schools routinely mount expensive promotional campaigns to influence the institutional officials who fill out these reputational surveys. Have the rankings distorted the priorities of some colleges and universities?

KATHERINE WILL: Of course we all hope that that isn’t the case, but it certainly is true that any school with a sophisticated institutional research office knows how to affect US News, and the factors on which you can have some influence. One of the reasons we object to it is that so much of it is based on financial resources. And it’s good to know, of course, if a school has good financial resources, but that isn’t everything. Many of the factors can be traced back to that. But ones you can affect are SAT scores, the reputation score, and having really great students with good scores who are in the top 10 percent of their class. It’s also true to say that we would all like to have really great and wonderful students at our colleges because we think students learn not only from the faculty at college but from one another. So it could be a measure of quality of the institution where you had the best students possible there, and you’re really selective. The use of merit aid, to which you referred, would lead towards that, and there are very few schools out there right now who don’t have merit aid mixed in a little bit with their need-based financial aid.

DAN LEVIN: One of the things that US News places a high premium on is per-student spending. And of course boards are judging presidents on how well they control costs. Doesn’t that put them in somewhat of a double bind to spend more money on students on the one hand and to control institutional costs on the other?

KATHERINE WILL: Well I think I’m right in saying that what US News looks at is endowment per student. And if you’re referring to another element, then maybe the question is different.

DAN LEVIN: I’m under the impression that US News uses per-student spending as part of its formula. At any rate, the question is really whether institutions are spending money on one hand [to rise in the rankings] and being asked to control costs on the other?

KATHERINE WILL: Well, it would definitely matter which one it was, because if it were endowment per student then obviously that’s just a measure of how big your endowment is compared to how many students you have. If it’s about how much you spend on them, well, there is an element in US News called faculty resources, for instance, which is how much you spend on faculty, which can be seen as being spent on students. And so yeah, there’s a real conundrum there, where you would want to show up well. But any good administrator is not going to do that, and that’s where the education process comes because you have to explain to a board, “OK, we can control costs, but I want you to know how this is going to look in US News.” And taking it to the next level, I want you to understand how US News might be leading us to think about things differently than we really should.

DAN LEVIN: What do you think about the idea of presidents earning bonuses for rising in the rankings? Should a board evaluate a president on whether it rises or falls over the long term?

KATHERINE WILL: I think that would be a big mistake. Again, I think it is the obligation [of presidents] to talk to boards about US News and the metrics they use. Some of them aren’t transparent enough.… When I said people know which factors they might be able to affect, that doesn’t mean they are going to be able to affect them. For instance, the reputational score. People have done promotions of their colleges for years and years and years. There’s what’s called, sort of, the “sweet season” when everyone sends out their cool stuff to everybody else. You know: what books your faculty have published and what awards you’ve given.

DAN LEVIN: A lot of that stuff ends up in the trash, I guess.

KATHERINE WILL: Exactly! And everyone knows exactly what’s going on. And yeah, all of these beautiful materials go straight in the trash because you say to yourself, “Well that’s great. I’m so glad they’re doing well, but I know what this is all about.” So affecting the reputational score is very difficult. That’s been shown for many, many years. It tends to lag behind by about 15 or 20 years, maybe since all of the presidents and provosts went to college themselves.

So, a lot of it is, I can guarantee to you, unaffectable. And a lot of it depends on how much money you have as an institution. That’s pretty unaffectable. I know that boards want metrics, but I think boards should establish the metrics that they think are best for their institution, and then the president would feel much more comfortable trying to meet them.

DAN LEVIN: Let’s go back to the Annapolis Group for a minute. I know the Annapolis Group is involved with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Council of Independent Colleges in constructing a Web site for students and families that will allow meaningful comparisons among institutions, as opposed to a ranking system. Tell us a little bit about that.

KATHERINE WILL: We thought not only should we say we have concerns about US News but that we should do something positive. Our premise was that people out there want more information about colleges and universities. The secretary of Education has said that she had difficulty finding information about colleges and universities when her daughter was applying. We actually thought that was somewhat ironic because the secretary of Education has a wonderful Web site that is full of all sorts of information, and colleges and universities have long been collecting lots of data under the IPEDS system. So there’s lots and lots of information out there. But the thing is, is it easy to use? And so we wanted to do two things: (a) make information easily accessible and easy to use and (b) invite students and families to compare colleges, but not be seeking a ranking. [Think of it] as sort of like a marriage. You know you’re going to spend at least four years [at college], and there’s a match for everyone, there’s a place where you’re going to thrive. And we’d like to give the kind of information where you can really figure out if you were going to thrive there. It would be much more information, and much more qualitative as well as quantitative than US News is. But kids love computers so it would have to be accessible online, and it would have to allow you to compare schools.

DAN LEVIN: Do you have any sense of the timing for this effort at this point?

KATHERINE WILL: We have a group working on it…. It’s the presidents and institutional researchers at some of our great Annapolis Group schools, and they are liaisons with NAICU and CIC and with any other group who is working on this. Their goal is to come out with something or at least some kind of plan or proposal by the spring of 2008.

DAN LEVIN: Kate Will, thank you very much for taking part in this interview.

KATHERINE WILL: It was my pleasure.

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