I had thought I posted to my blog yesterday, but when I went to show a couple of people the site, my most recent blog wasn't there. Unfortunately, I didn't save it anywhere else either. Lesson learned, maybe.
I have been thinking a lot lately about rankings. For some reason, in America we have a fascination with ranking and categorizing things. Our school, our state, our country, it doesn't matter, we categorize and we rank. We feel a sense of pride, or dismay at our rankings too. In fact, one can easily get a sense of identity from "our" group being ranked somewhere really high.
For instance, after a quick perusal of the Mountaineer Sports Network website, I noticed that we not only have the #3 football team in the country, and our men's soccer team is #14 and our rifle team is #4. Those rankings excited me. In fact I feel a sense of pride in our teams even though I had nothing to do with their rankings.
My friend Jeremiah sent me a link to an article featuring another ranking. It appears that WVU is the #1 party school in the country according to the princeton review. This statistic came as a result of surveying 120,000 students from around the country. Needless to say, not everyone is rejoicing over a ranking like this. Some students and alumni are excited and proud of this ranking. Obviously, it isn't the kind of ranking that an administration looks forward to seeing.
Personally, it is just a reminder of some of the many places where we can go to find our identity, and the unique influences of the spiritual and climate of a college campus.
I have been thinking a lot lately about rankings. For some reason, in America we have a fascination with ranking and categorizing things. Our school, our state, our country, it doesn't matter, we categorize and we rank. We feel a sense of pride, or dismay at our rankings too. In fact, one can easily get a sense of identity from "our" group being ranked somewhere really high.
For instance, after a quick perusal of the Mountaineer Sports Network website, I noticed that we not only have the #3 football team in the country, and our men's soccer team is #14 and our rifle team is #4. Those rankings excited me. In fact I feel a sense of pride in our teams even though I had nothing to do with their rankings.
My friend Jeremiah sent me a link to an article featuring another ranking. It appears that WVU is the #1 party school in the country according to the princeton review. This statistic came as a result of surveying 120,000 students from around the country. Needless to say, not everyone is rejoicing over a ranking like this. Some students and alumni are excited and proud of this ranking. Obviously, it isn't the kind of ranking that an administration looks forward to seeing.
Personally, it is just a reminder of some of the many places where we can go to find our identity, and the unique influences of the spiritual and climate of a college campus.
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