UC Davis repeats this year as a top-10 “Cool School” in Sierra magazine’s ranking of America’s greenest colleges and universities. The environmental magazine published its 10th annual “Cool Schools” report online today (Sept. 6).

Out of a record 201 schools in this year’s rankings, UC Davis came in at No. 8 — marking the fifth time UC Davis has made the top 10 in the last six years.

“Placing once again in the top 10 of this widely watched ranking helps to publicly recognize the work done by staff, faculty and students at UC Davis to make sustainability part of our campus culture,” said Camille Kirk, assistant director of sustainability.

“We have more work to do, but it is nice to take a moment to pause and celebrate what we’ve already achieved, such as installing the largest solar power plant of any university in the country, hosting the first and only Mandela Washington Fellows Energy Institute this summer, reducing irrigation water use by a third the past year, and providing many kinds of opportunities for students to connect and engage with campus-based sustainability work through classes, clubs and internships.”

The QS World University Rankings for 2016-17 also came out today, showing that UC Davis maintained its place at No. 85. QS rankings are based on six factors, among them academic reputation and employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio and the number of citations per faculty member (as a means of assessing research impact).

UC Davis is also among 381 schools in The Princeton Review’s 2017 edition of “Best Colleges” for undergraduate education — representing about 15 percent of the nearly 2,500 four-year colleges in the United States. The Princeton Review cites academics as the chief reason for each school’s inclusion on the list, and says it also considers surveys in which students rate everything from financial aid to on-campus food.

The Princeton Review does not give overall rankings, 1-381, but it does compare colleges and universities in a number of categories derived from students’ survey responses (about 375 per school, on average). UC Davis earned a seventh-place ranking for “best health services,” and top-20 rankings in categories whimsically labeled “Got Milk?” and “Scotch and Soda, Hold the Scotch” — indicating students’ leaned toward nonalcoholic beverages over beer, and soda all by itself over soda with hard liquor.

In rankings released last week:

• Washington Monthly — The magazine recognized UC Davis as a top-10 national university based on contributions to the “public good.” The magazine defines the “public good” as social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.D.s) and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country).

Acting Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter said the ranking is well-deserved. “Our work is all about improving people’s lives,” he said. “We couldn’t be more proud of our students, staff and faculty for their engagement and their commitment to make the world a better place.”

In Washington Monthly’s new rankings, published in the September-October issue, UC Davis comes in at 10th best out of 303 national universities, public or private. Three other UCs also made the top 10: San Diego, fourth; Berkeley, seventh; and Los Angeles, eighth.

• LGBTQI-Friendly — The national, nonprofit organization Campus Pride listed UC Davis among the 30 best colleges and universities in the country for LGBTQ-inclusive policies, programs and practices.

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