Camp on campus
The Advocate's publishing arm is getting into the college rankings act (via Michael):
I have to side with Harriet Brand here--and not just because of company loyalty. Numbers of courses listed in the gay studies department, dollars of funding for gay student organizations, and the like are presumably what The Advocate is quantifying--The Boston Globe doesn't say--but they only tell part of the story. "Gay-friendly" depends on perception. I'd be willing to bet that there are quite a few public colleges that have funded gay and lesbian programs but where gay students don't feel particularly comfortable. And there could be institutions at which lots of little identity-politics-driven organizations don't exist but students of many kinds study comfortably alongside one another. In any case, potential applicants now have at least two resources, compiled using complementary methods, to draw from.
Since 1992, the Princeton Review, has ranked the 20 schools that it considers the most and the least "gay community accepted." [Here's the list.--SRK] This year, the review ranked New York University as most gay friendly and Notre Dame as most inhospitable.
Steele points out that the Review's gay-friendly rankings are based on student opinion, while his guide is based on quantifiable data.
Harriet Brand, spokeswoman for the Review, said the survey of 115,000 students is more compelling because students offer a more accurate, ground-level gauge of a campus's climate.
I have to side with Harriet Brand here--and not just because of company loyalty. Numbers of courses listed in the gay studies department, dollars of funding for gay student organizations, and the like are presumably what The Advocate is quantifying--The Boston Globe doesn't say--but they only tell part of the story. "Gay-friendly" depends on perception. I'd be willing to bet that there are quite a few public colleges that have funded gay and lesbian programs but where gay students don't feel particularly comfortable. And there could be institutions at which lots of little identity-politics-driven organizations don't exist but students of many kinds study comfortably alongside one another. In any case, potential applicants now have at least two resources, compiled using complementary methods, to draw from.