Bloch Investigator Ignored The Elephant In The Room

WHAT MADE HENRY BLOCH OPEN HIS WALLET?

The Star‘s investigation suggested that the rankings were manipulated in part to boost donations, including a $32 million gift from H&R Block founder and Bloch School benefactor Henry Bloch. Hisrich concluded that there was “no evidence” that the journal article and Princeton Review rankings had played a role in Bloch’s massive donation.

“This contention does not line up with the timeline for the decision,” Hisrich concluded. The emeritus prof also interviewed the Bloch Endowment Board chairman and an endowment board member, who said, respectively, “Henry Bloch’s primary motivation to donate funds to UMKC was not rankings” and “the decision to provide the $32M was because Henry Bloch wanted the school to continue down a successful path and that rankings were not a driving factor.”

Arend points out that the timeline in fact lines up just fine, and the $151,000 PwC report Hisrich used as part of the basis for his investigation makes it clear that the ranking was done before Bloch’s decision was made in August 2011. In the PwC report, the journal article’s authors, Bloch visiting scholars Lei Tao and PianPian Yang, state that “our ranking article was written and related research was completed before we arrived (at) UMKC in August 2010 . . . we informed Dr. Song (about) the results of our ranking research.”

That means the ranking was completed a year before Bloch agreed to fund a new $32 million building at the school – and it beggars belief to conclude that Song would’ve kept the ranking news to himself, and that school officials wouldn’t have used it to pry the money out of Henry Bloch, who had “questioned why someone else could not provide the funding including other donors, the State, or even the University,” according to the PwC report that attributed that comment to the Henry Bloch Endowment Board chairman. However, the chairman said Bloch had made his decision to donate the $32 million based on the school’s need for a new building to handle increasing enrollment.

“That was the driving motivation for providing the gift and that it was not rankings,” the chairman told PwC.

RANKINGS HELPED DRIVE BLOCH TO DONATE $32 MILLION: UMKC

Interestingly, UMKC itself appears to contradict the chairman’s position, and a similar one presented to PwC by a board member, both of whose comments to PwC Hisrich used to conclude that rankings didn’t drive Henry Bloch’s donation. In the FAQs section of the web page on the Henry W. Bloch Executive Hall for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the “Why did Henry Bloch Give $32 million?” question is answered this way:

“He felt that between the recognition, rankings and awards the school has received, as well as the strong new vision and strategic plan established in 2010, now was the right time to create a facility that will propel the school forward as a model for other institutions around the world.”

Bloch School and university officials are still claiming the journal ranking is valid, in spite of a resolution last month by faculty to renounce all awards and honors given the entrepreneurship program during the decade that Song ran it. On March 3, says Arend, university chancellor Leo Morton during an address to UMKC faculty once again repeated that the Hisrich report had vindicated the Bloch School.

“Leo is like a broken record,” Arend says.

Regarding Song’s admission that he may have helped write the journal article, the key question is likely whether he could be considered a ghost writer, suggests Jeffrey Beall, a University of Colorado professor who runs a website focused on unethical journal publication practices. “I have asked colleagues to read my article manuscripts in the past. Sometimes they make helpful comments, such as pointing out a contradiction or letting you know you left something out. I do think this type of feedback is common,” Beall says. “Someone doing this, however, cannot cross the line and become an author of the paper, that is, a ghost author.”

GHOSTS CAN BE HARD TO DEFINE

International guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics are fairly loose on ghost authorship, defining it as making a “substantial contribution” to the work. The guidelines also say, “Authors should represent the work of others accurately in citations and quotations.”

Also, authors Tao and Yang, by failing to identify themselves in the article or to journal editors as visiting scholars at Bloch, appear to have violated one of the committee’s guidelines on transparency: “Authors should disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests and relationships that might be considered likely to affect the interpretation of their findings or which editors, reviewers or readers might reasonably wish to know.”

Although Morton has admitted the university submitted flawed data to the Princeton Review, he has clung to the claim that Hisrich’s report “validated” the journal article ranking. Bloch Dean Dave Donnelly has said the ranking was “thoroughly validated” by the PwC and Hisrich reports. Henry Bloch himself issued a statement saying, “Dr. Hisrich’s credentials and credibility are such that this report should put this matter to rest once and for all.” Hisrich did not respond to a request by Poets&Quants for an explanation concerning Song’s involvement in the production of the journal article.

The spectacle of university officials desperately touting the value of their school based on a journal article co-written by a faculty member is nothing short of pitiful. Bloch’s never been a school ranked by reputable publications, but it’s no University of Phoenix, either. Song, who had been making around $400,000 per year in salary, drove it into ignominy. Morton, and the Bloch officials who publicly assert the merits of the patently ridiculous journal ranking, are making it a laughing stock.

GOODBYE ELEPHANT, HELLO REEKING MESS

The elephant, of course, has departed from the building. As one might expect, the beast left quite a mess. But look! Progress is being made – the room’s door is opening, and here come Morton and Donnelly, each carrying a heaping shovel.

Whether they’ll actually shower the public – and themselves – again with the contents of said shovels is in question after the journal’s editor on March 5 announced she was appending an “expression of concern” to the article – one step below retraction – because the authors didn’t disclose their affiliation with the school, and because Song may have written part of the article. The university had not responded by Poets&Quants‘ deadline to a request for comment on the journal’s move.

DON’T MISS: THE $400K PROFESSOR AT THE CENTER OF THE BLOCH SCHOOL SCANDAL