Giving up a Sport Senior Year

Business School's Rankings Stripped

The University of Missouri–Kansas City inflates numbers to keep its prestigious ranking for the school of business management.

BY MARY B. FREEMAN MANAGING EDITOR

When applying for college there are several things most students pay particular attention to. For many, one key piece of information is rankings. Whether it be overall school rankings, social life rankings, education rankings or even rankings for the most delicious cuisine, each is important. We know these rankings, we trust them and we adhere to them. Ten girls from the senior class have applied to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This is why the news of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at UMKC inflating their ranking numbers is earth-shattering.

Because they inflated their own numbers, and thus their rankings, when reporting them to the Princeton Review board for the past three years, UMKC has been stripped of their rankings for 2011, 2012, 2013 and consequently 2014. According to the Princeton Review, this is the first time such drastic measures have been taken. However, to restore legitimacy to the top

News broadcaster experiences justified repercussions after exposed for embellishing stories.

BY NATALIE SOPYLA REPORTER

It’s 5:30 p.m. I dash into the kitchen and hurriedly turn on the television, just in time for the beginning of ABC World News with David Muir. As the hour rolls by, I listen intently from my kitchen counter as the charismatic and sharply dressed Muir reports on the events of the day. In the ever-changing world of technology and mass communication, television has remained a constant in the media domain.

Television is my most trusted source of information. NBC Nightly News, is the nation’s toprated newscast according to the Washington Post. That changed on Feb. 10 when Brian Williams, the dynamic face of the program, was suspended for “misrepresenting” facts in his coverage on the Iraq war.

The suspension stems from Williams’ claims that, while reporting in Iraq in 2003, his helicopter was forced to land after being hit by a rocket propelled grenade. Williams would later go on to 25 business management school rankings, this measure had to be taken.

According the the Huffington Post, UMKC has now appointed someone to head a committee that will oversee all ranking applications. Amends have been made and repercussions have been withstood by UMKC, however this is not an issue that should blow away with the wind. Rankings are an important part of the college decision-making process, as well as the post-college hiring process. The fact that this travesty went unchecked for three years is unacceptable.

I shudder to think of all those who have applied to and attended the Henry W. Bloch School of Business under the false pretense that it was ranked among of Princeton Review's top 25 business management schools in the United States. Among these 25 schools are Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis, according to the Huffington Post. Here's hoping this falsehood will not also negatively affect them and their reputations in the future.

No false information should be reported to establish rankings again. Hats off to UMKC for taking the affirmative as well as the cautionary action to ensure this never happens again. All universities should take this as a lesson: if you are only as good as your rankings, then what does it say if they are faked? Think about it. embellish his story further in interviews. Over a decade later, the pilot of the helicopter that was hit contradicted Williams’ story in a post on Facebook. According to the pilot, Williams was not on the helicopter, in fact, his helicopter arrived an hour after the incident occurred.

Williams apologized as soon as the truth was exposed, citing a faulty memory, but that did nothing to quiet the growing concern. Critics returned to other major stories Williams covered, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Israeli war with Hezbollah in 2006, finding discrepancies between Williams’ claims of what he had experienced in these disastrous areas. NBC News President Deborah Turness soon announced that Williams had been suspended from the program for six months, and his name was taken out of the program’s title.

At the end of the day, the punishment must fit the crime, and Williams’ does. Williams’ misrepresentations were of mere descriptive details, not the story itself; the issue of whether or not he was conscious of the fact that he was lying is too much of a gray area to determine with certainty. In this case, Williams merely embellished a detail in order to tell a more powerful story, something that

By the Numbers

The following are credentials UMKC claimed under false pretenses.

No. 25 in the nation (2014) Undergraduate program No. 24 in the nation (2014) Graduate program 57% of students launched a business while in school. (2013)

Williams Faces the Facts

Information from kansascity.com

Brian Williams has served as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 10 years. (Photo courtesy Wikicommons)

colleagues say he tended to do often in his writing, according to the Washington Post. Yes, Williams fabricated some details, but at the end of the day, they were details that had no impact on the main focus of the story.

The news has always been known to inject the tiniest bit of sensationalism to liven up a story, and hopefully Williams will not suppress the storytelling abilities that put the program at the top of its class. As for me, I will return to my normal viewing of my preferred newscast, perhaps with a more critical eye this time.