Arkansas Food Scientists in Top 10 for 'Scholarly Productivity'

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's department of food science was ranked in the top 10 nationally for "faculty scholarly productivity" by Academic Analytics, which recently released its 2006-2007 ranking of doctoral research programs at 357 universities and colleges. In the agricultural sciences category, the University of Arkansas was ranked No. 22. Only two other Southeastern Conference schools, Florida and Kentucky, were also ranked in the top 25 for agriculture.

The index, partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, objectively rates scholarly output based on the number of book and journal articles published by faculty members, journal citations, awards, honors and grants received. Rankings are published online at http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity.

This is the third year of what Academic Analytics says is a purely objective measure of doctoral research programs in contrast to other rankings that rely heavily on reputation, says founder Lawrence Martin of Stony Brook. The company also provides a variety of studies to help institutions evaluate programs.

At No. 10, the Arkansas food science program, with 12 faculty members, is in the company of larger universities with double or triple the number of faculty members. Wisconsin is ranked No. 1., the University of California at Davis is No. 9, and Florida -- the only other Southeastern Conference school in the top 10 for food science -- is No. 8.

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