November 3, 2014 – Laurentian University has climbed four spots in the Maclean’s annual university rankings, the biggest jump recorded among all Canadian universities. Laurentian is now ranked 10th among all universities in the primarily undergraduate category.
Since 2009, Laurentian’s overall ranking has moved up 8 positions, with most significant improvements with regards to Medical/Science Grants, Faculty Awards, Library Acquisitions, Student Awards and Student Services.
“It is certainly encouraging to see Laurentian University climbing in the rankings,” said Dominic Giroux, President and Vice-Chancellor of Laurentian University. “We have reached milestones in a number of indicators this year, and they are in areas that we have designated as priorities in our 2012-2017 Strategic Plan.”
As well as the increase in the overall ranking, Laurentian recorded increases this year on most indicators, and is now ranked among Maclean’s Top 10 primarily undergraduate universities for:
- Library Acquisitions (3rd);
- Scholarships and Bursaries (4th);
- Medical/Science Grants (5th);
- Total Research Dollars (7th);
- Awards per Full-Time Faculty (7th);
- Student Awards (8th);
- Student/Faculty Ratio (9th).
Laurentian’s biggest increase this year was for Medical/Science Grants, from 9th position to 5th in its category.
“We have been steadily building our profile in areas of research strength, in keeping with our Strategic Plan outcomes,” said Acting Vice-President, Research, Dr. Anne-Marie Mawhiney. “It was extremely gratifying to see Laurentian’s funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) rise by 22% in 2013-2014 while funding declined nationally. We congratulate our faculty and increasing number of graduate students for their impressive research achievements.”
Competitive research funding increases were seen this year in 15 distinct research subjects, in particular in Earth Science, Inorganic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Psychology, Molecular Biology, Environmental Engineering and Philosophy.
Laurentian continued to show progress in the Student Services category, one of the areas identified in the Strategic Plan. Student Services have been enhanced with the opening of the Centre for Academic Excellence in 2012. The university’s on-going Sudbury campus modernization to be completed by Fall 2016 will support the delivery of services in a convenient, ‘one-stop’ service hub.
In addition to what is measured by Maclean’s, Laurentian graduates have consistently had the highest employment rates in the Ontario university sector. Since 2009, undergraduate applications at Laurentian have increased by 26% compared with 10% in other Ontario universities and students’ average entry grade has increased from 79% to 81%.
“What is important is that we remain focussed on our key goals here at Laurentian,” said President Giroux. “That means we continue to work every day on student engagement and satisfaction, national recognition, being a university of choice, community responsiveness and organizational excellence. Rankings do not tell the whole story, and can fluctuate from one year to the other. We are nonetheless very pleased to see this year’s rankings from Maclean’s.”