Good Luck, Good Friend

Still another change is in store for the Ivy League office down in Princeton with the upcoming departure of Chuck Yrigoyen to become Commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Chuck has been in the Ivy office for nearly 20 years, the last 10 as Associate Director for Athletic Administration and Championships. Chuck has been a close friend since he joined the Princeton athletic communications office in 1983 and while I'll miss him, I'm thrilled that he has this opportunity, excited for the IIAC, and glad there's email so we can keep in touch easily.

The Ivy League office is certainly taking on a new look. It bid goodbye to Brett Hoover, Associate Director for Communications for the past eight years, earlier this summer. He was replaced by Scottie Rodgers. Ivy Executive Director Jeff Orleans has announced he will retire next June after 25 years in that position.

In other news out of the Ivy League office, the conference has formally announced its football TV package with the Versus network. It wasn't exactly a secret before, but here it is:

• Oct. 11 Noon Cornell at Harvard
• Oct. 25 4 p.m. Dartmouth at Columbia
• Nov. 1 Noon Brown at Penn
• Nov. 15 Noon Princeton at Yale
• Nov. 22 Noon Yale at Harvard

If you've been keeping up on this, you know how I feel about that 4 p.m., start in NYC. Ugh.

Forbes Magazine has ranked 569 college nationally and Milwaukee School of Engineering isn't going to be happy, finishing at the bottom. Northeastern won't be thrilled either, coming in just one slot up.

Unhappier still, I suspect, will be folks at Dartmouth, which finished last among Ivy League schools and a whopping 127th nationally, one spot ahead of Sweet Briar, which I thought was a pipe tobacco. A little about the methodology is on tap, but first the highlights (and lowlights) from the rankings:

Top 10

• 1. Princeton
• 2. Cal Tech
• 3. Harvard
• 4. Swarthmore
• 5. Williams
• 6. US Military Academy
• 7. Amherst
• 8. Wellesley
• 9. Yale
• 10. Columbia

Other Ivies in Top 100

• 27. Brown
• 61. Penn
• 120-120
• 120. Washington and Jefferson
• 121.Cornell
• 122. Samford
• 123. College of Wooster
• 124. Millsaps
• 125. St. John's (Minnesota)
• 126. Macalester
• 127. Dartmouth
• 128. Sweet Briar
• 129. Mississippi College
• 130. Birmingham-Southern College

Bottom five

• 565. Stevens Institute of Technology
• 566. Roger Williams University
• 567. Rochester Institute of Technolog
• 568. Northeastern University
• 569. Milwaukee School of Engineering

Click here to read how Forbes introduced the rankings, which were done "in conjunction with Dr. Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University, and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity."

An excerpt from that intro, explaining what was being ranked:

CCAP's methodology attempts to put itself in a student's shoes. How good will my professors be? Will the school help me achieve notable career success? If I have to borrow to pay for college, how deeply will I go into debt? What are the chances I will graduate in four years? Are students and faculty recognized nationally, or even globally.

More from the story, with pointed comments on Dartmouth:

The list also suggests that some schools--the University of Pennsylvania (61st), Georgetown (76th), Cornell (121st) and Dartmouth (127th)--may be living a bit off of their reputations. Graduates of these schools typically ran up large debts; at most of them, notably Dartmouth, students are not particularly happy with the quality of instruction. (CCAP did take perceived course rigor into account while determining student assessment of instructors and courses.)

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the rankings.

Former Dartmouth gridder and current head of General Electric Jeff Immelt '78 gave a talk on campus earlier this week that I would like to have heard ... but the ticket price was a little steep for the general public so The D recap will have to suffice.

And finally, after two days of double sessions, that certain Hanover High freshman-to-be is feeling it this morning. His sister starts cross country Monday. Before then – Sunday's trip to the House that Ruth Built. By the way, the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry is heating up (in a nice way) in the comments on the posting below.