Jeremy Ritter, Campus Carrier Staff Writer
U.S. News and World Report recently published their national and regional college and university rankings, and Berry received top-ten spots in multiple categories. The annual review accumulates information from colleges and universities all over the United States to compile a comprehensive list of competitive categories.
Chris Kozelle, the Director of Public Relations, said that these rankings show that Berry has a reputation within the education community. The highest ranking on the list was third in Best Undergraduate Teaching programs.
“One of the rankings that we got was for level of undergraduate teaching… placing third in southern region,” Kozelle said. “That ranking came from a poll from college presidents, provosts, and deans who had to nominate colleges for their level of undergraduate teaching, so that shows that the word is out amongst our peers from reputable sources.”
Being recognized by a reputable outside source for undergraduate teaching puts Berry among other top tier schools like Elon University, The Citadel, and Rollins College.
“This gives you a sense of pride and it also helps the value of your degree,” Kozelle said. “If Berry has a reputation for great teaching and great innovation, then that’s only going to help your efforts when you’re looking for a job or trying to get into grad school.”
Kozelle said that these rankings will help show the benefits of Berry to prospective students.
“The benefit that students who are looking at coming to Berry would get from this information in hopes of pursuing their undergrad is we are not a huge research university with PhD candidates teaching classes, we have full professors who are invested in students and can focus on their expertise,” Kozelle said.
Amongst other schools, Berry ranked ninth overall in regional universities in the South, eleventh in ‘Most Innovative Schools,’ and fifth in ‘Best Value Schools.’
“The ‘Most Innovative’ covers a wide variety,” Kozelle said. “At Berry, we’re always trying new things and we’re not afraid to experiment. An easy example of that is Hackberry and the creative technologies major, but if you also look at our education school we have a partnership with Rome City Schools (and) a school in south Rome to help children prepare for kindergarten and PreK.”