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News
February 10, 2012
Claremont McKenna Found Cheating to Boost Rank by Olivia Cotton
B lock Break Co-E ditor
Late last month, U.S . News and World Re por t published their annual list of “America’s Best Colle ges.” U.S . News and World Re por t has been publishing the list since 1983 ,and is thought by many to be the best of the best when it comes to colle ge rankings. Although there is always some amount of competition among colle ges to be in the top of the list, some colle ges take the competition so seriously that they pay students to retake exams and/or fudge the actual exam scores. Claremont McKenna, a liberal ar ts colle ge in Califor nia, is the latest example
of this type of cheating. A senior administrator testified to falsifying the score of the colle ge entrance exams. Although the administrator did not raise the score ver y much, only 10 to 20 points higher on the SAT scale (1,600 points), it did bump Claremont McKenna up to ninth place instead of 11, putting them in the top ten best liberal ar ts colle ges. T his is not the first time a colle ge has cheated on its data. One of the most well known cases occured last fall when Iona University in New York boosted its ranking from 50 to 30. Test scores are par t of what U.S . News and World Re por t takes into consideration, but they also examine a wide
range of other factors such as retention, financial resources, student selectivity and faculty resources. Although colle ges take these rankings ver y seriously, some people say that students do not take these ranking into consideration. UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute conducted a sur vey and found that the colle ge ranking was fairly low down on the list of impor tant factors (Number 11) below price, location and size. "As someone who is asked ever y year to comment on the rankings, it seems to me that who cares most is the media. Second would be colle ge presidents and development of ficers. Way down the list seem to be those who are
Volume 132, Issue 9
News Writers Do you stay up to date on news? Do you want to get paid? We are looking for additional writers who can report on the most recent events on Cornell Campus! Benefits: $5 a story! Contact dmiller13 or spittman13 for more information! actually tr ying to decide where to go to colle ge,"said John
Pr yor, director of the UCLA sur vey.
Greek Groups to Decrease to One Pledging by Elizabeth Brown Staff Writer
T he shift to the eightblock plan will change a lot of things on campus— including the yearly tradition of pledging. Due to new placement of Spring Break (after block six instead of block seven), pledging for Cor nell’s thir teen Greek g roups will be moved up to occur after fifth block. It will also occur only once per year. Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Life, Gwen Schimek, explained that the change was decided upon last year. T he Greek presidents and Diane Timm, who had Schimek’s position at the time, decided to move pledging up to be after fifth block. Schimek added that they felt fall pledging would not be necessar y because spring pledging would be happening closer to mid-year. “T here probably didn’t need to be two pledge c ycles that were so close to each other,” she said. Schimek added that not all Greek g roups cur rently do spring pledging , and only thir ty students pledged during the fall this year. “I’m not too concer ned about it af fecting who decides to be Greek and who doesn’t decide to be Greek, because I think that’s something that folks kind of find for themselves and see what fits for them on campus and where their involvement should lie,” she said. President of Phi Ome ga (the Phi Os), Lauren Dingle
(12), said she didn’t think the shift to one pledging per year would g reatly af fect membership for the g roup. “We generally only do spring pledging ,” she said. “We think it’s more meaningful to only do pledging once with one big pledge class.” President of Greek Council, Jacob Gehl (12), ag reed. “I am a member of Sigma Kappa Psi, where we have, since our ince ption, done both Spring and Fall pledging ,” he said. “I do not believe the switching to one pledging will g reatly af fect the amount of people who pledge as a majority of new members to the Greek Community pledge during Spring each year. T hose interested enough to pledge during the Fall of previous years will likely wait until the Spring pledging in my opinion… Half the Greek g roups on campus either never or rarely have done Fall pledging in the past, and these g roups still appear to have strong interest from prospective members and active membership within the g roup.” On the new eight-block schedule, students will retur n to Cor nell in the middle of Januar y rather than at the be ginning , so pledging will occur in the middle of Febr uar y. Schimek said that g roups were still figuring out what to do about pre-pledges and whether some pre-pledge events would have to take place before winter break. One of the three cur rent leaders of Delta Phi Delta (the Del Phis), Nicole Potter (14), said she thought the
earlier star t time for pledging season would be beneficial: “Pre-pledge season will be three months, star ting in November, I believe, which has a slightly lower chance of bad weather than the cur rent spring pre-pledge season which star ts in Januar y. T he earlier time will probably ef fect pledging in a dif ferent way, usually the weather is star ting to get a little better by the end of Febr uar y, but it is often at its worst in Januar y, this will make it necessar y for g roups to be more aware of possibly dangerous weather.” Dingle ag reed that weather could be a problem. “Weather will be a big issue next year for pledging , unless we have another extremely war m winter like this year. Many g roups do events outside so I think this will be dif ficult to cope with,” she said. “I also think it will r ush pre-pledge season, and may result in fewer numbers of pledges.” President of the Ar rows, Eva Fisk (12), was also in ag reement. She said that their pre-pledge schedule usually spans over two months, and events will be split up over an extended winter break. Gehl, however, felt that weather would not be any more of a concer n than in years past. “I do not par ticularly see a strong dif ference between pledging in Mid-Febr uar y versus the end of Febr uar y; we live in Iowa and the weather during that time period is always unpredictable,” he said. “I would doubt pre-pledges
would be af fected by the shift, as most pre-pledges occur in indoor locations with g roups providing transpor t to and from them.” Despite possible weather concer ns, the majority of those inter viewed felt that spring pledging still made more sense. T he main reason for this was that it would allow freshmen to pledge but still give them time to consider the g roups thoroughly. “Folks have to have been here for one semester in order to pledge, and that will continue to remain the r ule,” Schimek said. “I think we want to just make sure that students are adjusting to campus before they’re really connecting to--kind of se gmenting themselves into the Greek population and having a chance to find their niche in a variety of ways before they are connected to that par t of it.” Gehl ag reed, saying , “I believe that reducing to Spring pledging was preferable over Fall because of the oppor tunities given to first-year students. If we had Fall pledging in which first-year students could pledge we would likely have to do it over second block break, which would give these students approximately nine weeks to become acclimated to Cor nell, make friends and attend pre-pledges and then having to decide whether to pledge. W hile this schedule is the nor m at other institutions, I prefer Cor nell’s pledging timeline because it gives first-years almost an
entire semester to settle into a routine at Cor nell while getting to know our Greek Community, both through pre-pledges and other socialization before making such a decision.” Fisk, however, did not feel that spring pledging was the better choice. She said that pledging in mid-Febr uar y could involve poor weather conditions that would be dangerous for all g roup members. She also added that fall pledging only would mean freshmen had to wait until sophomore year to pledge, which she felt would be helpful in encouraging freshmen to find where they fit in on campus. Overall, Schimek said she saw the change as being a positive. “Groups can really focus on who they are and who they want to be, and spend fall semester really being able to fulfill their mission, whereas, spring semester, they’re focusing a little bit more on recr uitment and then transition of leadership,” she said. “I think that will really allow g roups to focus on their role on campus during fall semester in a way that some of them may have been distracted with doing their pledging in the fall semester previously… Because of the type of community we tr y to build here at Cor nell, I think having it during second semester is really an asset to the institution... I’m really happy that that’s the way that it is.”
Corrections: Martin Luther King Junior Day Celebrations at Cor nell 1) Ken Morris was incorrectly reported as the President of Intercultural Life when he is in fact the Director of Intercultural life. 2) “Sankofa” was referred to incorrectly as Dr. King. It is a term that means to look back as you look forward. 3) The picture for the MLK article was taken by Ken Morris, not Hilary Swift.