Description of the Report

This report ranks graduate programs primarily on the basis of the quality of faculty. In late September and early October 2006, we conducted an on-line survey of 450 philosophers throughout the English-speaking world; over 300 responded and completed some or all of the surveys. The survey presented 99 faculty lists, from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand . Note that there are some 110 PhD-granting programs in the U.S. alone, but it would be unduly burdensome for evaluators to ask them to evaluate all these programs each year. The top programs in each region were selected for evaluation, plus a few additional programs are included each year to "test the waters." (In the US, this year, for example, Emory and Saint Louis were included.) So far, in all cases, the extra programs evaluated have not come close to cracking the threshold score for overall ranking of 2.2.

The survey began with the following instructions:

Please evaluate the following programs in terms of faculty quality, using the following scale:

5 – Distinguished
4 – Strong
3 – Good
2 – Adequate
1 – Marginal
0 – Inadequate for a PhD program

You may use .5 intervals if necessary, but no scores higher than 5.0, and no smaller fractions, are permitted. Do not check any box if you lack sufficient information to make an informed judgment about faculty quality.

You should not evaluate either (1) your own department, or (2) the department from which you received your highest graduate degree (typically the PhD or the DPhil). Those scores will be discounted.

"Faculty quality" should be taken to encompass the quality of philosophical work and talent represented by the faculty and the range of areas they cover, with the two weighted as you think appropriate. Since the rankings are used by prospective students, about to embark on a multi-year course of study, you may also take in to account, as you see fit, considerations like the status (full-time, part-time) of the faculty; the age of the faculty (as a somewhat tenuous guide to prospective availability, not quality); and the quality of training the faculty provide, to the extent you have information about this.

Please begin by printing out and reviewing the faculty lists before you begin assigning scores.

The faculty lists are based on current information as to their shape for fall 2005, and are confined to full- or part-time faculty (status indicated), excluding lecturers, but including those with joint appointments in Philosophy and another unit. Emeritus faculty are also excluded.

The lists that followed indicated which faculty were over 70 and which were part-time.

Different respondents had different "centers of gravity" in their scoring: some gave no 5s, others gave no score lower than a 2. It was also clear that respondents had different philosophies of evaluation: some clearly tried to consider the breadth of strength in a department, while others ranked a program highly or lowly based simply on its strength in his or her fields. The range of evaluations for single departments should be a cautionary note to all undergraduates about relying too much on the advice of just one or two faculty advisors. Idiosyncrasy abounds, even at top departments!

As in the past, I did not include the name of the university with the faculty lists. This has proved beneficial in forcing evaluators to respond to the current faculty. As one respondent put it a few years ago: "surprisingly tough to say what I think, without the institutional halo effect front loaded."

Evaluators were selected with an eye to balance, in terms of area, age and educational background--though since, in all cases, the opinions of research-active faculty were sought, there was, necessarily, a large number of alumni of the top programs represented. Approximately half those surveyed were philosophers who had filled out the surveys in previous years; the other half were nominated by members of the Advisory Board, who picked research-active faculty in their fields.

Despite the increase in the total number, and diversity, of respondents, the results were remarkably stable from prior years: where there were changes, there were rational reasons for those changes.

Here are the philosophers, by field, who filled out reputational surveys this year. The school from which the evaluator received the PhD (or equivalent) is listed in parentheses. A very rough characterization of the philosopher's area(s) is given in the last column. Note that faculty were not permitted to evaluate their own department or the department from which they had received their PhD. Here are the nearly 270 evaluators who completed the overall faculty quality survey; evaluators in the specialty areas are listed, above, after each specialty rating.