Computer Science ranked No. 25 by U.S. News guide

by Barbara Pitoniak, News Office staff

he Department of Computer Science ranks 25th in the U.S. and sixth in the field of artificial intelligence in the U.S. News & World Report's 2003 rankings of "America's Best Graduate Schools" released this week.

     Several other campus programs were also included in the guide. The College of Engineering tied for number 46 and the School of Education tied for number 48, while the campus's biological sciences program tied for 60th place.

     "We are pleased to be recognized for the strength of our programs," said interim Provost Charlena Seymour. "These rankings indicate the University's national leadership in a wide range of disciplines and represent the advances the University is making and will continue to make. It is a tribute to the continuing high level of performance and quality of our faculty."

     The rankings are in the magazine's issue dated April 15. The rankings are also available on the magazine's Web site (www.usnews.com).

     Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Leon Osterweil said, "This ranking is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of the people in Computer Science, who are succeeding in an intensely competitive environment. American universities are currently pouring enormous investments into computer science departments, posing increasingly strong challenges. I take great pride in this very strong showing for the UMass Computer Science Department, which is obviously doing very well against very strong and well-funded competition."

     Computer Science chair William B. Croft said, "It is rewarding to see that we continue to be recognized nationally as a leading department, particularly at a time when other universities have invested heavily in building up their programs. Our long-standing strength in areas of artificial intelligence such as machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and agent-based systems is the basis of our high ranking in this area, and this is complemented by a number of other strong research groups in systems areas such as networking, software, distributed systems, and information retrieval."

     This year's new rankings are only for graduate programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine. Rankings for other programs in the humanities and the sciences are only offered at three-year intervals. Of those, the following categories are freshly ranked this year: applied mathematics, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and physics.

     The magazine also lists one previously ranked campus program. Psychology was tied for number 45 in 2001, ranking in the top third of the discipline. Previous U.S. News & World Report rankings rated Linguistics and Polymer Science each at number one, and the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at number 10. Other campus programs previously ranked in the top third of the discipline include: Audiology, English, Nursing, and Speech-Language Pathology.

     U.S. News & World Report has been ranking the nation's graduate schools since 1987. School rankings are based on objective data such as student selectivity, faculty resources, and research activity, plus two sets of reputation ratings, one from deans and faculty members and one from people outside academia who are likely to hire or come in contact with new graduates. Master's and doctoral programs are ranked by reputation based upon surveys of the dean or top administrator and at least one other administrator or faculty member at each school.