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Clarification for Carnegie Classification Story
Alexander C. McCormick
To the Editor:
Upon reading the Nota Bene article on revisions to the Carnegie Classification in the January-February issue, I was disturbed to find my remarks misrepresented in a few places. I would like to set the record straight.
In several places the word "rankings" is used with reference to the Carnegie Classification, sometimes in ways that suggest I used the term. The distinction between ranking and classification is an important one, even if it is lost on many in higher education. I am very careful to avoid characterizing the classification as a ranking system.
The change in National Science Foundation reporting was hardly a "major technical snarl," but one of several technical factors behind our decision to drop federal funding for the 2000 edition. Others involved shortcomings of using federal obligations as the sole measure of research activity.
A more disturbing error comes near the end of the piece. I am quoted as saying that at Carnegie teaching and service "carry very little [weight]." This is an unfortunate misrepresentation of my remarks, and misleads readers about the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. My reference was to the attention given to teaching and service in the present classification system, not at the Carnegie Foundation. Academe's wording suggests that teaching and service are unimportant at the Carnegie Foundation, which could not be further from the truth. We were established "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of teaching," and a number of our present programs--such as the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the U.S. Professors of the Year program (an honoree of which was profiled in the same issue)--focus explicitly on recognizing and advancing teaching.
Our long-term plans for revising the classification system include the development of indicators for teaching and service activity, as well as improved measures of research activity.
Alexander C. McCormick,
Senior Scholar
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
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