Rice Ranks Competitively Among Top Schools

Rice University’s competitiveness with the nation’s other top research universities is reflected in two recent rankings: one for faculty scholarly productivity and one for the number of doctorates awarded in science and engineering.

Multiple departments in Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and School of Humanities ranked among the top 10 research universities in the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. The index, assembled by Academic Analytics, a company owned partially by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, ranked 7,294 individual doctoral programs in 104 disciplines at 354 institutions.

Rice’s highest ranking was in computer engineering—No. 2—followed closely by a No. 3 ranking in both bioengineering and electrical engineering. History and philosophy ranked ninth and 10th, respectively. The productivity of each faculty member was measured, and faculty members could be judged on as many as three factors, depending on the most important variables in the given discipline: publications, which could include the number of books and journal articles published as well as citations of journal articles; federal-grant dollars awarded; and honors and awards.

Details about the variables in scoring the ranking can be found at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Web site at chronicle.com/stats/productivity. Select Rice U. under “Choose an institution.”

In an annual ranking of the number of science and engineering doctorate degrees by baccalaureate institution, Rice placed 12th among private colleges and universities. However, when the statistics are normalized for size, Rice has the fifth highest percentage of students among private colleges and universities (following CalTech, MIT, Harvey Mudd College and Carleton College). On the assumption that freshmen completed their doctorate degree right after receiving theirundergraduate degree, almost 9 percent of Rice’s entering class of 1996 received a PhD in 2005.

Based on the 2005 Survey of Earned Doctorates, which lists more than 43,000 doctorate recipients at more than 400 U.S. research institutions between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2005, Rice’s ranking reflects a total of 59 doctorates awarded to undergraduate alumni in the academic disciplines of engineering, physical sciences, geosciences, math and computer sciences and life sciences.

Originally conducted by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the survey is now conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. Results and other details about the survey are available at the National Science Foundation Web site, www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/.