Temple Fox Axes Online MBA Director After Rankings Fallout
Weeks after the Temple University Fox School of Business announced the forced resignation of its long-time Dean Moshe Porat, reformed to its approach to its ranking system, and the hiring of Interim Dean Ronald C. Anderson, the Philadelphia metro business school has announced the departure of its Online MBA Academic Director Darin Kapanjie.
Kapanjie, according to The Philly Inquirer, has been officially replaced by Fox Assistant Professor of Finance Bora Ozkan. The news was officially revealed by Anderson in a faculty-wide email, but it was not confirmed whether Kapanjie was forced to resign or not.
“Kapanjie said it was a joint decision for him to leave the leadership position. ‘Given recent events, we felt it was best,’ he said.”
Kapanjie, speaking with the Inquirer, maintained that he “did not have anything to do with the misreporting of data,” in regards to the fallout with U.S. News & World Report.
Anderson, in the email, emphasized the inclusion of Ozkan, rather than the departure of Kapanjie. He says:
“’Dr. Ozkan’s background and approach to education, as well as his experience teaching in the online M.B.A. program, make him well-suited for this role,’ Anderson wrote.”
Stay tuned for more information on the story as it continues to unfold.
Temple Fox School of Business Reveals More Rankings Details
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.
BREAKING: Temple Fox Announces New Interim Dean Ronald C. Anderson
Just two weeks after the resignation of longtime dean Moshe Porat, the Temple University Fox School of Business announced that Ronald C. Anderson, professor and chair of the Fox finance department, will become the school’s interim dean.
Porat was forced to resign six months after the school’s rankings debacle with U.S. News & World Report. The publication removed the Philadelphia metro business school from all of its annual rankings after discovering falsified data was submitted. The turn of events occurred right after the publication revealed is annual Online MBA rankings, in which Temple had won first place for the fourth year in a row.
Fox School of Business Interim Dean Ronald C. Anderson / Photo via Ryan S. Brandenberg
In a new statement, Temple president Richard M. Englert says, “Ron has led significant growth in the department of finance, which is one of the most popular majors at Temple. He is an accomplished researcher and a well-regarded teacher who takes great pride in his students’ success. His professional experiences, both in industry and academia, are well suited for this critical leadership role.”
Anderson, who earned an MBA at the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration and his finance Ph.D. and doctorate at Texas A&M, joined the university in 2012 as a professor and department chair. As a respected member of the Temple community, news that Anderson would be manning the Fox School of Business ship at a tumultuous time seemed to earn praise from several members of the university.
Speaking with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fox finance professor and deputy chair of the finance department Jonathan Scott says, “We were just hoping we could get through the process of identifying an interim dean and get on with righting the ship. Ron is the right person to get us back on track.”
Still, there is plenty of trepidation at Fox, with lingering lawsuits from several dismayed students hanging overhead, as well as the school’s upcoming accreditation re-approval this winter. Temple Association of University Professionals President Steve Newman, speaking with the Inquirer says, “This scandal has damaged the trust that students in and outside of Fox as well as the general public place in our university.”
“This scandal is in part the result of an unhealthy fixation on rankings that warps the priorities of our university as a whole. We understand that rankings matter in recruiting students, but their effect on fiscal and pedagogical decisions at Temple is entirely too strong.” – Temple Association of University Professionals President Steve Newman
Stay tuned with MetroMBA as this story continues to unfold.
How the Penn State MBA Became a Bloomberg Businessweek Favorite
In one of the most remarkable leaps in the history of Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual U.S. business school ranking, the Penn State Smeal College of Business jumped from 37th to 25th in just a single year: the largest leap for any school in the ranking.
Comparing The U.S. News Full-Time and Online MBA Rankings
When it comes to business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report issues one of the most comprehensive annual lists. The annual rankings includes separate lists for the “Best Business Schools” and the “Best Online MBA Programs,” but deciding which format is right for you can still be tricky. Continue reading…
What is the Influence Line? A Stanford GSB alum explains.
Stanford Graduate School of Business alum Maria Lambert, MBA ’12, recently discussed the foundational idea of an “Influence Line“—an exercise in which one judge’s themselves against their peers, finding out who among themselves are the most influential compared to the others. It’s an uncomfortable process, but one, Lambert believes, can break huge barriers in producing positive feedback.
In a recent Quartz Work article, Lambert explains that the process of privately ranking peers is something we do constantly—subconsciously or not—but to make that list public requires that we reveal our “true beliefs and own our choices.” As she explains in the article, “to fully know ourselves, we need to know how we’re perceived. And that requires a rare type of honest, in-the-moment feedback that … the Influence Line is designed to elicit.”
The Influence Line exercise also elicits a great deal of internal conflict, as Lambert notes, but it doesn’t end with rankings, which is simply “the catalyst for eliciting unspoken feedback and emotions.” At Stanford, Lambert explained that her group “spent the next several sessions honestly discussing what came up for us during the exercise,” which revealed how much Lambert had left unsaid.
As brutal as the exercise can be, its efficacy has been proven. Lambert devised a “gentler” version of the Influence Line thought experiment for leaders:
- Select 5 to 12 people from your organization or network.
- Rank everyone—including you—from ascending to descending influence and explain each ranking.
- Reflect. What themes emerge?
- Identify unspoken feedback
- Evaluate yourself. Which assumptions support your perceived level of influence?
Lambert offers a few concluding words: “Sharing feedback is not easy; asking for feedback is usually harder. Yet, our growth as leaders comes from uncovering our blind spots, and then with kindness helping others to do the same. Learning comes from stepping out of our comfort zones.”
