Case Western Reserve University sign at the corner of Euclid and Adelbert Road

U.S. News & World Report ranks several CWRU degree programs, specialties among top 10

Add one more entry into Case Western Reserve’s list of efforts that U.S. News & World Report rates among the nation’s top 10.

Along with degree programs in nursing and social work that achieved lofty positions in the rankings released this week, the law school’s Health Law specialty moved up four positions this year to place fifth in the nation.

One of the rankings that emerges from peer voting, Health Law saw its position improve after several significant achievements, including faculty member Sharona Hoffman’s April ranking as the 14th most-cited health law scholar in the country. Hoffman earned the recognition based on an analysis that two health law professors (one at Harvard, the other at Wake Forest) conducted of citation data from 2010-2014 (the most recent available). The Law-Medicine Center also hosted a national conference on legal challenges in precision medicine last spring, and this June is hosting the annual health law professors’ conference.

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences’ ninth-place ranking of its master’s degree program also came through peer voting, and it too could point to inspiring accomplishments. Last spring, a book co-authored by faculty member Mark Joseph won an honorable mention award in the Urban Affairs Association’s best book in urban affairs competition. In addition, the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education’s research regarding back-logged rape kits continued to draw national media attention last year.

Of the two top 10 rankings from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, the master’s degree moved from 11th to sixth, both on the strength of research funding growth ($8.5 million, more than 50 percent higher than the previous year) as well as grants supporting teaching ($4.2 million—more than double 2017’s number). The Doctor of Nursing Practice program, meanwhile, tied for fifth with Emory and the University of Pittsburgh. The rankings for both programs include peer voting and a series of data points.

Finally, the law school also saw another specialty climb to new heights, albeit in the top 20: Intellectual Property broke into the top 20—at 20. Its students have taken an active role in supporting student entrepreneurs—including the nationally recognized concussion screening startup Reflexion—and also secured the program’s first patent, this time for a local inventor.

International Law, meanwhile, remained in the top 15 after dropping two slots, to 14.