As students who only attend college for four years, it can be difficult for us to fathom just how much SMU has changed and grown over the course of the past few decades. The school’s high rankings, new buildings, and excellent academics are all factors we might take for granted since most of them have been there since we started school, but these improvements didn’t just come out of nowhere.

Indeed, when it comes to the university’s growth, especially during President Turner’s tenure, the school has a lot to be proud of. Since 1995 we’ve added 30 new buildings to the main campus. Over the past 10 years, our average SAT scores for incoming students have shot up over 125 points, and the number of education abroad opportunities has increased from 18 programs in 12 countries to 145 programs in 48 countries. SMU’s campus was chosen to host George W. Bush’s Presidential Center, a significant development that will guarantee the school a bigger spot on the national stage.

And of course, there’s the one point the school never fails to mention: our ranking in U.S. News and World Report has gone up from 68th in 2010 to 56th in 2011.

These developments are all important, and all of them make me feel fortunate that I can attend SMU now of all times.

However, even though the school’s recent accomplishments warrant some bragging rights, I fear that the school borders on gloating. For instance, on Aug. 31, Newsweek ranked us the 11th happiest school in America. And how exactly did they quantify how happy our students were? They found a random set of grades for dining, housing, and nightlife from College Prowler, counted the number of sunny days per year, and crunched all those numbers with the faculty/student ratio and average indebtedness of a student at graduation.

Sounds like some grade A statistical analysis, no?

I don’t have a problem with Newsweek using a questionable system to determine the happiness of our college’s students.

However, I do have a problem with SMU bragging about this ranking on its website. Of all the things that we can celebrate, we choose this? I’m not one to say that Newsweek was wrong in their analysis; after all, I’m relatively content and I imagine most of my friends here are too. But when other sources like Princeton Review can conduct similar studies and get completely different results, it really calls into question the integrity of the study, and it doesn’t seem like something our administration needs to call attention to.

I can understand the logic in SMU wanting to both publicize and capitalize on articles like this one. If we want to continue growing in the manner that we are, then it’s understandable we wouldn’t pass up on good press. That being said, I do worry about us growing smug. SMU is certainly a great school, but it’s also far from perfect, and it will continue to face challenges in the coming years. What about the rankings we don’t see SMU gloating about, like the jump from 16th to 12th most LGBT-unfriendly campus this year according to Princeton Review? Again, the rankings aren’t the only thing that matter, but if they’re something we’re going to consider, then we ought to consider both the positive and negative ones.

As SMU enters its second century, its accomplishments warrant a fair amount of boasting. But we as a school should not become complacent; if we hope to keep improving in both U.S. News’s rankings and the general public’s image, this kind of self-contentment isn’t going to help.

Brandon Bub is a sophomore majoring in English and edits The Daily Campus opinion column. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]