Just how ugly is our beloved university?
Every year, the Princeton Review releases its annual “Best 366 Colleges” list featuring most of the nation’s large or prestigious colleges. The guide is intended to assist high school seniors in their college decision. These rankings consist of various subcategories including titles such as “Reefer Madness” (lots of marijuana), “Dodgeball Targets” (lack of interest in intramurals), and “Students Most Nostalgic for Ronald Reagan” (notable conservative political base) that depict what they consider to be the “Top 20” in each of these groupings.
In the 2008 edition of “Best 366 Colleges,” the University of Tennessee-Knoxville is included on several of those lists, some to be proud of (Best College Library, Students Pack the Stadiums) and others not so flattering, such as being tabbed No. 11 on the “Campus is Tiny, Unsightly, or Both” list. This particular listing supposedly indicates the ugliest and most physically uncomfortable campuses in the United States. An overwhelming majority of schools that made this list are located in the urban Midwest or Northeast, such as in New York City, where the only green remaining lies in a 1.32 square mile rectangle known as Central Park.
The Princeton Review claims on its Web site that its rankings are derived from surveys students at 366 accredited colleges or universities around the country take on its Web site. The 120,000 student surveys taken average out to about 325 students per campus. This is hardly an accurate representation of the nearly 27,000 students here at UT.
Another school on the list, the academically acclaimed Illinois Institute of Technology, comes in at No. 7. IIT, located in the heart of the south side of Chicago, is conveniently situated directly next to two of Chicagoland’s busiest expressways (Interstates 90 and 94) on one side, and one of the city’s most traveled streets (State Street) on the other. The campus of IIT spans one block east-west and two blocks north-south. The total area of IIT includes 120 acres, consisting mostly of buildings. Diagonally across the street sits U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox. Also, that particular area of Chicago (Bronzeville) was home to some of the nation’s most dangerous gangs and projects until this past summer, when the Stateway Gardens projects were demolished. Even with the demolition, it’s not much safer.
Because the University of Tennessee comes in only four places down from IIT, it must be safe to compare the two. Let’s take a look. UT is delightfully positioned between a river on one side and hills on the other. UT’s campus covers about 561 acres of Knoxville (hardly “tiny” compared to IIT) and consists of well-spaced buildings, fountains and squares, Circle Park, the Hill, and a pedestrian walkway with an amphitheatre. The University of Tennessee spans zero blocks, because our campus is not located in the middle of a city. IIT and UTK: mirror images, right?
To consider UT among the ugliest is absurd. Granted, the university pales in comparison to some newer schools built with modern technology and contemporary architecture more pleasant to the eye than some of the buildings (still) standing here at UT. But for being well over 200 years old, UT is certainly not “unsightly.”
In an attempt to shed any “unsightliness,” the university is in a “beautification” stage. As irritating as the construction may be, it’s not all that unattractive. For example, the neon orange of the worker’s equipment and construction barrels scattered about campus accents the university nicely.
Hopefully, the UT students who found and completed this survey considered the fact that the Strip is not part of campus. Anybody who didn’t realize Cumberland Avenue was separate from UT might think that the university was, frankly, the eleventh ugliest campus in the country. The City of Knoxville has its own plan for the Strip set to be complete within the next few years. That, along with campus renovations, holds a pretty “sightly” future for UT.
The Princeton Review is a business. They want to make money, so they create some rankings about colleges they perceive to be pothead Meccas or communist strongholds, then they print a book to sell for 22 bucks. These rankings mean nothing, and really don’t have any statistical accuracy behind them except for what the 1.2 percent of the students who come across the survey think about their own campus. Some Ivy League schools have even condemned the rankings, saying the rankings are baseless and discourage rather than encourage a high school senior to make an enlightened college decision. Regardless, these education “gurus” got it wrong in calling UTK tiny, unsightly or both.
My theory? Princeton Review consists of “educated” Vanderbilt alumni turned sour about an eternity of athletic inferiority.
— Oliver Casey is a sophomore in enterprise management. He can be reached at [email protected].
