Theological Notebooks: On Top Theology Programs

[novak]

It was interesting the other day to trip across this brief essay in the ranking of the best graduate Theology programs in the United States. This wasn't just because both of my degrees are held to come from top-five programs, although that was pleasant to read. The task of ranking college programs is notoriously difficult, but I couldn't help but

Comments

A response to Reno

[anonymous]

I'm not anonymous - I just don't have an account! (Mike Harris)

Anyway, I found this response to be interesting. Mainly he is expanding on Reno's admission in the last paragraph that "I’ve covered too much ground too quickly, and no doubt too glibly. I hope, however, readers can see my overriding prejudice."

If you read the whole article, I think you'll get a kick out of his point 3 under "Some Things Reno Should Have Said"
http://nondefixi.blogspot.com/2009/10/renos-new-rankings-response.html

Re: A response to Reno

[novak]

I hadn't seen that, but yes: interesting (and perfectly reasonable) response! (I did, I want to restate, point out the inherent difficulties in rankings.) But I've heard other serious education watchers give this sort of assessment of Marquette: the first-tier program at a university that's still thought of in general as more second-tier. But compared to some of the Crazy that you and I observed and heard tell of at [unnamed] institutions, and the collaborative strength of what we experience among both faculty and students, as well as the breadth of vision shared in a department consciously structuring itself as "Catholic and Ecumenical" - well, we were luckier than we knew when we arrived.

Re: A response to Reno

[novak]

And I think you can somehow comment unanonymously via a Facebook account. Amy does that....