KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The chancellor of the University of Missouri-Kansas City is apologizing after the Princeton Review last week stripped the college of its rankings for falsifying data.
Chancellor Leo Morton said Monday on KCUR-FM's program "Up to Date" that he's taking the issue seriously. He also has apologized to students, staff, alumni and the city in a letter to the school's campus.
The Princeton Review announced last Monday it was pulling the school's top 25 ranking for graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs for 2014, The Kansas City Star reported. The group later announced it also would remove the rankings for the Henry W. Bloch School of Management for 2011, 2012 and 2013 at the university's request.
The university was stripped of its rankings after Gov. Jay Nixon requested an audit of the school's data because of a Kansas City Star article that called the management school's pursuit of higher rankings for the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation into question.
"This is very serious to me because this is not what we are about, and I want everyone to know that we are addressing it in a very serious way," Morton said on the radio program.
The audit found the college's business school knowingly submitted false data when applying for rankings and awards from national organizations. Morton said that he had questioned the validity of a separate business school ranking when UMKC was placed ahead of elite schools such as Harvard, Yale and MIT, but was assured the ranking focused on a "very narrow" research area. The chancellor also said the ranking had been "validated" by a retired business professor.
In regards to the Princeton Review ranking, Morton said the submission of false data could be traced to one administrator. According to the audit, the administrator felt pressured by his boss to submit bad data.