The Geek Oscars: Top Universities 2008

Life stops thrice a year for me: the Oscars in February, gymnastics world championships in the fall, and the yearly Times Top Universities unveiling. The Oscars is usually a high holiday of exuberant emotion, what with the weepy speeches and heavy-handed "in memoriam" fluff pieces (save for the occasional WTF moments, e.g., the Brokeback Mountain loss and the Halle "Storm" Berry Best Actress travesty). Gymnastics Worlds is more breathless, edge-of-your-seat action. I'd usually watch this online via live video streaming, with several other fans on YM--proving fans are indeed "the most active of audiences" with our creative commentary and our own keeping-it-honest judging.

And the Times Top Universities list unveiling is typically the most anticlimactic, unspectacular, and downright depressing of all these events. In past years, I've seen Ateneo get passed by La Salle, saw us fall from 200+ to 400+, thinking we might not even make the list AT ALL this year. But lo and behold, ye men of little faith, we've rebounded from 400+ to No. 254. This makes us the top school in the Philippines, ahead of the University of the Philippines for the first time. Bravo! Or, Bravaaah!

I say this merits a bonfire, don't you think? But instead of burning wood with rival basketball players' names, I'd say it's better to sit and talk about burning some of our High Inquisitor Educational Decrees that are just not working. Instead of patting ourselves on our backs and releasing variously worded press releases about this good news, we should reflect about what else we could improve on. Like, encouraging faculty to get published in international journals (DLSU pays 50K for each and every journal article released while our own Dr V admits to getting zilch for a recent work), sending faculty and students to international academic conferences to present their work (ADMU's subsidy barely covers airfare, what more accommodation and living allowance), encouraging better research for our undergrads and grads (why not have full-year theses for Comm students instead of half-assed one-sem theses on an 18-unit load?) and encouraging inter-and intra-department exchange of ideas as well as greater academic/corporate/government tie-ups (to provoke debate and, simply, to matter in real world issues). We have much more to do, people!

Unlike my original alma mater, my other unis face bad news with the new rankings. Cambridge Uni dropped from number 2 to number 3 this year, getting edged out by Yale. And LSE, from its top 20 position three years ago, dropped all the way to number 66 this year. (Jason half-jokingly attributes this to Roger Silverstone's untimely death) Whatever the case, Lilie Chouliaraki (the new chair) better pick up the pieces and recruit more big names (and promising scholars) for media@lse! Hint, hint! :)

Anyway, here's a toast to the top universities. Hurray for academia!