GT Named in Top 15 Best Academic Places to Work

Atlanta (October 6, 2006) — Readers of The Scientist magazine ranked the Georgia Institute of Technology as one of the top 15 places to work in academia in the United States. In a national survey, Best Places to Work in Academia 2006, readers of the life sciences magazine and news site named Georgia Tech as the number 11 U.S. academic institution. Survey results were published in the October issue of The Scientist.

“I’m especially pleased to learn that our faculty think so highly of Georgia Tech as a place to teach and conduct research,” said Gary Schuster, provost of Georgia Tech. “We strive to create an environment that nurtures young faculty and encourages creative thinking from our faculty so they can produce innovative research that will enrich their fields, their students and the Institute.”

The Scientist’s Best Places to Work survey series—including BPTW Academia, BPTW Postdocs, and BPTW Industry—is currently in its fourth year. Survey respondents listed personal fulfillment as the top factor in determining workplace satisfaction. Peer relations, institutional management and tenure procedures also ranked among the most important factors. Institutions earning high marks in those categories took this year’s top honors.

“We’re proud to be able to provide this information to our readers year after year,” said The Scientist publisher Richard Gallagher. “It’s important for scientists to be able to tell their peers exactly how they feel about where they work.”

The Scientist posted a Web-based questionnaire and invited readers and registrants on its web site to respond. Participants had to identify themselves as tenured or tenure-track life scientists working in academia or other non-commercial research organizations. More than 1,600 responses were evaluated. Participants were asked to assess their working conditions and environments by indicating their level of agreement with 39 criteria in eight different areas. They also indicated which factors were important to them. The magazine ranked 58 institutions from the United States, seven from Canada, and 10 from the U.K.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s premiere research universities. Ranked eighth among U.S. News & World Report’s top public universities, Georgia Tech’s 17,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation’s top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

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David Terraso

Institute Communications and Public Affairs

Georgia Institute of Technology

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