(Source: University of Kentucky)

It seems as though roughly 50 universities want to be included in the top 20. The University of Kentucky is one. Their story is told in a recent New York Times piece.

Here's a bit:

Plenty of presidents at state universities across the country have come up with plans for growth and improvement. But few have created a strategy as rigorous, statistically driven or transparent as [Kentucky President Lee] Todd's, and few bring to the task his sense of mission.

"This is really the key: We grow up in Kentucky being told we're not very good, we can't compete," he said at the lunch. "And that's not true."

"My point is that Kentucky needs to have big ideas," he added.

Few ideas are bigger than the one that Dr. Todd, 61, began promoting when he became president in 2001: getting Kentucky into the top 20 among public research universities by 2020.

It took 18 months to develop a plan, with the aid of consultants, to enhance the academic reputation of a university best known for its basketball teams, which have won seven national championships.

The first step for Dr. Todd and his team was to devise their own system for rating state universities. It involves measuring indicators like graduation rates; the academic quality of entering students; the number of Ph.D.'s being produced; the scholarly citations and awards amassed by the faculty members; and the dollar value of federal research grants awarded to the faculty members. Then, they designated benchmarks by which the university's progress could be measured over the years.

The data showed that the University of Kentucky had a long way to go. Only 60 percent of its students graduate within six years. It has fewer professors and fewer well-paid faculty members than the more prestigious flagship universities whose company it would like to join. By its own system, the university ranks 35 out of 88 public research universities.

Will Kentucky make it? Will it have to settle for being top 20 in basketball? What do you think?