8/18/06 David M. Granger, 334/844-9999 (grangdm@auburn.edu)
Deedie Dowdle, 334/844-9999 (ddowdle@auburn.edu)

U.S. NEWS RANKS AUBURN AMONG TOP 50 PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES FOR 14th CONSECUTIVE YEAR

AUBURN - Auburn University is ranked 39th among public universities nationwide, according to an annual survey released by U.S. News & World Report today.|

The ranking marks the 14th consecutive year the magazine has ranked AU among the nation’s top 50 public universities.

“We’re pleased that we have again been ranked among the top 50 public universities in the country,” said interim AU President Ed Richardson. “When you look at the data, what stands out about this university is our rising academic reputation and programs, including our College of Engineering, which performed exceptionally well in this survey. We are attracting outstanding freshmen and the value-added ranking, among the region’s best, shows we are providing them with meaningful academic opportunities when they arrive on campus.

“As always, the ranking reflects hard work by the faculty, staff, administration and students and the commitment of the Board of Trustees.”

Auburn’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering was ranked 60th nationally overall and 35th among public universities that offer doctoral programs in engineering. Last year, the College ranked 67th among all engineering programs and 40th among such programs at public universities.
“Moving ahead in these rankings is central to our strategic planning as we position the college to compete for the best students to learn in an environment that joins a world-class faculty with state-of-the-art facilities that are now coming on line with the construction of the Shelby Center for Engineering Technology,” said AU Engineering Dean Larry Benefield. “I appreciate the support we have received from the university, our alumni, and industrial partners. Our faculty has in particular made the kind of effort needed to bring us to the next level through a renewed focus on our outreach and research efforts while maintaining our core competencies in undergraduate instruction. This is made more remarkable in the face of intense competition from competing engineering programs throughout the nation.”

The newsstand book, America’s Best Colleges, which contains the U.S. News college rankings, may be ordered from www.usnews.com and will be shipped to bookstores today.

To establish its rankings U.S. News categorizes colleges and universities primarily by mission and, in some cases, region. The magazine then gathers data from each on up to 15 indicators of academic excellence, assigning each factor a weight that reflects the magazine’s judgment about how much each measure matters.

The indicators the magazine staff uses to capture academic quality fall into seven categories: academic reputation among its peers, retention of students, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving, and (for national universities and liberal arts colleges) the graduation rate performance, or the difference between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who actually do.

Auburn University is a preeminent land-grant and comprehensive research institution with more than 23,000 students and 6,500 faculty and staff. Ranked among the top 50 public universities nationally, Auburn is Alabama’s largest educational institution, offering more than 230 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs.
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aug06: AU-usnews07