Sorry, never heard of it: Wittenberg's new quest for prestige

By: Jesse Steele

Posted: 11/9/06

We've all done it. You get that question from people and for some reason you feel a little embarrassed. You know what their response will be. Maybe you should just lie?

Sound familiar? This thought process has been echoed by many Wittenberg students in response to the dreaded "Where do you go to school?" question. So why do some students stutter and play it off as "some little school in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio," instead of proudly decreeing "I go to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio!" Do students just assume no one has heard of it, or are they embarrassed about where they go to school? Why should they be? Wittenberg is one of the most prestigious liberal arts schools in the nation, right?

Well, maybe. A recent nationally published report may serve to cut into that prestige and give Wittenberg students a real reason to mumble. The report was published in the 2007 US News and World Report College Rankings. Anyone who stopped to examine these rankings would notice that the prestigious Wittenberg University, after five years in the second tier among liberal arts schools, had remained in the bottom tier by the US News standards.

While US News does not rank schools by number in the third tier, the rankings from the Washington monthly place Wittenberg at number 118 amongst liberal arts colleges. This ranking puts Wittenberg behind Denison at 108, Wooster at 98, Ohio Wesleyan at 96 and Oberlin at 18.

So why should students care? As James Monks and Ronald G. Ehrenberg said in their 1999 analysis for the National Bureau of Economic Research, "Our analysis indicates that a less favorable ranking leads an institution to accept a greater percentage of its applicants […] smaller percentage of applicants matriculate, and resulting entering class is of lower quality." Such a disaster could spell big trouble for Wittenberg students and faculty, so why is the level of concern so low on campus?

The truth is that most students aren't even aware of the change. Sophomore Andrew Goldstein said, "Really? I thought we were one of the best. Why do we pay $40,000 a year?" While the tuition is actually closer to $37,000, Goldstein's question is a valid one. Are Wittenberg students paying too much for an education that is less than they were promised? Wittenberg President Mark Erickson says no.

"As a university, we've always been hovering around the same place in the rankings, this year we just happened to end up on the wrong side of that [third tier] line," the president said. Erickson may seem dismissive of this type of bad news, especially given the potential effects, but he believes that there are much more important factors in students selecting a school than the ranking.

"In fact," he says, "the only reason we care about the ranking at all is because people look at it and it reflects on us as a university." Erickson spoke disdainfully about the strategy followed by many colleges and universities that focuses only on those attributes factored into US News rankings. While he is admittedly intensely competitive, the president said he was "not the least bit discouraged" and emphasized that it was more important "to make the right decisions for the right reasons."

Junior Jon Felter, a transfer from prestigious New York University, was unconcerned as well. "I came here because it was cheaper than NYU and I had a good friend that went [to Wittenberg], but since I've been here I've been really blown away by the professors and the classes and just the overall atmosphere of campus."

This is exactly the type of attitude that Erickson references when he continually speaks about the power of Wittenberg. He constantly hears stories from alumni raving about the connections that they had with professors and is very confident in the quality of teaching going on at Wittenberg, he said.

"I've been to some prestigious places, Harvard, Princeton, Lehigh, but I would put our professors against any of those," he said of the Wittenberg faculty.

As for the campus atmosphere, that too is part of the magic to Erickson. Incorporated with the new "Distinctively Wittenberg Plan" is a new marketing plan that emphasizes talking up all of the positive qualities of the school and a new student-recruiting program that emphasizes getting the students onto the campus.

"I can't tell you how many times I've had people come on to this campus and then say they would love to have their kids come here," the president said. "People always tell me we're like this hidden gem. I love being a gem but I hate being hidden."

While many students at Wittenberg may be apathetic or indeed simply unaware of Wittenberg's public profile, Erickson encourages those who wish to make a difference changing the public face of the university to "stop being so modest." Two years ago, in his inauguration speech, Erickson said that Wittenberg is better than it is perceived to be, and that it "is better than even some within the school realize."

So next time someone asks you that dreaded question, "Where do you go to school?" will you heed the words of President Erickson, or will you just say you've joined the circus?