Shortly after the forced resignation of longtime Dean Moshe Porat and hiring of his interim replacement Ronald C. Anderson, the Temple University Fox School of Business released more details following this year’s ratings fallout with U.S. News & World Report.
In a new letter from Temple University President Richard M. Englert and Executive Vice President and Provost JoAnne A. Epps revealed that the business school submitted false data regarding not only its Online MBA program—which was ranked first overall by U.S. News & World Report for four straight years—but the “Executive MBA, Global MBA, Part-Time MBA, Master of Science in Human Resource Management and Master of Science in Digital Innovation in Marketing” as well.
Englert and Epps states:
“These programs all had issues related to the reporting of one or more metrics, including the number of new entrants providing GRE/GMAT scores, student indebtedness and applicants’ undergraduate GPAs. For the Online Bachelor of Business Administration, misreporting related to student indebtedness was found. As a result, we have reported to U.S. News that we cannot verify data related to these programs, and we are not participating in or submitting business school surveys at this time.
We want all the members of the university community to know that, with respect to the misreporting of information at the Fox School, you had a right to expect this information would be accurate and honest. We deeply regret that this did not happen. We will do more than own this problem. We will fix it. And none of this takes away from the quality education that our Fox School students receive, or from the excellent teaching and research of its faculty.”
As a whole, the letter is a concerted effort at more transparency from the university, given the sensitive nature of the situation since being removed from U.S. News is January of this year.
The two go on to say:
“Integrity in the way we conduct and represent ourselves to the world is a fundamental value at Temple. The university is committed to the highest standards of accuracy in its data submissions to rankings organizations and has implemented rigorous new university-wide procedures to ensure this. As we said earlier this month, Temple is in contact with a number of agencies that have an interest in this matter. We are updating them as new information develops. We continue to diligently pursue the review of rankings data and will share additional updates.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the university staff who have been working so diligently in carefully reviewing thousands upon thousands of data elements in the Fox School and university-wide. It is through their tireless efforts that we are able to ensure we report proper information going forward, and can be open and transparent with all of you.”
You can read the entire letter from Temple here. Stay tuned for more information on the story as it continues to unfold.