Urology medical assistant-What they do?
Cardiology Medical Assistants ~What they do?
UC Riverside was singled out as one of the country's most innovative schools in the rankings of America's Best Colleges by U.S. News & World Report magazine.
Altogether, four Inland universities received high marks in the 25th annual rankings. UCR and the University of Redlands each appear three times in the rankings and California Baptist University and La Sierra University, both in Riverside, each get one mention.
The rankings appear in the magazine's Sept. 1 issue, which is due to reach newsstands Monday.
In a category new this year, UCR was rated ninth among "Up-and-Coming Schools." Kenneth Terrell, assistant managing editor, education, at U.S. News & World Report, said he didn't know specifically what earned the ranking for UCR.
When we were surveying the top officials at different universities ... we asked them to nominate schools that they thought were making good improvements and offering innovative approaches to college education," Terrell said in a telephone interview. "And Riverside got enough nominations to be placed on the list this year."
Thomas Baldwin agrees with the listing, although he acknowledged he only recently learned of the school's dynamism. Baldwin arrived at UCR in June as the new dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. He spent the previous decade at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
"All my career I've sort of thought of UC Riverside as being, 'Oh, that's that little bitty school out there in the UC system,' " he said in a telephone interview. So he was skeptical when he was offered the possibility of the deanship.
"I came and took a look and I met the faculty and I said, 'Holy camoly!' Man! This place is much, much stronger than it is perceived outside," he said.
It is not uncommon for improvements such as those happening at UCR to go largely unnoticed for a time, he said.
"Perceptions trail reality by at least 10 years and I think this university is just about to burst onto the national radar screen as being a very, very good place to go to school. I think you're going to see a lot happen over the next five years."
Timothy White, UCR's chancellor, called the listing "very welcome news and very confirming, I think, of what the university is all about these days."
"When I was being recruited for the position of chancellor, what really attracted me, so many things, but one of them was the fact that this is an up-and-coming place. ... I think the word innovation is a word that gets used a lot, but in this case it's an absolutely precise word about all aspects of the institution's activities," White said by phone from Virginia City, Nev., where he was traveling.
The University of Redlands was included in a list of "A+ Schools for B Students," which U.S. News has been compiling for a few years, Terrell said.
"We basically wanted to get the word out ... that there are some excellent schools that offer opportunities to kids who maybe didn't score that high on the SAT or may have done not so well on a couple of classes in high school," he said.
The University of Redlands embraces that listing, said Neil Macready, vice president for university relations.
"We take great pride in the fact that we're ranked in that category because we don't focus as much on the inputs that the students bring with them when they show up on campus," he said by phone. "We're more about the outcomes that they take away from Redlands when they graduate four years later. We're really focused on what the transformation has been because of the Redlands experience."
Brian Bingham, 20, of Riverside, is a junior at Redlands and said he was a B student in high school.
"I think I had the experience a lot of freshmen have -- that everyone around you is overwhelmingly smart," he said by phone.
Another area where the University of Redlands rated high was affordability. Bingham said the university gives him a $5,000 grant each semester.
Mario Godoy, 19, of Riverside, is another junior at Redlands who says he gets good financial aid there.
"I feel I'm paying less there than I would if I went to a UC school because of the financial support they give you," he said by phone. "It does seem like a lot when you first find out how much it is annually, but once you factor in all the financial aid that they offer, it's actually very affordable."
Macready, the Redlands vice president, said officials there take note of the rankings, but do not use them in their marketing or for comparing the university to other institutions. "Typically, we let the rankings speak for themselves," he said.
UCR students Richie Brajas and Daniel Reynoso, both 20 and juniors from Riverside, said the rankings played no part in their school selection, but that they were good for the school.
"It gives them some publicity. UCR's kind of a smaller school, so at least it helps get the name out," Brajas said by phone.
"It's good. They need the press and everything else, trying to get a medical school and a law school over there, so it's probably helping out," Reynoso said by phone.
Cal Baptist was ranked 41st in "Best Universities -- Master's (West). In an e-mail exchange, Mark Wyatt, the university's vice president for marketing and communication, said, "We view the rankings as one of the tools that many families use to help decide which colleges their students will attend."
He said the university uses the "Best Colleges" badge in its marketing and that the rankings help the school "keep track of how others view California Baptist University in the highly competitive higher education marketplace."
Staff writer Vanessa Franko contributed to this report.
WHERE THEY RANK
Four Inland universities made U.S. News & World Report's 2009 rankings of America's Best Colleges. Up-and-Coming Schools is intended to gauge a school's innovation. The category Universities -- Master's includes schools that offer undergraduate and some master's degrees but few, if any, doctorates.
UC Riverside: 89th (seven-way tie) in "Best National Universities"; ninth in "Up-and-Coming Schools"; fifth in "Racial Diversity, National Universities"
University of Redlands: Eighth in "Best Universities -- Master's (West)"; listed among "A+ Schools for B Students"; second in "Great Schools, Great Prices, Universities -- Master's"
California Baptist University: 41st in "Best Universities -- Master's (West)"
La Sierra University: First in "Racial Diversity, Universities -- Master's (West)" (source)
Urology medical assistant-What they do?
Cardiology Medical Assistants ~What they do? |
