The University of Florida’s stagnating ranking could be the beginning of the fall
As a proud alumnus of the University of Florida, I have quite the soft spot for my school; I love my alma mater so much, I still open UF’s marketing emails when they land in my inbox.
The most recent one, instead of proclaiming the typical water-into-wine scientific breakthrough by Jesus (who happens to work in UF’s chemistry department), conveyed an announcement that many are already familiar with: UF is still a (tied-for) top five (public) school.
Cue a sigh of relief from everyone.
While many are looking at UF’s retention of its top five ranking as a triumph, I have to admit, I feel something more like trepidation.
UF’s overall ranking fell from 28 to 29.
As noted in the press release, “UF’s reputation score of 3.8, a key metric in the ranking analysis, remained unchanged from last year.” At the same time, other indicators like our alumni giving rate made robust gains.
I wasn’t previously familiar with the metric of a reputation score. If it were like unweighted GPA, 3.8 out of 4 would be great.
Unfortunately, the reputation score is out of five. If UF were an Airbnb, it’d be delisted. If it were a restaurant on Google Maps, I probably wouldn’t eat there. (It’s funny because eating and sleeping were the two main things I did at UF.)
It’s quite a shame. Billions of dollars spent and while our school has unquestionably gotten better, people’s impression of our school apparently hasn’t.
I mean, it’s no question why: whether it be barring professors from testifying against Florida’s partially unconstitutional election law, giving a clown a second chance at life as Florida’s surgeon general or culling a well-liked Honors program director, some leaders in our university and perhaps particularly in our state government have given people reason to look at our school with disdain.
But to be fair, other comparable universities have taken hits to their reputation as well.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is tied with UF for the top five spot, had its own national scandal when its Board of Trustees briefly denied tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The 1619 Project.
The University of California at Santa Barbara, which tied for fifth with UF and UNC-Chapel Hill last year, had its own issue when the school, spurred on by a donor, figured it’d be a smart idea to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a mostly windowless dorm.
We got lucky. Out of a national tidal wave of malfeasance and stupidity stemming from external influences, UF has emerged not ahead — but also not quite behind. We’ve stagnated.
More from Zachariah Chou:
Farewell to UF’s Karl Marx study room, more perplexing in death than life
My race may have played factor in college rejections, but I support affirmative action
UF needs comprehensive diversity education
Imagine being on a plane that is taking off. After gaining altitude, the plane stalls. It is no longer gaining altitude and is about to drop out of the sky.
Yet people are cheering and clapping?
The pilot, after a long and honorable career also happens to be retiring midflight. The next pilot may or may not have experience flying a plane. The passengers sitting in economy seating would prefer having a pilot who knows how to fly a plane.
The board of trustees, sipping champagne in first class, may have a different idea of what qualifies someone to fly a plane. (No, being a politician does not qualify someone to fly a plane).
I hope the best for my alma mater but boy, am I worried.
I don’t want our university to come out ahead in the rankings just because it fell behind in the clownish race to the bottom against other universities in making stupid decisions.
A quote attributed to Warren Buffett goes, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” I hope UF administrators and especially our board of trustees and state lawmakers will take note.
And I hope I’m wrong about all of this — it’s not too late for course correction. After all, there is still a little bit left to climb.
Zachariah Chou graduated from UF in 2020 with degrees in political science and journalism.
Join the conversation
Letters to the editor present the opinions of readers on news stories and other pieces published by The Sun. Share your opinions by sending a letter to the editor (up to 200 words) to letters@gainesville.com. Letters must include the writer's full name and city of residence. Additional guidelines for submitting letters and longer guest columns can be found at bit.ly/sunopinionguidelines.
Journalism matters. Your support matters.
Get a digital subscription to the Gainesville Sun. Includes must-see content on Gainesville.com and Gatorsports.com, breaking news and updates on all your devices, and access to the eEdition. Visit www.gainesville.com/subscribenow to sign up.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Zachariah Chou: UF’s top five ranking is no cause for celebration
