by Lexey Burns, Editor-in-Chief

In our day and age of technology, it seems that pressing a “repost” button automatically makes anything you are posting true.

For example, Laurentian University said in an E-News announcement that “University Magazine has ranked Laurentian University amongst the top universities to study online.”

According to its website, University Magazine is a site “created for students by students to provide tips and advice, how-to, student life, majors, ranking and important news that will impact current and future university students.”

The website has ranked Laurentian 2nd place in Canada for the category of “Best Online Universities in Canada 2021.” Athabasca, a University in Alberta was ranked first. 

University Magazine says “Laurentian University is a mid-sized bilingual public university in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. One of Canada’s Top Undergraduate Small Universities with small class sizes ensures you’re treated as an individual.” 

Laurentian’s president, Robert Haché even acknowledged the ranking in his President’s update. 

“I would like to applaud the efforts of our Laurentian Online team. University Magazine has ranked Laurentian University amongst the top universities to study online.”

“This result has been realized thanks to the dedication of many faculty members, staff, and students who have contributed to these experiences,” he said.

But there seems to be little data to back this ranking up. In fact, I think having small online class sizes doesn’t seem like it is the key to such a high ranking.

Laurentian staff fire back on social media 

With the recent insolvency announcement, Laurentian University has been facing a backlash of rumours being spread across social media. 

Dan Scott, a Laurentian librarian, criticized the president on Twitter for promoting a “clickbait ranking article” and says “It is a pattern of critical thinking failure and not getting the facts right.” 

“There’s no way an article like that should make it into the President’s report,” Scott posted on Twitter. 

“That LU Online Learning ranking article comes from a garbage clickbait site. The article has no content and no methodology. We need to do better at critical thinking!”

With the struggles faculty, staff and students have been facing with the university’s insolvency announcement, Scott said “But to be fair, I think people are just looking for a good news story about LU at a time when they’re worn down by the pandemic, and the endless bad news and dread stemming from the insolvency filing.” 

“So when a positive headline comes along, it’s tempting to just tweet the link and try to spread some happiness.”

What do I tell my friends?

It is already embarrassing explaining to my friends at different universities, like Western, Waterloo, and Guelph, what LU’s financial situation is and what this means for the future of the school I trusted with my education. 

When our own president endorses a ranking report with no research behind it and shares it with the Laurentian community, it doesn’t help. 

Yes, it looks good despite the challenges that Laurentian has faced this year, but any amount of digging into the source just shows the ranking is not accurate.

When our university’s reputation has already been tarnished by Canadian Party Life, it’s sad to see people sharing non-reliable sources’ information about Laurentian.