How does Iowa compare academically with The Ohio State University and other peer institutions?
I think it compares very well, and I’m anxious to make sure that continues. Iowa always does very well in the rankings systems, including the one by U.S. News & World Report, and has a lot of top-ranked departments and programs all across campus. Iowa is the smallest of the Big Ten universities. It’s one-third smaller than Ohio State. I mention that because there tends to be for most departments a pretty close correlation between the size of a department and its ranking. In other words, being big is one of the keys to being good and highly ranked. So if we were to handicap ourselves for size and adjust the rankings accordingly, well, we’d be even higher ranked in department after department, college after college. I think it’s a tribute to the state of Iowa that year after year after year, the people here have supported three very good public universities, two of them—including The University of Iowa—members of the American Association of Universities. I think we are the only state of
