I do agree that the author’s remark on not needing a vast amount of “world-renowned” and “well-trained” faculty to be confusing. I understand that he is perhaps frustrated with the overly quantitative ways in which SJTU and THES rank universities. With readings from class, “World University Rankings” we learn that as many of the research is conducted in English, many English speaking institutions in the US and UK have an advantage in terms of ranking. Yet, I do feel that although faculty may not necessarily have to be “world-renowned” they do need to be experts in their respective fields in order to responsibly lead students to successfully innovate in their research projects. Another area of concern for me is that after criticizing the current methods of ranking schools, the author offers little viable alternatives. In an increasingly globalized education system where students from across the globe are acting like consumers aiming to travel long distances for education, there must be a unified way to measure schools. Although I also believe that a purely quantitative method of evaluating school performance may result in skewed observations, it seems to be the most viable method, at least for now.
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