UM ranked tops by national magazine

Published 2:58 pm Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A national news magazine has listed the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford as the “Most Beautiful.”

The Clarion-Ledger reports (http://bit.ly/ozRAL1 ) came from Newsweek/Daily Beast.

The magazine says it used data from The Best Colleges list of the 50 Most Beautiful Campuses, PopCrunch’s annual ranking of the 50 Hottest Student Bodies and College Prowler grade for male and female attractiveness.

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Newsweek rated colleges and universities in a broad range of categories, from “Most Service Oriented” (Rhodes College) to “Least Rigorous” (SUNY at Binghamton) to “Greenest” (Oberlin College) to “Happiest” (Yale University).

The only other Mississippi institution to make a Newsweek list was Mississippi State University, which ranked third in “Healthiest.”

MSU has made a major commitment to improving students’ health, said Dr. Robert Collins, director of MSU health services. For instance, students can now choose healthy options for meals and use more than 200 bikes on campus to ride.

In an unrelated study just made public, Washington Monthly magazine ranked Jackson State University ninth nationwide in the category of “social mobility, research and service ratings.” It is the only historically black college or university to break into the magazine’s top 10. JSU Provost Mark G. Hardy said in recent years university officials have sought to “better serve our students — especially those who don’t have the means for college tuition — and to train them for careers in research and community service.”

Keeping the Ole Miss campus lovely is the main job of Jeff McManus, director of landscape services.

Both former Chancellor Robert Khayat and current Chancellor Dan Jones have pushed to make sure the campus has a “wow” factor, he said. “We feel like we’re a big part of helping recruit. You never know who is going to be on campus today for the very first time.”