U.S. News & World Report has ranked The University of Iowa as tied for 20th place among the best public universities in the country.
The magazine also ranked the Henry B. Tippie College of Business as tied for 28th place, compared to a tie for 32nd place last year. The University’s College of Engineering tied for 56th, compared to a tie for 52nd last year.
The U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on questionnaires filled out by administrators at more than 1,400 universities and colleges. The data are scored on 16 indicators in seven categories of academic reputation, retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation performance rate, and alumni giving rate.
President Mary Sue
Coleman noted that rankings reflect the strength of the Big Ten universities
as a whole as well as the University in particular.
The Four-Year Graduation Plan, a contract between the University and students that promises that students who fulfill a number of expectations will be able to take courses and graduate in four years, is showing marked success.
The plan, adopted in 1995, has enrolled about 50 percent of all entering students since then. Of
all students who signed up for the program in 1995, 42 percent graduated in four years. That compares with a 27 percent graduation rate for students who did not sign up for the plan.
The plan requires
that students take 15 hours or more of classes per semester and not change
their major or drop classes. Students who intend to study abroad or to
complete an internship as part of their degree must plan carefully in
order to graduate in four years.
P. Barry Butler, mechanical engineering professor in the College of Engineering, has been named its dean. The appointment was effective November 21.
Butler was interim
dean during 1999 and associate dean for academic programs from 1997-1999.
He is chair of the mechanical engineering department. A nationally recognized
expert in thermal science and energetic materials, he has conducted a
study on how conventional auto airbags work in order to help design safer
airbags for new cars and trucks.
Viewers of the recent Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, had three chances to see performances by former University of Iowa athletes.
The first two were wrestlers Lincoln McIlravy and Terry Brands, and both made Hawkeyes proud when they won bronze medals. Brands is now an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska. His brother, Tom, won a gold medal in wrestling four years ago in the Atlanta Olympics. McIlravy is an assistant coach at the University of Northern Iowa.
The third Iowa presence required a sharp eye and a good memory. Trampolining was an Olympic demonstration sport for the first time in Sydney. To celebrate, the Olympics brought George Nissen, 86, to watch the sport tramp-side. After all, Nissen, a former carnival barker, invented the trampoline while he was a student at The University of Iowa in the early 1930s.
The Chicago Tribune,
in an article questioning whether trampolining is a recreation rather
than a sport, quoted Nissen as apologizing because, although he can do
a back flip and walk on his hands around the trampoline, he can no longer
press up to a handstand.
Because of unexpectedly high quotes from bus companies, University of Iowa Student Government will not contract for "Home for the Holidays" bus service for Iowa students to the Chicago suburbs and Des Moines. UISG says it will rebid the project next year.