Down but not out

DANIEL McCABE | Okay everybody, take a deep breath and come to grips with it. We're number four. In the latest university ranking issue of Maclean's, published last week, McGill drops one notch in the category of medical/doctoral universities. The University of British Columbia has skipped by us to tie with Queen's for second place. The University of Toronto is again at the top of the list. The woman principally responsible for putting together the rankings, a perennial best seller for Maclean's, counsels us not to feel too bad about our drop from third to fourth. "McGill shouldn't be upset at all," says Ann Dowsett Johnston, the magazine's assistant managing editor. We actually did better in the rankings this year than last. McGill earned a higher overall score in the different measures that Maclean's uses to rank universities than was the case a year ago. But while we improved, "UBC improved even more," says Johnston. Why? Well, UBC deserves credit, no doubt about it, but it also had access to better resources. "In BC, the government has frozen tuition fees [as is the case in Quebec], but there has also been a major re-investment in education," says Dowsett Johnston, noting that Quebec hasn't made a similar move. "I just think it's deplorable." Principal Bernard Shapiro is in agreement with Dowsett Johnston on that point. "One needs resources in order to produce better results," says Shapiro. Given that McGill is, by the government's own admission, underfunded compared to its sister universities in Quebec, the fact that it can hang tough in a ranking exercise with the best universities in the country is an achievement. "In that sense, I'm very proud of McGill." Adds Shapiro, "There are plenty of institutions that spend more money than we do, which don't achieve the same good results that we do." As usual, McGill's students and faculty performed well in the ranking exercise. In its category, McGill placed first for proportion of students with grades of 75 per cent or higher and for the number of awards won by students. The University came in second for average entering grade, proportion of students who graduate, number of international students at the graduate level and number of students from out of the province. Professors finished second for awards per full-time faculty, third for medical/science grants received and fourth for social sciences and humanities grants. On the down side, McGill finished 12th in library acquisitions and ninth in classes taught by full-time faculty. Dowsett Johnston is critical of the way all of Canada's provinces fund their universities. "Americans see education as an investment. We see it as an expenditure. That's foolhardy. That's the kind of approach that will result in us losing the brain drain battle." She says if governments aren't prepared to give universities more funding, they should at least give the institutions more leeway in how they spend what they've got. "If you're not going [to give universities more funding], loosen up the controls. Governments should believe that their academic leaders know how to steer the ship. [Governments] want to have it both ways." In an essay she penned to accompany the rankings, she warns that universities will be facing an enrolment surge in the next decade, just as a big chunk of university professors retire. According to Johnston, between now and 2010, "Canadian universities must go on a shopping spree for 32,000 new professors." She thinks the message is starting to get through. Business leaders are beginning to rally to the cause of higher education, and the federal government draws Dowsett Johnston's praise for its new research chairs initiative; Ottawa will fund 1,200 new chairs at universities over the next three years in a bid to convince talented researchers to stay put in Canada. Shapiro says the enrolment leap won't be quite as acute in Quebec as it will be in Ontario and BC where the populations are growing more quickly. Still, he expects McGill to witness a big jump in student applications over the next decade. As a university that draws a large percentage of its student body from other provinces, McGill will be the school of choice for many of the growing number of non-Quebec Canadian students. Shapiro adds that the increased demand for higher education won't be just about demographics. As the workplace becomes more complex, employees will feel pressured to add to their skills. "That's bound to increase" the percentage of Canadians opting for university education, says Shapiro. What does he think of the Maclean's university rankings exercise? Given that universities are big, complex institutions with a variety of different goals and activities, any ranking exercise targeted for a popular medium "will have to be oversimplified in the end," says Shapiro. Still, he credits the magazine for showering the country's universities with attention once a year. "That's good for all of us. "No one has ever suggested that the universities who finish in the top third or in the bottom third shouldn't be where they are [in the rankings]. They get some things right." Dowsett Johnston thinks McGill will fare well in the future. "The successful institutions will focus in a clear-eyed way" on what they want to become, she says, adding, "McGill has been doing that. "I do know, anecdotally, that McGill might be the hottest university in Canada. Almost every smart student I know is asking me about McGill."