County College of Morris and Brookdale Community College were both selected as one of the 25 top community colleges in the country, according to AcademicInfluence.com, which released its rankings Tuesday.
CCM was listed as the No. 17 on the list. Brookdale came in at No. 23.
AcademicInfluence.com describes itself as a team of academics and data scientists working to provide an objective, non-gameable, influence-based ranking for the people, schools and disciplines that make up higher education. It feels it has engineered an innovative and unbiased ranking technology that employs machine learning to measure the impact of work produced by the world’s top academic influencers.
Jed Macosko, academic director of AcademicInfluence.com and professor of physics at Wake Forest University, described the ranking this way.
“We look at how influential the school’s faculty is and then factor in the student body size. We call this metric ‘Concentrated Influence,’” he said. “Because students often choose to attend a school nearby, this kind of illumination provides a truer view of how influential their neighborhood community college may actually be, regardless of its size.”
The site gave CCM its highest marks in computer science and engineering, while saying it also is known for criminal justice, medical, nursing, education, business and communications.
Brookdale got is highest marks for communications and criminal justice. The site said the school also was noted for medical, social work, business, computer science, engineering, law, education and nursing.
Brookdale Community College President David Stout said he the school appreciated the recognition.
“In higher education, we have opportunities to learn, research, teach, shape the future of our academic disciplines and influence the larger world,” he said. “This honor is a tribute to the faculty and staff of Brookdale Community College for the scholarly work they do with passion every day.”
Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland was ranked No. 1.
View the complete rankings here.