VCU news

By Mike Porter

Virginia Commonwealth University’s doctoral programs in clinical psychology and counseling psychology are ranked in the top five nationwide in a new index of graduate programs. 

The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index rated departments according to the scholarly output of faculty members. VCU’s counseling psychology doctoral program was ranked third best in the nation, and the clinical psychology program was tied for fifth place. The index was compiled by Academic Analytics and partly funded by the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The results were published in the Jan. 12 edition of “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

“What’s most gratifying is that this is objective, practical data based on how our faculty members are performing,” said Scott Vrana, Ph.D., professor and chair of the department of psychology. “Our research is influencing the field.”

The index collected information about the number of times a faculty member has been published in a book or journal, how often a faculty member’s work is cited by others, honors received by faculty and grants awarded to them.

“It’s quite rigorous because they rate all of the faculty members in each program. It really is a statement of the strength of all of our faculty," said Arnold Stolberg, Ph.D., professor and director of clinical training and director of the Undergraduate Honors Program.

Vrana said that while other published rankings factor in a department’s reputation among peers into their final result, the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index focuses strictly on performance, and in that regard VCU’s psychology faculty are scoring high.

“It’s well recognized that reputation follows performances by as much as a decade and what these rankings are telling me is that as VCU psychology faculty continue to get published, get cited and are awarded grants, our reputation will only continue to go up,” Vrana said.

The index compared faculty scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country based on 2005 data.

“And that doesn’t take into account multimillion dollar grants our faculty have been awarded since,” said Stolberg. “It’s a real feather in our cap.”