I recently had a bizarre exchange on social media with an MIT PhD about the fluctuating fortunes of MIT in recent iterations of the PGR. Much of the exchange was based in ignorance: the young philosopher who was puzzled by MIT's drop from 7 to 13 between 2011 and 2014 (it jumped back to 7 in 2017 after several appointments) attributed the drop--bizarrely but consistently with the mystical views of cause and effect in certain segments of the 'profession'--to the "Leiter vs. Haslanger and feminist philosophers" dispute in 2014 (I guess meaning things like this and this). How this was supposed to work was puzzling: was it that voters scored MIT more lowly because Haslanger was on the wrong side of a dispute with me? That seems unlikely, to put it mildly. The simpler explanation, which I pointed out, was that between 2011 and 2014, MIT lost three senior faculty, Richard Holton, Rae Langton, and Robert Stalnaker (to retirement). It was objected, reasonably but again reflecting ignorance, that Stalnaker didn't retire until 2016. That's true, but Stalnaker was listed in the 2014 survey as on phased retirement ending in 2016--so evaluators unsurprisingly discounted Stalnaker, who simply wouldn't be availabale as an advisor for PhD students beginning their studies in fall 2015. Since 2014, MIT made several new appointments as well as tenurings and promotions, bouncing them back into the top ten.
In general, when people puzzle about changes in the rankings, it often turns out that their puzzlement is due to not being aware of relevant facts. Hopefully the new PGR will get on-line the faculty lists evaluators used, which may help dispel some of the mysteries.
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