Viewpoint
Giving the best we have

November 13, 2009

By Brett Fairbairn

The recent release of The Globe & Mail’s 2010 Canadian University Report and the annual Maclean’s ranking of universities are reminders that ranking season is upon us. Public and media attention will be focused for a time on how universities, including ours, are doing relative to each other. These reports provide an occasion to think about the ways in which it does matter how others see us.

Of course, there are many defects to any one measure or ranking. Definitions of data are difficult to standardize across institutions. Reputation surveys may not reflect on-the-ground realities. Perhaps most significantly, rankings exaggerate small differences: by themselves, they do not tell the public whether institutions are clustered closely together or vary widely.

What is not in doubt is that rankings matter in a variety of ways – first of all, because people pay attention to them. Rankings influence the choices of students, parents, and others.

But we should also, for our own reasons, listen to what others think of us. The discipline of listening is one of the surest remedies for the human tendency to self-reference and introspection. We don’t have to believe everything others tell us about who we are or how we do. But we do have to think about it seriously, and have reasons – supported, preferably, by evidence – for why we agree or disagree with them.

Public trust, accountability, and transparency are vital obligations of universities. But what does accountability mean? Does it mean simply balancing our books? Delivering up diplomas? Answering media queries?

I believe accountability requires more than prudent management and reactiveness. A proper standard of accountability, for a university, involves measuring ourselves and holding ourselves accountable in the ways we think matter most, by the evidence we think is best – and doing so routinely, in public.

With this in mind, our university has created a new Achievement Record to hang out in public how we are doing by the few most meaningful and objective measures we so far have identified. The indicators chosen and developed for the Achievement Record reflect input from wide discussion, from all three university governing bodies, from external experts and examples, from the work of the Quality and Accountability Commitment group, and from collaboration across multiple university offices.

The Achievement Record is itself a small achievement, one of the outcomes of the second integrated plan. It reflects the kind of “working together” mandated by our integrated plan, and shows that working together can be timely and effective.

The Achievement Record is, at its root, a communications tool. It enables broad groups of interested people (inside and outside the university) to get an overview of how well we are doing in many areas - and it enables them to ask questions, to start discussions, and to dig deeper. Personally I will consider it a success if it provides a springboard for discussions of learning outcomes, scholarly activity, aboriginal engagement, and the other things that we publicly measure.

It will also be accompanied by a website, currently under development but already active, for those who want more exhaustive information. The website, like the Achievement Record, will present evidence of the institution’s outcomes in plain fashion with minimal commentary.

No one measure is perfect. But we honour our commitment to the public interest by giving the best we have.

Brett Fairbairn is the provost and vice-president academic