MUN makes the grade
N.L.’S only university has improved in global rankings this year
This year, Memorial University of Newfoundland moved up in ranking among the top 1,000 universities worldwide.
“There is a lot of foreign-born (people) who come here and choose Memorial University for their university,” said Gloire Ossihou, a student at Memorial University from Pointe-noire, Republic of the Congo. “When you find a big diversity of foreign-born in the university, that means it is a good university. Like me, I come from the Congo and I chose Memorial University because they have good teachers and good structure and there is also a lot of Canadians who come to the city for study.”
Two rankings have placed MUN in the top 1,000 universities in the world — the QS World University Rankings and the Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR).
QS World University Rankings puts MUN in the 651-700 category, higher than in last year’s category of 701-750. The evaluations are based on each university’s academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty and student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and the international student ratio.
The Centre for World University Rankings pegged Memorial in 579th position, up from last year’s 624th position. CWUR ranks the best 1,000 universities on seven objectives: quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, research output, quality publications, influence and citations.
“It’s about keeping an eye on those rankings and making sure we are assessed the best way we can be, so that we don’t send the wrong message to the world, so to speak,” said Dr. Neil Bose, MUN’S vice-president (research).
“There are a lot of universities in other parts of the world, outside of Canada, that put a huge amount of effort into increasing their performance in rankings … which means that if you don’t pay any attention to the rankings at all, gradually you will slip down the rankings, and over the last three or four years that has certainly happened to Memorial. It is not that Memorial had gotten any worse, it is just that other universities had focused on rankings.
“Memorial isn’t just interested in focusing on rankings just for rankings’ sake. It’s one of many things that cannot be neglected,” Bose added. “Much more important is the quality of the work done at the university, the quality of the research, the quality of the education and so on.”
“I like it here,” said Bahaa Boumoughlabay, who is from Lebanon and is pursuing a bachelor of science degree at MUN. “The people, the professors, everyone … are all nice to each other. The collaboration with each other, no violence, nothing, pretty safe and decent.”