Who topped the list of this year’s RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings? Which scholars show up most in the press? And what disciplines at which universities are capturing media attention?
Who Are the Top 10 Edu-Scholars?
The rankings are tabulated from nine categories—including Google Scholar scores, published books, and newspaper and web mentions—intended to measure the scope and reach of a scholar’s body of work.
Which Scholars Are Showing Up in the Press?
“Newspaper mentions” measure, in points, the media attention scholars receive in the popular press, as determined by a LexisNexis search. The scholar could have been quoted, mentioned, or written a column, such as John H. McWhorter and Tressie McMillan Cottom, both of whom are opinion columnists for The New York Times. (A scholar earns one point per mention; points are capped at 30.) “Education Press” mentions are calculated separately.
Which Disciplines Bring in the Media Points?
A university with the greatest number of ranked scholars doesn’t necessarily add up to the greatest number of media points. Nor does every discipline accrue points equally. For example, while Harvard had more scholars, Stanford accrued more media points. And UCLA, which tied for third place with UVA for the number of ranked scholars, earned the most number of media points of the top four schools.
Data visualizations by Vanessa Solis/Education Week
