By ryan September 28, 2000
Rankings are out again. Not only has Business Week released its annual list of top business schools, but U.S. News and World Report has issued a new ranking of colleges based on best value. In Business Week, the Johnson School of Management maintained its holding on the number eight spot in overall rankings, while scoring as high as second in the subcategories of faculty accessibility and networking connections. Last year, the business school jumped to eighth from 18th. Business Week attributed the improvement to new administrators at the helm. “We held our position; that makes it a major achievement,” said Robert J. Swieringa, dean of the business school. “Usually the people who move up fall back down.” Business schools draw an older admissions pool and the average age at Cornell is 29, according to Business Week. “They’re very careful applicants,” Swieringa said. Business Week called attention to Cornell’s reconstructed building, wireless networking and the Parker Center for Investment Research. Students surveyed in the article praised the faculty. “The major thing that they’re doing in the business school is improving faculty responsiveness,” said Prof. Ronald Ehrenberg, labor economics. Last year’s jump in the rankings saw a “dramatic increase” in applications for the business school. “Students are very interested in reputation,” Swieringa said. “That’s a very competitive market.” The top three spots in the rankings went to University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Northwestern and Harvard. U.S. News and World Report news rankings this year were based on a ratio of quality to price. Cornell took the tenth spot, tied with the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Columbia, University of Austin-Texas and University of Virginia. The magazine looked at the school’s ranking in the survey of America’s Best Colleges, percentage of all students receiving financial aid, and the average percentage of tuition covered by financial aid. However, with California Institute of Technology, Harvard and Rice taking the top three spots, the list is very similar to the earlier rankings released by U.S. News and World Report. Ehrenberg observed that most of the top-rated college have comparable tuition and therefore the purpose of these new rankings is “to sell more magazines.” Henrik N. Dullea ’61, vice president for university relations, noted that the rankings don’t always determine how the University will fare when all applications are sent. “When our rankings dropped, we had more applications and better quality,” Dullea said, referring to a lower acceptance rate and higher yield this year even with Cornell’s drop from sixth to eleventh. However, Dullea noted, “We offered substantially fewer offers this year [by several hundred] in order to meet the 3000 target. … That will account for us positively in next year’s rankings.”Archived article by Beth Herskovits
By ryan September 28, 2000
Cornell tends to operate like its mighty clocktower. Since 1865, few routines have struck a level of constancy like Cornell’s. And as all activity inside Uris Library’s time-keeping icon would cease without its gears, so would the University come to a halt if not for the energy its staff provides. “Students leave at the end of the semester, and the faculty for the most part leaves at the end of the semester,” said Dennis Stein, employee outreach manager. “It’s the staff that serves as the glue [holding the University together].” The Cornell staff consists of about 7,900 people, providing the daily functions that enable students and faculty to convene on the Hill and to conduct their everyday lives at school. Performing duties ranging from transportation to housekeeping and from dining to groundskeeping, the staff is literally indispensable — but many argue that the attention Cornell workers receive during regular University operations is hardly indicative of the role they play here. The lack of staff visibility then becomes particularly troubling to some when considering compensation. “You pay based on what you value, you value what you know and what you understand, and the staff are easily missed in the comings and goings of the [University],” said Vice President for Human Resources Mary Opperman. “I knew the day I came in that we would have to improve pay,” Opperman said, and to do so this year, “we are probably going to have some hard choices to make.” For instance, Opperman noted, there is a direct correlation between the salaries and wages paid by the University and student tuition. Cornell will be pressed to modify its budgetary procedures if it is to bring a major compensation initiative to its staff. But if there are funds available for the initiative in Cornell’s coffers, then University officials say they are prepared to find them. Just last summer President Hunter R. Rawlings III and Provost Biddy (Carolyn A.) Martin announced a long-term program to benefit faculty. In his announcement, Rawlings said, “Overall faculty salary pools in the endowed units have increased from 3 percent only a few years ago to more than 5 percent last year. Now we must . . . improve our relative position in comparison with our peer institutions.” Rawlings began this year stressing the need to examine staff compensation as well. “I think it is a real commitment on the part of the University to recognize the faculty issue,” Opperman said, but “when you solve problems in an institution you can’t do it in fragments of the population.” “When you are addressing the community, you [must] mention the staff,” said Dawn Darby, Employee Assembly (EA) chair. Many employee representatives — and staff members themselves — have acknowledged the clear distinctions not just in the functions of faculty, staff and students but in the way that the University perceives them as well. Staff paychecks simply stand to demonstrate the perception of staff’s value, Darby said, as it did for a friend and former colleague of hers. Recently a member of the Cornell staff, Darby’s friend — whose name shall remain anonymous — sought what she believed would be a more appropriate wage for her services. “She went on-line, and she researched it. Just about every other school was paying more for her services,” Darby said. And so, “she went to MIT.” Many people take a job at Cornell for reasons other than compensation, Darby said. They may be interested in raising a family here or this may be the only job that they feel comfortable holding, she said. And “that is the reason why [staff compensation] has been such a back-burner issue,” Darby said. Now, however, it is time for the University to make a decision for its staff. Cornell is building a strong learning environment for the future upon the work of its professors, and now, Opperman said, the University must ask itself, “What kind of a role do you want staff to play in that community?” Cautiously optimistic, some employee representatives seek an expanded role in the University for its staff. But for that to happen, changes must be made. The current academic calendar, a 100-year look at the College of Human Ecology, presents a classic example of staff’s underrepresentation, said Sarah Johnson ’95, EA representative. For each month the calendar depicts a scene from the college’s history, but Johnson noted one peculiarity. “None of the people in the pictures are identified as staff members,” Johnson said. Many staff members are also conspicuously absent from the University’s electronic directory. With millions of dollars pouring into construction, scholarships and research, some Cornell employees are beginning to wonder about their roles in this community. Dwelling on massive gifts to the University like the two $100 million dollar gifts received in the past two years, Mary Anne Austin, on the dining service staff, wants to know: “Does anyone ever donate money toward dining?” “Cornell is not known for its dining; it is known for its research [and] its degrees,” Austin said, and though many may disagree about the University dining program’s reputation, Austin’s consternation is not unique. Charles Pratt, a short order cook, also wonders why the dining unit only gets as much money as is currently allotted for compensating workers. “Why are we struggling trying to get money when the faculty are getting it automatically?” Pratt wondered aloud. “In a university where you see such great wealth, it’s very hard to feel like your needs are being met,” Opperman said. Theories of relativity aside, the question remains: Are the needs of the staff being met? “They see this faculty package being bandied about,” Stein said, “and the staff is beginning to ask, ‘when are we going to see something ourselves?'” “The University seems to be saying that students and faculty are our primary concern — and staff are less important,” Stein said. “But my own view is that staff are equally important.” “So if compensation is on the table for the faculty, then it needs to be on the table for staff as well,” Stein added. Of late, the University has been making the gradual improvements to staff wages and salaries, Opperman said, as it had been doing with the faculty. “Over the last five years we put way more into the pay than any of the other local employers,” she said. But the University, according to Rawlings, will concentrate this year on a staff initiative, which may be more difficult to implement than it was for professors. The reasons, Opperman said, are simple. “We would have to have fewer [staff members], or you would have to pay $50,000 [tuition,]” she said. “Somebody has to pay that bill.” For faculty, on the other hand, the University uses different sources of revenue for its compensation, and faculty are more generally classified. Staff fall under various classifications, non-union or union workers (with even smaller categories even within the unionized staff category) and academic non-faculty. Subject to various compensation standards, some staff members get lost in the process and find their questions unanswered and their concerns unaddressed. “A lot of times people feel like we get left out in the dark,” said Lindsay Van Berkom, cashier, wondering why some obstacles cannot be removed that seem debilitating or unnecessary to the staff. For instance, Van Be