PORTSMOUTH — Shawnee State University has earned a #8 ranking on The Princeton Review’s just-published list saluting the top 25 undergraduate schools to study game design for 2015.

This is the fifth year that Shawnee State has made the list, something that SSU President Rita Rice Morris says is a source of pride for the university, its faculty, students, and graduates.

“This type of recognition helps us share with the world the outstanding education provided at Shawnee State,” she said. “Our students say that they receive one-on-one instruction from their faculty members, that their professors are accessible and knowledgeable, and that they feel prepared for their fields after they graduate.”

The Princeton Review chose the schools based on a survey it conducted in 2014-15 of 150 institutions offering game design coursework and/or degrees in the United States, Canada, and some countries abroad.

The company’s 50-question survey asked schools to report on everything from their academic offerings and faculty credentials to their graduates’ starting salaries and employment experience. Among criteria The Princeton Review weighed to make its selections: the school’s curriculum, faculty, facilities, career services, and technology.

“We believe several factors set us apart,” Greg Lyons, chair of the fine, digital, and performing arts at SSU, said. “One of the biggest is that we offer two separate programs in two separate colleges, one in fine arts that concentrates on the development of how a game looks and feels and one in engineering technologies that concentrates on programming, or how the game works.”

Through these two programs students work collaboratively on projects utilizing the latest in technology to give them what faculty refer to as “real-life” development.

For more information on Shawnee State University’s programs, visit gaming.shawnee.edu