Bowling Green State University finds itself among a list of 80 colleges and universities across the
United States singled out for having a faculty "with an unusual commitment to undergraduate
teaching."
The listing is part of U.S. News and World Report 2010 Americas Best Colleges and Universities released
today. The category is new this year.
Under the "National Universities" subtitle, BGSU is one of 19 named. The list is headed by
Dartmouth. Following are Princeton, Yale, Stanford and University of Maryland-Baltimore County, tied for
fourth.
Brown is listed as fifth, followed by College of William and Mary, with Duke, Miami (Ohio) and Notre Dame
tied for eighth. BGSU is tied for 11th along with Howard, Rice, California-Berkeley, University of
Chicago, University of Michigan, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, St. Thomas and Wake Forest.
BGSU President Carol Cartwright said late this morning BGSU officials would have been disappointed if the
university were not included in such a list.
"It’s one of the hallmarks of BGSU," she said. "I understood it was a high priority when I
was on the other side of the state (president at Kent State) when looking at what our peers were
doing."
Cartwright said the recent strategic planning exercise at BGSU provided "good reinforcement of that
character of the university." She said a distinctive and outstanding undergraduate experience is
part of every corner of the university. "It is baked right into our DNA," she said.
Cartwright believes making the "A Focus on Undergrads" list is more valuable to the university
as a recruiting tool than being high on an overall rating list. "This gets right to the heart of
what any student or parent ought to expect," she said.
BGSU is also on a list of 25 universities noted for their learning communities and 30 schools noted for
first year experience programs.
Miami is the only other Ohio school on the learning communities list.
BGSU was first included on the first-year experience list in the 2006 report, and has been noted for its
learning communities multiple times, beginning in 2003.
Cartwright said the importance of learning communities can be seen in the approval last week by BGSU
trustees of a master plan for residence and dining halls. "And it’s not just residence halls. We
have some new ideas in the Connecting the Undergraduate Experience program being developed."
While there have been changes in the first-year experience, Cartwright said that aspect remains important
and has "programs that number in the dozens university-wide. We have worked hard to preserve this
as we have cut expenses. Some programs have been cut but the ideas have been folded into other programs.
It remains a high priority," she said.
Perennial contenders Harvard and Princeton share the top spot in the university rankings. Williams heads
the list of liberal arts colleges.
The latest edition of the contentious but closely followed "America’s Best Colleges" appears
online and in print.
Last year, Princeton had surrendered the top spot to Harvard after eight straight years at least tied for
No. 1. This year the Ivy League rivals are followed by No. 3 Yale and a four-way tie for No. 4: Cal
Tech, MIT, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania.
(Associated Press also contributed to this report.