The University of Houston reached a milestone on Tuesday that will further propel our academic institution into the top tier of colleges. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching awarded UH the highest level of recognition pertaining to research. UH was classified as a “very high research activity” institution.
This classification is the equivalent to flagship status. This goal was achieved before President Renu Khator and most others expected, but before any complacency sets in everyone at UH must remember that the road ahead is still a lengthy one.
The University of Texas and Texas A&M have been Tier One institutions long before Tuesday. This means that we can’t fall victim to anything that will be detrimental to our newly achieved status and hard work. As our progress continues into the future, we must remain tenacious in our efforts to bolster the name of UH.
To truly accomplish flagship status, the University has to keep increasing alumni donations, increase the number of doctorates awarded and raise academic standards and performance.
Reaching the level of prestige that Texas and Texas A&M have means continuing to emerge as the smartest college in Texas. Taking pride in our school has a lot to do with this. Alumni with pride are more likely to give back to their alma mater once they become successful. Undergraduates with pride often choose to stay within their university to achieve a graduate degree.
With many top ranked programs, the University is beginning to offer exciting paths for not only current and local students applying to college, but to those from outside of Houston as well. The University of Houston Law Center is currently ranked 60th among other Tier One law schools by U.S. News and World Reports. The C.T. Bauer College of Business is ranked 18th in the U.S. for Executive MBA programs, according to a Financial Times 2010 report.
UH has many accomplishments to be proud of — including our new flagship status. If we continue to be tenacious in our efforts to build a sense of pride and strive for better performance each year, UH will continue to transform Houston and Texas for the better.
The Carnegie classification is indeed an important milestone for UH and we should all be proud of it!
However, I am very concerned with the way the president and the administration are using this in a very MISLEADING way. If you look at UH websites, you see statements like "We are now a Tier One Research University". The Carnegie classification is not about Tier One, Tier Two, etc…
The 1994 Carnegie classifications did have Research Universities I and Research Universities II classification. However, recognizing the limitations of this classification system, Carnegie changed its classification methodology and does not use anymore these Tier one / tier two categories. They are clear about the fact that these classifications are based on quantitative measures and are not intended to measure quality.
While UH is making significant progress, the type of misleading PR efforts by the administration is embarrassing and may hamper significantly our ability to move forward. The general public and those who do not know the details of these things may not notice these issues. However, important decision makers are knowledgeable about these matters and such misleading PR campaigns can easily destroy our credibility.
Unfortunately, this type of misleading PR has been the characteristic of this administration; as an other example: recently they were bragging about a new national academy member at UH who, after all, turned out to be a Rice Professor with a courtesy adjunct appointment at UH…
@anon
University of Houston has been pursuing Tier One status since I was a student in 1996. It makes since from a communications perspective to continue to state the goal as achieving Tier One instead of achieving “very high research activity.” They would confuse people if they did that.
I do not think that this is misleading.