A report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) places Hope in the top 25 nationally among baccalaureate colleges as a source of future Ph.D. recipients in the sciences (including social sciences) and engineering.
Released earlier this year, the report examines
the undergraduate origins of science and engineering
doctorate recipients from 1991 to 1995. A total of 110 Hope
graduates earned Ph.D.s. in the relevant fields during the
five-year period.
"This report provides an important perspective on
the quality of the undergraduate education at Hope College,"
said Dr. Jacob E. Nyenhuis, who is provost and professor of
classics at Hope.
"Since the NSF limits its data to the natural and
social sciences, and since there's not a comparable national
study covering the same period for the other disciplines, we
cannot make the same statistical claims for other
disciplines," he said. "But I believe that one can safely
say that over the last 25 years, the national reputation of
the college has been enhanced in many disciplines, and that
these data are reflective of the increasing recognition that
Hope programs and Hope graduates are achieving."
The general fields listed in the study are:
physical sciences, including chemistry, and physics and
astronomy; earth, atmospheric and oceanographic sciences;
mathematics; computer sciences; biological and agricultural
sciences; psychology; social sciences; and engineering.
Hope ranked third among the nation's baccalaureate
colleges in originating recipients of doctorates in
chemistry from 1991 to 1995, with a total of 29. Chemistry
holds the same distinction for 1920-1990.
The department of psychology was in a tie for 14th
nationally among baccalaureate colleges, with 25 recipients
during the same five years.
The top 25 institutions in the NSF's
"baccalaureate colleges" list originated 31.9 percent of all
graduates from baccalaureate colleges who went on to earn
doctorates in the sciences and engineering. Collectively,
the schools were the origin of 3,686 of 11,556 doctorate
recipients.
Hope and Kalamazoo were the only Michigan
institutions among the top 25 on the "baccalaureate
colleges" list. A sampling of the other colleges in the
top-25 list includes Oberlin, Carleton, Swarthmore, St.
Olaf, Wellesley, Grinnell, Vassar, Amherst and Wheaton.
Out of all colleges and universities in the nation
that originated 10 or more doctoral recipients in the
sciences and engineering -- including not only undergraduate
schools but large research universities as well -- Hope
placed in the top 25 percent, ranking 178th out of the 820
institutions involved.