XU makes first appearance in U.S. World News and Report’s “National” category

By Addison Burke, Staff Writer

Xavier made its debut last month in the U.S. News and World Report’s Best College rankings as one of the top universities in the United States for 2023. 

Xavier was ranked 54th out of 440 universities in the United States for undergraduate teaching and 166 out of almost 500 universities for the national doctoral professional institutions. 

Xavier has a history of top rankings at the regional level, having placed in the top 10 of Midwest regional universities for 27 consecutive years.

Within Xavier’s Williams College of Business, four programs were ranked in the top 40 of their respective groups: Analytics (No. 23), Entrepreneurships (No. 25), Marketing (No. 29) and Finance (No. 36). 

These national rankings are the first for Xavier to receive, and more detailed rankings can be found on the Xavier website. Xavier’s Provost and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Rachel Chrastil explained what goes into the process of Xavier making the list. 

“Xavier just moved from being a master’s large institution to being what is called a doctoral professional institution,” Chrastil said.

“The Carnegie Classification system assigns institutions to different levels based on the number of degrees and the kind of degrees they offer,” she added. 

“What changed at Xavier that allowed us to be a Doctoral Professional Institution is that we met a threshold of a certain number of doctoral degrees that we offer… This doesn’t mean any change in terms of our commitment to undergraduate education,” Chrastil explained. 

“We really want to make sure that our graduate students have the same kind of excellent experience that our undergraduates have.” 

Dr. Chrastil emphasized how important the ranking of 54th in undergraduate teaching was to her.

“Because we are now ranked nationally against all kinds of institutions, that also means we were eligible to be considered among national universities with excellent undergraduate teaching. It’s a specialty sub-ranking that the U.S. News does, and that is where we are ranked 54th in the nation out of 440 national universities. So, to me, that is the recognition I am very proud of,” Chrastil said.

She spoke about some of the plans for upcoming years at Xavier, especially with Xavier’s 200th anniversary approaching in 2031. 

“We’re thinking a lot about helping students to figure out their vocation and who they are meant to be in this world. That’s a big focus for us. We’re thinking about inclusive pedagogy — that is to say making sure we are meeting students where they are and that every student is welcome and belongs in the classroom,” Chrastil stated.

“The other thing I want to emphasize is our commitment to what we like to call ‘Ignatian Civic Engagement.’ That is to say that we want students to be able to engage in politics in a way that shows us a better side of our natures that students should choose to be able to talk to people who we disagree with in the quest to learn from each other rather than try to dominate or fight against each other,” Chrastil said. 

Chrastil expressed how excited she is about the accomplishment.

“The fact that our peers recognize that and to the degree that we are considered 54th in the nation against 440 institutions in terms of undergraduate teaching, even while having this new graduate designation, speaks a lot to the excellent quality of our teaching, the support the staff gives to our students and our whole mission to educate, she concluded.”