The University of Virginia got off to a rocky start this school year, not least because so many of its top leadership positions are vacant. UVa’s placement in national rankings, in which officials have said only No. 1 will do, either slipped significantly, held steady or increased only incrementally over last year.
In U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of the best universities in the country, UVa fell two spots to No. 26, tied with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the public school category, UVa ranked No. 4, the same as last year and tied once again with UNC. UVa ranked No. 27 for best-value school overall, moving up three spots from last year.
This past June, U.S. News & World Report’s competitor, the Princeton Review, ranked UVa No. 2 best public school for value, No. 4 best public school for financial aid and No. 8 best public school for students who do not qualify for financial aid. The Princeton Review does not provide overall rankings.
The latest numbers are still impressive considering the university bested most in a crowd of more than 1,700 U.S. colleges, but it’s still not where UVa leadership has expressly said it would like to be. Recently departed President Jim Ryan — who resigned in July under pressure from the Trump administration over his handling of diversity policies — instituted a "Great and Good" plan, which he described as "a 10-year roadmap designed to make UVA the best public university in the country by 2030."
Ryan and other university leaders have not been explicit about which metric they would use to judge this.
But it is unlikely the university will be advertising its free speech and open inquiry ranking, which tumbled this year from first in the nation to 21st.
It was already a surprise to many when the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, ranked UVa No.1 last year amid an uptick in reported antisemitism and Islamophobia, crackdowns on student protests, and restrictions on the time, place and manner of public demonstrations on Grounds.
FIRE, which surveyed 315 UVa students to assess the school this year, says UVa’s lower ranking reflects growing skepticism and diminishing trust in university leadership.
Presenting the results to the Jefferson Council conservative alumni association on Sept. 24, Connor Murnane, FIRE’s campus advocacy chief of staff, said fewer students at the university feel comfortable expressing their ideas.
“On the comfort rank last year, when UVa scored No. 1, the comfort rank was 107 out of 254 schools. This year, 211. So more than a 100-point drop,” he said. “Self-censorship rank: 112 last year; this year, 183.”
Murnane said that trust in the UVa administration and its policies dropped from 97 last year to 210 this year.
“It’s real interesting and real sad too that you have a school like UVa that is good on paper, bad in practice. And it seems clear that the students get it, but UVa doesn’t give a damn," he said. "All the students don’t trust the admin. They’re self-censoring. They’re fine with violence."
"Every metric, from a student standpoint, is going in the gutter," he added.
FIRE did not respond to a Daily Progress inquiry into when the survey was taken or what other differences it noted between this year and last, but interim UVa President Paul Mahoney did address the rankings before the university’s governing Board of Visitors at a meeting Sept. 12.
“FIRE said that our lower ranking was a result of unease and skepticism toward the school’s leadership over the past year, despite strong written free speech policies. Students also expressed low confidence that they could freely express their views and that the administration would back them if they did,” Mahoney told the board.
"I note this not out of concern for the ranking itself, but for the feedback it gives us about what we are doing or failing to do to create an atmosphere conducive to open discussion," he added.
At the same meeting, Mahoney said that one of his long-term goals is maintaining free speech and open inquiry on Grounds.
“I am personally committed to making free speech a priority this year, from creating more student-facing events that promote civil discourse and open inquiry, to improving next year’s new-student orientation, because free expression and constructive engagement must be the hallmark of a UVa education,” Mahoney said.
The Board of Visitors unanimously approved a "Statement on Free Expression and Free Inquiry" on June 4, 2021, and the Faculty Senate affirmed that statement the following year. The statement says that while “all views, beliefs and perspectives deserve to be articulated and heard free from interference,” there are also “important limits” to free expression.
“Promoting and protecting free speech on Grounds is core to our mission and integral to who we are,” UVa spokeswoman Bethanie Glover told the Daily Progress after the FIRE rankings were announced. “Looking ahead, we will keep in mind the feedback offered by the community in the FIRE surveys as we pursue the vision and goals of the University.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com