In the past, public health education in the US and UK also faced similar issues: low prestige, faculty shortages, inadequate resources, deficiencies in computing resources, poor teaching, concerns about the lack of specialized and doctoral level training, and inadequate integration of theory and practice [ 23, 31, 32].
Once again, the United States led in the factors that reflect institutional standing and quality, such as faculty quality, career improvement, prestige, and quality of infrastructure.
The prestige and faculty quality factors "depend in part on the amount of resources a country invests in research and training," note Stephan and co-authors.
The CWUR says it publishes the only global university ranking that measures the quality of education and training of students, as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research.
But Dr. Kathy Selvaggi, an award-winning oncologist recruited to run the cancer center at Armstrong, brought expertise and prestige as a faculty member of the Cancer Institute of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Despite differing drastically in the topics they study, the research methods they use, the sources of their funding, and many other respects, these disciplines differ hardly at all in "the enormous role of institutional prestige in shaping faculty hiring across academe," the authors found.
If you're looking at colleges and already know what you want to study, don't just compare the size of academic departments or the prestige of the faculty.
Others believe it adds to their prestige and helps attract better faculty and students.
With something to gain, faculty writers operating from a position of prestige in terms of rank might have less regard for original authorship, the other situational factor in Fishman's (2009) definition.
For undergraduates, the important question is: Can they actually rub elbows with the prestige professors the universities advertise as faculty?
