UCI’s Merage School has leaped 15 places in the annual U.S. News & World Report ranking of graduate b-schools. It’s now No. 36 (tied with Purdue and Vanderbilt, ahead of Boston College.) Moreover, Merage ranks 16th among public universities and first among all schools in placing students 90 days after graduation. In the past Dean Andy Policano has criticized the list’s year-to-year swings, but right now he’s delighted. What fueled UCI’s rise, the biggest in the survey? “A focused effort on several key initiatives” and “the hard work of our staff, the excellence of our students and the unwavering support of our friends in the business community.” Other rankings: Berkeley 7th, UCLA 15th, USC 20th …
Chapman U officials are crowing, too, over the university’s breakthrough into the top 100 on U.S. News’ law schools list—at No. 93, ahead of DePaul and U of San Francisco. In just three years, Chapman has moved from the fourth tier (bottom 50 of 200 law schools) into the second tier. Prez Jim Doti says the ranking boosts the school’s search for a new dean: “Now we will attract candidates who want to go for the top 50 instead of top 100.” John Eastman, who stepped down as dean to return to teaching (and to run for state attorney general), says those seeking to replace him now likely will include former deans of top 20 schools. Eastman’s contributions were recognized last week with a party and the hanging of his portrait in Kennedy Hall. A rivalry is building: The conservative Eastman’s friend but ideological foe, UCI Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, predicts that his school will crack the top 20 when it debuts on the list (which he expects in 2014, two years after the first graduating class.) Other law school rankings: Berkeley 7th, UCLA 15th, USC 18th, Pepperdine 52nd …
The recession’s toll: Henry Schielein says that for the first time in 15 years there is no waiting list for the 150 slips at the Balboa Bay Club and two midsize slips are available …
At Chapman’s Dodge film school: Entertainment great Jerry Lewis lectures tonight. CBS Entertainment Prez Nina Tassler moderates a panel of television-industry female directors, producers and writers at the Women in Focus conference Friday …
Five For Fighting singer-songwriter John Ondrasik headlines the Natalie’s Wish gala Friday at the Balboa Bay Club …
This issue’s annual OC 50 contains good news for Donald Leroy Bren and other notables who hate seeing their middle names in print: The annual list of the most influential businesspeople has dropped full names and replaced birthdates with ages. The changes are an acknowledgment of privacy concerns, although Editor Michael Louis Lyster, born Feb. 26, 1967, also admits that he’s just weary of haggling over those things. So only here will you read that the full name of one of the new OC 50ers is Johannes Meindert Willem Moorlach.
