MCC Rated 6th Among 2-Year Colleges by mtvU’s Ratemyprofessors.com

New York, NY (September 17, 2013) – mtvU’s RateMyProfessors.com, the largest online destination for college professor ratings, today released its annual lists ranking the nation’s top professors and universities, based entirely on students’ input. Loyola University Chicago’s Penny Livermore, a classics professor, leads the list of top university professors, followed by Devon Hanahan, a Spanish professor at the College of Charleston and Kenneth Anderson, a music professor at the University of California San Diego.

Topping the nation’s list of universities are Duke University, Vanderbilt University, Pennsylvania State University and Stanford University. Whereas the 2011-2012 top universities list was dominated by smaller universities and private schools, this year’s list is populated by many large institutions and state schools, including the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan, among others. The rankings for best schools were determined by analyzing both professor ratings and campus ratings. Different from typical college rankings, this list is generated entirely from the input of the students themselves – providing an authentic overview of daily life at each respective school. The full lists for all categories are included below and can be viewed at toplists.ratemyprofessors.com.

As many students continue to pursue moderately-priced alternatives to traditional four-year universities, RateMyProfessors.com once again published a list of highest-rated junior and community colleges. Santa Barbara City College clinched the top spot, with Pulaski Technical College and MiraCosta College following close behind. This year’s top junior and community college professor is Allen Pinnix, a history professor from the Forsyth Technical Community College and last year’s top junior college professor, Sam Blank of Borough of Manhattan Community College, finished sixth this year.

Students posting on RateMyProfessors.com praised this year’s highest-ranked university professor, Penny Livermore of Loyola University Chicago, stating, “Penny is not only the best professor at Loyola, but without a doubt the best professor in the world. She is the kindest woman I have ever met and she genuinely cares about each and every one of her students. I learned so much from both of the classes I have taken with her.” Other students continued to remark on her love for her students, writing, “Penny is seriously an angel embodied in human form. She sees the best in everyone and will work with students in every circumstance.”

Students shared similar sentiment about highest-ranked junior and community college professor Allen Pinnix, of Forsyth Technical Community College. One student wrote, “I’ve been to two different colleges and never had a professor as good as Al Pinnix. The world needs more people like him (I swear he should be cloned)! He tells great stories about people in history! I would pay to take his class again if I could.”

Meanwhile, psychology professor David Daniel at James Madison University secured the top spot on the annual RateMyProfessor.com “Hottest Professors” for the second year in a row. Besides being described as “super-hot,” students raved about David saying, “His passion for this material is unprecedented. I walked into the final sad that after I finished that test I wouldn’t be taking his course anymore. Definitely take this class!”

RateMyProfessors.com is built for college students, by college students. It is the highest-trafficked U.S. college professor rating site (Omniture), reaching its highest-trafficked month ever in August 2012 (7.7 million unique visitors). Owned and operated by MTV’s college network, mtvU, the site consists entirely of student-generated ratings of current or former professors, featuring more than 8,000 schools, 1.8 million professors and 15 million ratings. RateMyProfessors.com reaches 6 million college students on average each month.

The 2013 RateMyProfessors.com Rankings Include:
Top 25 University Professors
1. Penny Livermore, Classics, Loyola University Chicago
2. Devon Hanahan, Spanish, College of Charleston
3. Kenneth Anderson, Music, University of California San
Diego
4. Rosalind Hall, Music, Brigham Young University
5. Kevin Raiford, Business, College of Southern Nevada
6. Debra Farrer, Education, California University of
Pennsylvania
7. Bridget Middleton, Mathematics, Santa Fe College
8. Claude Mark Hurlbert, English, Indiana University of
Pennsylvania
9. Dr. ¬¬¬¬Kimora, Criminal Justice, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice
10. Warren Schultz, Education, St. Joseph’s College
11. Myra Bloom, English, Oral Roberts University
12. Sarah Satterfield, Music, College of Central Florida
13. Raj Bose, Business, University of Phoenix Hawaii Campus
14. Andrew Russakoff, Computer Science, St. John’s University
15. Karen Turner, Business, University of Miami
16. Pietro Lorenzini, Criminal Justice, Governors State
University
17. Donald Franks, Mathematics, California University of
Pennsylvania
18. Paige Baltzan, Business, University of Denver
19. William Hoston, Political Science, University of Houston –
Clear Lake
20. Garry Merritt, Languages, University of North Georgia –
Oakwood
21. Margaret Jordan, English, Wayne State University
22. Kevin Kreider, Mathematics, University of Akron
23. Jessica Damian, English, Georgia Gwinnett College
24. Susan Young, Mathematics, University of Akron
25. Anna Bass, Management, Southeastern Louisiana
University

Top 25 Universities
1. Duke University
2. Vanderbilt University
3. Pennsylvania State University
4. Stanford University
5. University of Wisconsin – Madison
6. University of Georgia
7. Washington University in St. Louis
8. Rollins College
9. Texas A&M University at College Station
10. University of Michigan
11. Auburn University
12. James Madison University
13. Texas Christian University
14. Brigham Young University
15. University of Texas at Austin
16. Gustavus Adolphus College
17. Cornell University
18. Michigan State University
19. University of Miami
20. University of Alabama
21. University of California Santa Barbara
22. University of Southern California
23. University of Mississippi
24. Biola University
25. University of California Los Angeles

Top 25 Junior and Community Colleges
1. Santa Barbara City College
2. Pulaski Technical College
3. MiraCosta College (all)
4. Johnson County Community College
5. Santa Rosa Junior College
6. Manchester Community College
7. Cypress College
8. Fullerton College
9. Anne Arundel Community College
10. Kirkwood Community College
11. Estrella Mountain Community College
12. Housatonic Community College
13. Harford Community College
14. Howard Community College
15. Tallahassee Community College
16. Lone Star College(all)
17. Moraine Valley Community College
18. Chaffey College (all campuses)
19. Palo Alto College
20. Scottsdale Community College
21. McLennan Community College
22. Foothill College
23. Northhampton Community College
24. Richland College
25. Volunteer State Community College

Top 25 Professors at Junior and Community Colleges
1. Allen Pinnix, History, Forsyth Technical Community College
2. Melinda Shoemaker, Behavioral Sciences, Broward College
(all campuses)
3. Sara Elabed-Tolosa, ESL, Passaic County Community
College
4. Lou Ann Gibson, Nutrition, San Diego Mesa College
5. Alicia Adkins, Social Science, Miami Dade College (all)
6. Sam Blank, Communication, Borough of Manhattan
Community College
7. Bie Han Tan, Mathematics, City College of San Francisco
8. Wendy Parslow-Helton, Psychology, Lone Star College (all)
9. Michael Woodrow, Criminal Justice, Brookdale Community
College
10. Maria Garcia, Reading, Miami Dade College (all)
11. Jennie Welliver, Communication, Mott Community College
12. Jack Gill, Mathematics, Rio Hondo College
13. Joseph Hovsepian, Mathematics, West Los Angeles College
14. Ginny Powell, Mathematics, Georgia Perimeter College –
Decatur
15. Kristen Cole, Psychology, San Diego City College
16. Pamela Tabor, Education, Miami Dade College (all)
17. Cate McGowan, English, Valencia College
18. Andrew Gold, Business, Westchester Community College
19. Joseph Lempicki, Psychology, Henry Ford Community
College
20. Andrea Pizone, Mathematics, Norwalk Community College
21. Charles Sidun, Biology, Community College of Allegheny
County
22. David Stevens, English, SUNY Rockland Community College
23. Tony Smith, Communication, St. Petersburg College (all
campuses)
24. Jennifer O’Neal, Psychology, Las Positas College
25. Lois Willoughby, Science, Miami Dade College (all)

Top 10 Hottest Professors
1. David Daniel, Psychology, James Madison University
2. Paul Evans, Biology, Brigham Young University
3. Ruth Dellinger, Mathematics, Florida State College at
Jacksonville
4. Thomas Beard, Economics, Auburn University
5. Barbara Kalvelage, Biology, University of Southern Indiana
6. Corey Manchester, Mathematics & Statistics, San Diego
State University
7. Adrienne Alaie, Biology, Hunter College
8. Amir Sabzevary, Philosophy, Laney College
9. Daniel Norton, Communications, Seattle Central
Community College
10. Marsha Lindsay, Humanities, Lone Star College (all
campuses)

Top Lists Ranking Methodology
RateMyProfessors.com is the largest online destination for professor ratings. With more than 8,000 schools and 15 million entirely student-generated comments and ratings, RateMyProfessors.com is the highest trafficked free site for quickly researching and rating more than 1.8 million professors from colleges and universities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Each year, RateMyProfessors.com compiles Top Lists of the highest-rated professors, hottest professors, and top schools in the U.S. based on ratings from students.

The site uses a five-point Likert scale as well as a binary scoring system for students to rate professors. Below is a summary of the overall methodology used to compile the 2012-2013 rankings as well as notations for each of the categories1.

Professors are ranked according to the following methodology: Each individual professor rating is first standardized and, subsequently, the standardized scores for the past three years are weighted, putting more weight on recent years and less weight on ratings from the past (15 percent for 2011, 25 percent for 2012, 60 percent for 2013). Using the weighted score, professors are ranked from high to low. Only professors with 30 ratings or more are included to provide statistical significance.

In an attempt to break ties, professors with a greater number of ratings are ranked higher; the rationale is that a larger amount of information typically results in an estimate closer to the true parameter. Nevertheless, ties (i.e. professors with the same score and the same number of ratings) may still occur. In that case, if two professors are tied for the same place – say 5th – then the next available rank is 7th.

It should also be noted that school size does not affect the outcome of the lists nor does it give professors from larger schools an advantage over their corollaries from smaller schools. RateMyProfessors.com performed a regression analysis on school size vs. number of ratings and found no noteworthy correlation. Here is a look at how each of the lists are compiled:

Highest Rated Professors
Students rate professors on several dimensions: Clarity, Helpfulness, Easiness and rater interest (interest level prior to attending the class). However, a professor’s Overall Quality rating (which informs the highest rated professor list) is determined by an equal weighting of only two criteria: clarity and helpfulness. 5 is the highest rating and 1 is the lowest rating for each of the above-mentioned dimensions.

Hottest Professors
A professor who receives a chili pepper is considered “hot.” Chili peppers are awarded based on the sum of positive and negative (hot or not) ratings. For instance, if a professor receives 7 “hots” and 6 “nots” the “hots” will be counted as “+” and the “nots” as “-“. The sum of these (7-6) equals 1, meaning the professor will receive a chili pepper. If the result had been negative, the professor would not receive a chili pepper. Professors are ranked by highest numerical value in this case. For instance a -3 result is higher than a -4.

Highest Rated Schools
School rankings are based partially on the above professor ratings. In order to assemble a school’s rating, we include both its overall Professor Average rating, as well as its Overall School Rating which is an average of its campus ratings2. We weigh professor ratings and campus ratings equally (50 percent each), which implies that a top school scores high both in terms of academics as well as campus life. Similar to the professor ratings, in order to provide statistical significance, we only admit schools with at least 30 rated professors and 30 campus ratings. Using the resulting scores, schools are ranked from high to low.

1Data analysis is conducted with the help of Wolfgang Jank who is the Anderson Professor of Global Management in the Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences at the University of South Florida.

2Campus Ratings is an element on RMP that allows students to rate schools based on reputation, location, career opportunities, school library, campus grounds and common areas, internet speed on campus, food on campus, clubs and events, social activities and whether or not the student is happy with their decision to attend the school.

About mtvU
Broadcast to more than 750 college campuses as well as via top cable distributors in 700 college communities nationwide, mtvU reaches nearly 9 million U.S. college students – making it the largest, most comprehensive television network just for college students. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mtvU can be seen in the dining areas, fitness centers, student lounges and dorm rooms of campuses throughout the U.S., as well as on cable systems from Charter Communications, Verizon FiOS TV, Suddenlink Communications, AT&T u-Verse and nearly 70 others. mtvU is dedicated to every aspect of college life, reaching students everywhere they are: on-air, online and on the campus. mtvU airs music videos from emerging artists that can’t be seen anywhere else, news, student life features and initiatives that give college students the tools to advance positive social change. mtvU is always on campus, with hundreds of events per year, including exclusive concerts, giveaways, shooting mtvU series and more. For more information about mtvU, and a complete programming schedule, visit www.mtvU.com.

Contact
Janice Gatti, 212-846-8852, janice.gatti@mtvstaff.com
Jake Urbanski, 212-846-6888, jake.urbanski@mtvstaff.com