Joseph Gulotta-
A new semester is upon us, and with it brings some exciting news in regards to our campus. Each year U.S. News & World Report Magazine ranks colleges based on various metrics. This year UW–Stout reached its highest ever ranking of 15th overall for public schools in the Midwest region, moving up 2 spots from 17th to 15th. After the publication released its rankings, Chancellor Bob Meyer released a statement with the following remarks in response:
“It is significant that UW–Stout has continued to move up in these rankings and now is in the top 15 regional public universities in the Midwest. That progress is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our faculty and staff to provide the best education possible for our students.”
He also went on to say, “However, the true measure of our work here at UW–Stout is what happens to our students after they graduate. That is why we pride ourselves on the 97.3 percent employment rate for our graduates within six months of leaving campus, as well as the relatively high salaries our graduates receive.”
When speaking on the strengths of our campus, U.S. News & World Report Magazine talks about many of the things that we already know. First, that Stout is the only polytechnic school in Wisconsin, and second, Stout has impressive job placement rates after graduation.
They attribute much of our recent growth to be in part due to “an emerging engineering institution with four programs in mechanical, manufacturing, computer and plastics engineering.”
Chancellor Bob Meyer also attributed most of Stout’s success to the growing engineering program.
“We put a consortium together, with UW–Eau Claire and UW–River Falls to create a first year curriculum where a student can start at any campus and transfer credits between them to give them time to think about what kind of engineering they want to be in,” he stated. Even with little time to market the consortium to potential students, the program gathered an impressive 90 students in the fall of 2015.
Being awarded the 15th best public school in the Midwest is something students can share in taking pride in along with our administration.
Chancellor Meyer responded to the rankings with this: “What they do more than anything is increase the marketability of the institution, but they also validate that the things we are doing are the correct ones.”
The administration is focused on one thing, and that’s us as students. It’s an exciting time to be a student here at Stout. It’s even better to know that as rewards like these come through, we have an administration focused on how it can continue to advance our campus and better our education.