The substitution of numbers for the evaluation of universities, teaching and research, have proven to be a convenient way to avoid the hard work of finding out what the significance of the various activities really are. Common examples where formulas have been substituted for judgment include student teacher ratings, number of pier-reviewed publications, research dollars, student credit hours taught, cost per student credit hour, fraction of the applicants rejected, and average SAT scores. All these numbers can be useful, however; all too often they are used in ways that are destructive. In this paper we will explore some of these issues with the objective of opening the discussion on the use of these numerical measures and to show the need for being able admit that many of these numbers are either subjective or inadequate for making important decisions.
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