U. students say professors 'scarce'

Professors at the University of Utah make themselves scarce, according to the Princeton Review's "Best 357 Colleges — 2005 EDN."

Under the category "low accessibility rating," the U. ranked 12th worst among all the schools surveyed.

"That surprises me," said U. Academic Senate President Larry DeVries, a mechanical engineering professor. "In my college, I think we make ourselves very accessible."

DeVries said he knows professors who hold office hours on Saturday mornings just for students who work and go to school. "The professors I know," he added, "bend over backwards for the students."

An average of about 300 students per campus were surveyed for the book over the 2003-2004 school year and/or in the previous two years, according to a press release.

Some aren't convinced that the Princeton Review is even in the right ballpark on professor accessibility.

"I am not willing to concede that it's a problem at all," said David Pershing, U. senior vice president for academic affairs. "We're a big state university with limited funding — given the funding we have, we think we are doing a decent job at providing one-on-one experiences between our students and faculty."

The U. even has a draft strategic plan that Pershing said will improve on accessibility by creating a more "engaged" campus.

It's a subject that doesn't exactly make the U. look good in a book that's supposed to guide students to the "best" colleges.

"We're not trying to put gratuitous praise out there for schools or marginalize them," said the book's author, Robert Franek.

The book's senior editor, Erik Olson, said the fact that the U. is even included in the guide puts the school in the top 15 percent of more than 2,400 schools in the nation.

All the schools in the book have good academic records and beyond that, Franek said, it's his goal to provide "balanced" profiles that look at quality-of-life issues inside and outside of the classroom.

Some schools, he added, may need some improvement in certain areas.

The U. also ranked 15th — Brigham Young University was seventh — in the area of "low acceptance of gay community." Compared to schools across the country, Franek said, the U. is still "fairly" conservative, despite its reputation of being the most liberal among Utah schools.

"That seems very logical, considering the demographics of your state," he said.

In the category of "students pray on a regular basis/most religious students," the U. came in 10th — BYU topped that list.

According to U. officials, the breakdown of students there who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is about half.

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Contributing: Tad Walch; E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com