Objective: The methodology used to generate the US News and World Report rankings has been increasingly scrutinized by members of the Academy. The primary objective was to describe the potential positive and negative effects of the Academy ceasing participation in the US News and World Report ranking system (USNWR-RS).
Methods: As part of the Academic Leadership Fellows Program, fellows participated in a debate on current topics in academic pharmacy. For this topic, authors partnered with health science librarians and individually searched the peer-reviewed literature and lay press for evidence related to the USNWR-RS for pharmacy. Each piece of evidence was reviewed by 2 different authors for inclusion, and discrepancies were resolved through discussion. All evidence was then summarized to identify themes related to the primary objective.
Results: Thirteen pieces of evidence were included in the summary: 8 (62%) were from peer-reviewed literature and the remaining were from popular media or news sources. Just over one-third of the pieces of evidence were initially structured as research studies rather than opinion-based articles.
Conclusion: The USNWR-RS has flaws and benefits that should be considered as the Academy works to address concerns. Established work and initial steps toward change lay an encouraging framework for the future.
Keywords: Organizational decision making; Pharmacy education; Program evaluation.
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