Lewis University Rankings Based on Salary

This place is not what it used to be. The graduate level is a replica of the undergrad with less opportunity to challenge ideas, do research, and think critically. Classes are eight weeks and meet one night each week. Many students myself included complain that the program is too short at the end of each class. Other common complaints include lack of retention and application outside of the classroom. A degree isn’t a piece of paper though the university treats it as such. I feel I have wasted my money in... Read More this program and have gained nothing out it. The professors and faculty are it’s students. Many have no real world experience outside of the university. Consider other outside opportunities before Lewis University. It is not the school you are being sold.

Lewis does indeed have an idyllic campus, with some of the best faculty to ever facilitate education. At Christmas every year, Lewis sends out fabulous cards to anybody with even a remote connection to the university, on very nice 120 pound card stock. Lewis also is at best capricious and at worst extremely inconsistent as to whom, as an administration, it favors, and whom it does not. Lewis is run by the Christian Brothers, also known as the Lasallians. Lasallians are supposed to base their educational methods... Read More on five principles rooted in Catholic values and virtues. That does not seem to hold true for the Lasallians at Lewis, and the administration hired to represent them. Sixty-three to sixty-five percent of the faculty at Lewis is composed of adjunct, or part-time, faculty. To be an adjunct means to not only have expertise as an academician, but the skills to be an expert in the corporate, commercial, industrial world where most of us reside. It also means only thirty-five to thirty-seven percent of the faculty is full-time staff. Even less than that are tenured. An adjunct faculty member of Lewis recently died. This person taught at Lewis for twenty years. The professor's classes were well-attended, and most students appreciated the professor's efforts. The faculty member taught anywhere from three to five classes a semester, what elsewhere would constitute a full class load. This person went to the annual adjunct dinner, as well as volunteered for May Institute, seminars, convocations, and panels. When this adjunct could no longer drive to Lewis, the individual took it upon himself two days a week to get up extremely early, take Metra into the Loop, to be on time for the Lewis bus to the main campus. Lewis's official answer to the adjunct faculty member's death was a copier paper sheet sent to the family in condolence, on which had been copied a Scripture verse, and the heading, "On behalf of the Brothers of the LaSalle Community, I want to extend our deepest sympathies..." That's it. A few individual colleagues took the time to offer Masses, call, attend the visitation. Not the Christian Brothers, and not the administration that represents them. There are other examples that Lewis is not the Catholic university you would think it is. Look for these before you commit to attendance, or send your child to attend, Lewis. Do your own research. Find out how safe the dormitories really are. Look for the location of the chapel, and find the story on the conversion of what was once the chapel into a venue for luncheons and special events. Examine what you will receive for paying sixty-seven to eighty percent more than a public school, particularly for general education credits easily obtained at the local community college for thirty-three percent of the price of tuition at Lewis. And if nothing else convinces you to look elsewhere, remember that the majority of the professors who will teach you or your child are adjuncts, people skilled in both the classroom and the real world. And remember how Lewis treats those valuable, skilled people.