2001-2002 - The University of Scranton

Robert J. Chaney (‘70), CEO and president of UGI Utilities, Inc.; Walter Bobbie (‘67),
actor and director, New York stage and television; Kathleen Curry Santora (‘80), chief
executive officer, National Association of College and University Attorneys.
TRUMAN AND OTHER NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS
In recent years students from the University have won a number of highly competitive
national fellowships, including those offered by the Mellon Foundation, the Danforth
Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Harry S. Truman Memorial
Foundation. Most remarkably, two sisters, Maria Mascaro (1984) and Carla Mascaro
(1987), were both awarded four-year Truman scholarships. In 1988 Alice Batt, a double
major in English and philosophy, won a summer study grant through the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
BACCALAUREATE SOURCE OF Ph.D.s
Achievement is also recognized in a recent study of the Office of Institutional
Research at Franklin and Marshall College which showed that over a 75-year period (1920-
1995), The University of Scranton ranked 22nd out of 254 four-year, private, master’sdegree-granting
institutions as the baccalaureate source of Ph.D.s in all fields.
RETENTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS
The Mortenson Research Seminar on Public Policy national research team has concluded
that some colleges, including The University of Scranton, are far more successful
than others at encouraging students to do better academically than their high school grades
or SAT/ACT scores alone may predict.
The team which conducted the study attributes the differences between predicted and
actual graduation rates to internal institutional factors.
The University of Scranton placed 39th among 1,100 American colleges and universities
ranked by the difference between the predicted and actual number of freshman students
graduating in six years. The University’s 84 percent institutional graduation rate in 1995
was 17.5 percent higher than statistical predictions based on external influences such as
grade and test scores, average student age, or off-campus vs. on-campus resident status.
The University of Scranton was among the 160 colleges and universities in the country
whose graduation rate was more than 10 percent above predicted levels. Researchers
found that “a substantial number” of Catholic colleges and universities appeared near the
top. Even so, The University of Scranton ranked higher than any of the other 27 Jesuit colleges
and universities in the United States.
Since 1994, U.S. News & World Report has named the University among the top ten
comprehensive universities in the North (the most competitive by its annual survey of
“America’s Best Colleges”). The University has consistently been included in the U . S .
News rankings since they were first introducted in 1983.
In recognition of its work as a values-centered institution, the University is one of 100
American schools named to the John Templeton Foundation’s Honor Roll of Colleges That
Encourage Character Development. The foundation made special note of the integration of
academics and student life as expressed in the University’s curriculum and co-curricular
activities, mentioning especially the Freshman Seminar, Collegiate Volunteers, Campus
Ministries and the peer counseling and education programs in the Wellness Center.
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