Editorial
UH reputation more crucial than rankings

University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle made a smart decision last week in his reaction to the latest ranking of American colleges by U.S. News & World Report.

The usual response to such rankings is to downplay their importance (which is actually a sensible thing to do) or to point out particular areas of strength even though UH generally places within the lower tier of major universities.

But Dobelle homed in on a key component of the ranking: the reputation of a university among its peers. The category for "academic reputation," which is the biggest factor among many that go into the ratings, is built on the subjective judgment of academic leaders themselves.

Clearly, this is not a measurement of how good a school is in actuality. Rather, it is a measurement of how good others think the school is.

Coming off years of budget-squeezing and a recent faculty strike, it is no wonder that UH took a hit on overall reputation.

Rather than try to parse all this out, however, Dobelle cannily used the report to begin building a counteroffensive.

"We're at rock bottom," he said. That, of course, is not literally true. UH is in the "third tier" of national universities with a number of other credible institutions. And clearly, UH remains a bargain; it ranked 16th among universities whose graduates carry the least amount of debt.

The information that goes into the U.S. News rankings is useful to high school graduates and their families as they search for a college: What is the student-faculty ratio? Does my background fit the profile of those who tend to get admitted?

But the particular place of any university on the list is not terribly relevant.

Dobelle has ambitious plans for the University of Hawai'i . To accomplish those goals, he'll need the support of the political establishment, the campus and the community at large.

If he pooh-poohed this report, it would disappear and we'd go on our way. Rather, he is using it as one way to rally the community around UH and its dreams of greatness.

If the community listens — and it should — Hawai'i can count on rising rapidly through the ranks of this annual exercise.