25 Universities with the Worst Professors

By Lynn O'Shaughnessy | CBS MoneyWatch

Which U.S. colleges and universities have the worst professors?

According to the latest figures compiled by an education think-tank, many of the worst profs are teaching in schools in the Midwest and on the East Coast. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity compiled a list of schools with the best and worst professors by culling through millions of teacher ratings at RateMyProfessors.com. The teacher ratings were one of the components that the center used in evaluating 650 colleges and universities for Forbes' ranking of America's Best Colleges.

Millions of students have used RateMyProfessors to share their feelings about their teachers in the U.S., Canada and U.K. Using a five-point scale, students rate professors on three criteria: helpfulness, clarity and easiness. An overall quality score is determined by averaging the helpfulness and clarity ratings. You can see all four scores for each professor on the site.

It's notable that some of the universities that landed on the worst professor list are schools that specialize in science, technology and engineering, which are academically challenging. Students could give professors in the these fields low scores on the easiness category, but these assessments are not used in a professor's overall quality score. (You can see how all the schools ranked by Forbes fared in the instruction category by clicking on the component rankings link on the center's website.)

The school with the lowest-rated professors? That dubious distinction goes to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, while the U.S. Coast Guard Academy ranked third. The schools' poor performance is something of a surprise, as two of the other service academies -- West Point and the Air Force Academy -- rank near the top of the list of the schools with the best professors. Following is the full list.

25 universities with the worst professors

1. U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (NY)
2. Michigan Technological University
3. U.S. Coast Guard Academy (CT)
4. Milwaukee School of Engineering
5. New Jersey Institute of Technology
6. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY)
7. Widener University (PA)
8. St. Cloud University (MN)
9. Bentley University (MA)
10. Indiana State University
11. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA)
12. Central Michigan University
13. Minnesota State University, Mankato
14. Pace University (NY)
15. Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)
16. Seton Hall University (NJ)
17. Westminster College (PA)
18. Howard University (DC)
19. Iowa State University
20. University of Toledo (OH)
21. Truman State University (MO)
22. Illinois State University
23. University of Connecticut
24. Oregon Institute of Technology
25. University of Maryland

Among the schools on this hall of shame list are two flagship universities -- the University of Connecticut (No. 22) and the University of Maryland (24). Sixteen of the schools are public universities. While 11 of the schools are located in the Midwest, no institutions from the South are listed.
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how US Muslims fit into the American matrix

Poll shows how US Muslims are like Protestants – and how they're not
A worldwide Pew poll of Muslims charts opinions on issues from women's rights to which religion is the one true faith, and details how US Muslims fit into the American matrix.

By Mark Trumbull

Compared to Muslims worldwide, adherents of Islam in the United States are more likely to have close friends who are non-Muslim. They are far more likely to say that believers in many religions can attain heaven. They are considerably less likely to view suicide bombing as acceptable.
Those are some of the results from a major global poll of Muslims in 39 countries, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The survey's release comes, coincidentally, in the same month America was shaken by Boston Marathon bomb attacks, which focused the nation on the risk of domestic Islamic terrorism. The two suspects named in the case by investigators so far, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are Muslims of Chechen heritage who had lived in the US for a decade.
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While the Tsarnaev brothers appear to have been drawn toward the ideology of violent jihad in defense of Islam, according to emerging evidence, the Pew survey paints a broader portrait of Muslims worldwide – finding, for instance, that a large majority of the world's 1.6 billion adherents of Islam disapprove of such attacks against civilians.
The poll also puts in sharp relief how varied the views are from country to country, within a religion that encompasses about one-fourth of the global population. (The survey itself was a gargantuan effort spanning five years – through 2012 – with 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 80-plus languages.)
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Some highlights:
One true faith? In all but a handful of the 39 countries surveyed, most Muslims agree with the view that their religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life in heaven. And they say belief in God is necessary to be a moral person.
America is one of the exceptions to this pattern, although about two-thirds of US Muslims are foreign-born, according to Pew Forum researchers. Some 56 percent of US Muslims agree with the view that many religions can lead to heaven, compared with 18 percent in the median nation in the global survey.
Terrorism. Around the world, most Muslims reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians in the name of Islam. Some 81 percent of US Muslims, on one end of the spectrum, say such violence against civilians is never justified, while some say it is either often justified (1 percent) or sometimes justified (7 percent) to defend Islam.
By contrast, substantial minorities among Muslims in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26 percent in Bangladesh, 29 percent in Egypt, 39 percent in Afghanistan, and 40 percent in the Palestinian territories.
Role of women. In most countries surveyed, majorities of Muslim women and men alike agree that a wife is always obliged to obey her husband. However, majorities in many countries surveyed say a woman should be able to decide for herself whether to wear a veil
In most countries where a question about so-called "honor" killings was asked, majorities of Muslims say such killings are never justified. In two countries – Afghanistan and Iraq – majorities condone extra-judicial executions of women who have allegedly shamed their families by engaging in premarital sex or adultery.
Morality. Muslims around the world overwhelmingly view certain behaviors as immoral, including prostitution, homosexuality, suicide, abortion, euthanasia, and consumption of alcohol. But the polling found that attitudes toward polygamy, divorce, and birth control are more varied.
Religion in politics. Most Muslims want to see the teachings of Islam shape their societies, but the percentage of Muslims who say they want sharia to be "the official law of the land" varies. That percentage is fewer than 1 in 10 in Azerbaijan, but is a solid majority in many nations from Africa to Asia. That includes 71 percent of Muslims in Nigeria, 72 percent in Indonesia, 74 percent in Egypt, and 99 percent in Afghanistan.
At the same time, the survey finds that even in many countries where there is strong backing for sharia, most Muslims favor religious freedom for people of other faiths. In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of Muslims say that non-Muslims are very free to practice their religion, and fully 96 percent of those who share this assessment say it is "a good thing."
That finding, repeated in other nations, is important as indicator of the potential for tolerance to coincide with the desire for religion to influence public life, the Pew Forum's James Bell said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday.
And in many countries, a majority of Muslims say sharia law should not apply to people of other faiths. (But majorities in Egypt and Afghanistan say sharia should apply more widely, and Indonesia is divided down the middle on this issue.)
At least half of Muslims in most countries surveyed say they are concerned about religious extremist groups in their country. The worry is more about Islamic extremists than about Christian extremists.
Islam versus other faiths in US. Within the US, it's possible to draw comparisons between some views of Muslims and the views of people of other faiths.
For example, US Muslims are generally less likely than the general US population to believe that many religions can lead to eternal life (56 vs. 70 percent).
But they are in the middle of the pack when it comes to viewing their religion as the one true faith. About 33 percent of US Muslims believe that, similar to historically black Protestant churches (34 percent) and evangelical Protestant churches (36 percent). A higher share of Mormons (56 percent) felt that way, while the level was lower for a number of other faiths. Sixteen percent of Roman Catholics, 12 percent of mainline Protestants, and 5 percent of Jews in the US saw their religion as the one true faith.
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Large majorities in the Muslim world want sharia

(Reuters) - Large majorities in the Muslim world want the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia as the official law in their countries, but they disagree on what it includes and who should be subject to it, an extensive new survey says.
Suicide bombing was mostly rejected In the study by the Washington-based Pew Forum, but it won 40 percent support in the Palestinian territories, 39 percent in Afghanistan, 29 percent in Eygpt and 26 percent in Bangladesh.
Three-quarters of respondents said abortion is morally wrong and 80 percent or more rejected homosexuality and sex outside of marriage.
Over three-quarters of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia want sharia courts to decide family law issues such as divorce and property disputes, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said on Tuesday.
Views on punishments such as chopping off thieves' hands or decreeing death for apostates is more evenly divided in much of the Islamic world, although more than three-quarters of Muslims in South Asia say they are justified.
Those punishments have helped make sharia controversial in some non-Islamic countries, where some critics say radical Muslims want to impose it on Western societies, but the survey shows views in Muslim countries are far from monolithic.
"Muslims are not equally comfortable with all aspects of sharia," the study said. "Most do not believe it should be applied to non-Muslims."
Unlike codified Western law, sharia is a loosely defined set of moral and legal guidelines based on the Koran, the sayings of Prophet Mohammad (hadith) and Muslim traditions. Its rules and advice cover everything from prayers to personal hygiene.
Amaney Jamal, a Princeton University political scientist who was special adviser for the project, said Muslims in poor and repressive societies tended to identify sharia with basic Islamic values such as equality and social justice.
"In those societies, you tend to see significant support for sharia," she told journalists on a conference call. By contrast, Muslims who have lived under "narrow if not rigid" Islamic systems were less supportive of sharia as the official law.
POLITICS AND VIOLENCE
More than four-fifths of the 38,000 Muslims interviewed in 39 countries said non-Muslims in their countries could practice their faith freely and that this was good.
This view was strongest in South Asia, where 97 percent of Bangladeshis and 96 percent of Pakistanis agreed, while the lowest Middle Eastern result was 77 percent in Egypt.
The survey polled only Muslims and not minorities. In several Muslim countries, embattled Christian minorities say they cannot practice their faith freely and are subject to discrimination and physical attacks.
The survey produced mixed results on questions relating to the relationship between politics and Islam.
Democracy wins slight majorities in key Middle Eastern states - 54 percent in Iraq, 55 percent in Egypt - and falls to 29 percent in Pakistan. By contrast, it stands at 81 percent in Lebanon, 75 percent in Tunisia and 70 percent in Bangladesh.
In most countries surveyed, Muslims were more worried about Islamist militancy than any other form of religious violence.
SEX AND VEILS
Views on whether women should decide themselves if they should wear a headscarf vary greatly, from 89 percent in Tunisia and 79 percent in Indonesia saying yes and 45 percent in Iraq and 30 percent in Afghanistan saying no.
Majorities from 74 percent in Lebanon to 96 percent in Malaysia said wives should always obey their husbands.
Only a minority saw Sunni-Shi'ite tensions as a very big problem, ranging from 38 percent in Lebanon and 34 percent in Pakistan to 23 percent in Iraq and 14 percent in Turkey.
Conflict with other religions loomed larger, with 68 percent in Lebanon saying it was a big problem, 65 percent in Tunisia, 60 percent in Nigeria and 57 percent in Pakistan.
A section of the survey on U.S. Muslims noted they "sometimes more closely resemble other Americans than they do Muslims around the world". Only about half say their closest friends are Muslim, compared to 95 percent of Muslims globally.
(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Michael Roddy)
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