My Favorite Words in New Princeton Review Survey -- "Great library"

After reading a report in the local St. Augustine Record several days ago about Flagler College’s rankings in the most recent edition of Princeton Review’s "Best 366 Colleges," I could not wait until our print copy arrived so that I could read what the survey really said. The newspaper report indicated that Flagler ranked high on two very positive lists--“Best Southeastern Colleges” and “America’s Best Value Colleges.” Unfortunately, however, it also reported how Flagler was included on two less flattering lists—“Their Students (Almost) Never Study” and “Is it Food?” The newspaper report seemed to dwell a bit too long on each of these elements for me.

Fortunately, I was very pleased when I found that the print copy of the book provided a quite positive view overall on Flagler. I guess one should expect this when being included in a book with the phrase “the best 366” as part of its title. Both positives and negatives were present in the write-up, but to me the total package was mostly positive. Good things were said about the teaching, the relationship between teachers and students, and the Flagler environment, among other good things.

This should especially be good news to one of our senior accounting majors who had followed up on the St. Augustine Record article with a “letter to the editor” in which she expressed her displeasure with the report of the Princeton Review’s portrayal of Flagler students as slackers who never study. She argued that this portrayal is far from the truth, and that on a walk around campus or the library one can see a majority of students “all working to get good grades and to further our education.”

As one who obviously walks around the library every day, I agree with this young woman. Our students are indeed working hard and dedicating themselves to learning and it a real pleasure for me to have them in our library.

Which brings me at last to my final point and my favorite words coming out of the surveys of our students and presented in the print copy of the book -- “Great library” What wonderful words to hear from a wonderful group of young people!