As Playboy rolls into town, news outlets in Phoenix, San Diego and elsewhere are interviewing sheepish administrators and university PIOs over the selections. A typical reaction comes from ASU president Michael Crow, who talked with The Arizona Republic:

In ASU’s case, the party-school ranking is “a gross simplification that doesn’t have anything to do with who we are and what we are,” Crow says…

A few weeks ago, Mark Jacobs, dean of the school’s Barrett Honors College, boasted to high school recruits and their parents that ASU had dropped off the Princeton Review’s list of best party schools.

Now comes Playboy’s list.

“How do they really know?” Crow asks. “How do they really assess that? ASU is a very serious school with very serious students. It’s also a place where people have a great time and is a great place to be.”

My view is that the Playboy acknowledgment can be a good thing. It’s certainly nothing to get defensive about.

First, some background. Contrary to popular belief, Playboy does not publish an annual list of top party schools; this is an urban legend. From Playboy’s Web site:

Since about 1955, rumors have floated around every campus in the country that Playboy had at one time run a survey of drinking on campus and that a particular school was listed as number one. But we’ve ranked party schools only twice, in January 1987 (top school: California State at Chico) and November 2002 (top spot: Arizona State). As the old saw goes, if your school isn’t included, it’s because we didn’t rank professionals. Two caveats: In September 1968, we listed the University of Wisconsin at Madison as the most permissive campus in a sample of 25 universities. We also called it “the party school,” primarily because it served beer in the student union. We repeated the exercise in October 1976, naming UCLA tops in “campus action.”

When I was considering colleges, I looked at the University of Virginia and William and Mary. For a liberal arts education, the schools are comparable academically. What tipped the scales for me is that my friends told me that U.Va. was more fun — that it was a better party school. In fact, U.Va. made Playboy’s 1987 list.

Social life is also why many Ivy League students choose Princeton over Harvard; Harvard has a rep of being too serious and intense.

Damage from the Playboy accolade only comes when a school hasn’t established its brand academically — so it becomes known only as a party school. That’s not Playboy’s fault; it’s the school’s fault.

It’s this larger problem that university administrators and PIOs should focus on addressing. Defensiveness is weakness.

(Oh, and that devilish logo doesn’t help you, either, Arizona State.)

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