(Posted January 22, 2007)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Every college and university in America is obsessed with the annual college rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, but only a few people on those campuses know how the rankings actually work. Juniata College business professor Kyle Sweitzer will take a peek behind the curtain of college rankings in the lecture \"College Reputation and the U.S. News & World Report Rankings,\" at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 31 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus. The lecture is free and open to the public. The talk is part of the Bookend Seminar Lecture Series, which features monthly afternoon lectures by Juniata faculty. Sweitzer will concentrate most of his talk on how the magazine collates its reputation ratings for liberal arts colleges and larger research universities. He will detail which factors can cause changes in ratings. He also will talk about how rankings can change if an institution alters its mission or switches its Carnegie Classification. Sweitzer joined the Juniata faculty in 2006 after working in higher education both as an administrator and faculty member. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education from Penn State University. He earned a master\'s degree in business administration in 1998 from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. He earned a bachelor\'s degree in business management in 1996 from Juniata College. Before entering graduate school, Sweitzer was assistant director of student financial planning at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt. from 2000 to 2003. He also taught several business courses at Norwich during the same time frame. He also taught business courses at the Community College of Vermont from 2000 to 2003.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.