Augusta State, College of Charleston, St. John's and University of Houston Lead

Inaugural Rankings; Eastern Michigan Claims Highest Rated Professor on Site

Professors Can Now Respond to Student Comments with New "Professor Rebuttal" Feature and "Professors Strike Back" Series, Students Can Access RateMyProfessors.com via New Facebook Widget

New York, NY – October 10, 2007 – As college students gear up to begin planning their spring course loads, RateMyProfessors.com, the Internet's largest destination for collegiate professor ratings, today introduced a new set of annual rankings that capture the highest rated college professors and faculties on the site, those who've had the greatest impact on students' lives, and more.  The highest rated professor on the site hails from Eastern Michigan University, and Brigham Young University ranks as the school with the highest rated professors overall.  Augusta State, the College of Charleston, St. John's and the University of Houston appear on the lists most frequently – three times each, more than any other universities – and Charleston and Marshall University both placed two faculty members in the top ten on the "Highest Rated Professor" list.    The top 50 lists were culled from RateMyProfessors.com's more than 7.5 million student-generated ratings of over 1,000,000 college professors.

RateMyProfessors.com also launched a new "Professor Rebuttal" feature today, enabling every professor rated on the site the opportunity to address how his or her teaching ability has been characterized by students.  For the first time, professors who want to respond to ratings or comments can log on, counter any criticisms and present their side of the story. Additionally, today RateMyProfessors introduced a new application giving all Facebook users the ability to search for and view professor ratings directly from Facebook.com.

mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network, recently launched a new series entitled "Professors Strike Back" – offering professors a podium to address the national college audience.  Participants are given the spotlight and 30 seconds, with the opportunity to respond to the ratings and comments posted on RateMyProfessors.com.  The episodes are airing now on mtvU, and are available on demand at mtvU.com (http://www.mtvU.com/professors_strike_back/), where they have been among the most popular original mtvU programming this semester.

The full 2007 RateMyProfessors.com Rankings are available at RateMyProfessors.com.  The top ten entries from selected lists include:

Highest Rated Professors – The professors who got the highest marks from their students.

1.Robert Citino, Eastern Michigan University

2.Devon Hanahan, College of Charleston

3.Donna Christy, Rhode Island College

4.Chris Legrow, Marshall University

5.Eric Wildman, University of Houston

6.Martin Jones, College of Charleston

7.Melissa Bush, University of North Florida

8.Christine Lottes, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

9.Kateryna Schray, Marshall University

10.Jenny Lee, Pratt Institute

 

Schools with the Highest Rated Professors – There must be something in the water on these campuses; schools chocked full of professors students love.

1.Brigham Young University

2.Southeastern Louisiana University

3.Christopher Newport University

4.Stephen F. Austin State University

5.University of Houston

6.Texas Christian University

7.Augusta State University

8.University of Central Oklahoma

9.College of William and Mary

10.Grove City College

Standout Professors* – These professors regularly go the extra mile, as evidenced by the stellar reviews on their RateMyProfessors.com pages.

·Eli Amdur, Farleigh Dickinson University: "He opened my mind and then stretched it.  Now I am a different person.  Prof. Amdur is a wonderful teacher and mentor."

·Jenny Lee, Pratt Institute: "Studying with Jenny was pivotal in my grad studies at two different schools.  I almost quit school altogether 'til I took her class.  Jenny inspires."

·Kateryna Schray, Marshall University: "Dr. Schray is the kindest, most caring, most personable and passionate instructor I have ever found."

·Ross Bressler, Berklee College of Music: "I remember thinking art history would suck, but then after Ross' classes, I actually considered studying art at a graduate level!"

·Andrew Beran, Marymount Manhattan College: "Now I see what everyone is talking about after taking math class with Beran – I feel like a complete genius."

·Chris Legrow, Marshall University: "Wonderful professor – who knew statistics would be my favorite class of the semester?"

·Devon Hanahan, College of Charleston: "Goes far out of her way to help you and remembers your needs always."

·Kimberly Duvall-Early, James Madison University: "Prof. Duvall-Early is the reason I have become a psychology major.

  Anyone who can take dry theories and not only make them interesting, but show you how to apply them on a daily basis is my kind of psyc professor!"

·Robert Citino, Eastern Michigan University: "Dr. Citino will give you more knowledge about the period he is teaching than you knew existed.  You MUST go to class if you intend to soak up any of his genius!"

·Peter Costello, Providence College: "Greatest teacher ever."

The full lists are housed and will be indexed at Top50.RateMyProfessors.com.

RateMyProfessors.com Top 50 Lists Ranking Methodology

RateMyProfessors.com uses a five-point Likert scale, as well as a binary scoring system, for  student-generated professor ratings. For each of the professor lists, each individual rating value was first standardized around its mean. Using the standardized scores from the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 to date, weighted scores were computed using the following weights: 15% for 2005, 25% for 2006 and 60% for 2007. The weighted score reflects a combined, long-term performance rating of just over a two-and-one-half years, with an emphasis on the most recent ratings

Using the weighted score, professors were ranked from high to low.  Only professors with 30 ratings or more (in the years 2005-present) were included to provide statistical significance. All professors were verified as actively teaching in the current semester by each school at the time the lists were compiled.

In an attempt to break ties, professors with a greater number of ratings were ranked higher.  Nevertheless, ties (i.e. professors with the same score and the same number of ratings) still occur. In that case, if two professors are tied for the same place – say 5th – then the next available rank is 7th.

More information on how this methodology was applied to each category is available here: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/methodology.jsp.  Additionally, please note that the "Standout Favorite Professors" category was compiled through a combination of college student feedback, overall quality rating and nature of user comments on RateMyProfessors.com.  The rest of the rankings were determined with statistical support and consultation provided by Professor Wolfgang Jank, a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Decision & Information Technologies at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

*"Standout Favorite Professors" is the only RateMyProfessors.com list not rank-ordered or based on pure statistical analysis.

About RateMyProfessors.com

RateMyProfessors.com is the highest trafficked US college professor rating site (comScore) with almost 6,000 schools and 7,500,000 ratings, providing an automated system for quickly researching and rating over 1,000,000 professors from colleges and universities across the United States and other international territories. The site reaches approximately 1.5 million college students each month and more than 150,000 log on daily to http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/.

About mtvU

Broadcast to more than 750 colleges across the country, with a combined enrollment of nearly 7.5 million, mtvU is the largest, most comprehensive television network just for college students.  Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mtvU can be seen in the dining areas, fitness centers, student lounges and dorm rooms of campuses throughout the U.S.  mtvU is dedicated to every aspect of college life, reaching students everywhere they are, through a three pronged approach – on-air, online and on campus.  mtvU focuses on content including music videos from emerging artists which can't be seen anywhere else, news, student life features, events and pro-social initiatives.  mtvU is always on campus, with more than 500 events per year, including exclusive concerts, giveaways, shooting mtvU series and more.  For more information about mtvU, and for a complete programming schedule, visit www.mtvU.com.

In September 2005, mtvU became the first MTV Networks channel to also be distributed in its entirety online.  The network is simulcast and available on demand at mtvU.com 24/7, featuring all of network's on-air content plus exclusive new music, original series and student-produced programming for college students and music fans everywhere. 

mtvU also owns and operates the College Media Network, the largest interactive network of online college newspapers in the US.  The College Media Network comprises 530 campus publications that serve institutions including Brown University, the University of Illinois, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin and Duke University, with a combined enrollment of over 5.5 million students, reaching an average of 5 million unique users each month. 

MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms.  MTV Networks, with more than 120 channels worldwide, owns and operates the following television programming services – MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION, MTV2, VH1, mtvU, NICKELODEON, NICK at NITE, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV LAND, SPIKE TV, CMT, NOGGIN, VH1 CLASSIC, LOGO, MTVN INTERNATIONAL and THE DIGITAL SUITE FROM MTV NETWORKS, a package of 13 digital services, with all of these networks trademarks of MTV Networks.  MTV Networks connects with its audiences through its robust consumer products businesses and its more than 100 interactive properties worldwide, including online, broadband, wireless and interactive television services and also has licensing agreements, joint ventures, and syndication deals whereby all of its programming services can be seen worldwide.

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