A new and unexpected villain has emerged in the sordid story of the UMKC business school individuals who fabricated and cheated in order to get the school acclaimed as one of the best in the country.
It’s none other than the man after whom the business school is named — Henry W. Bloch, co-founder of the tax-preparation giant H&R Block.
The school was named for Bloch, now 92 years old, after he gave UMKC $32 million to build it on the UMKC campus.
The lead story in today’s Kansas City Star says that Bloch “valued rankings as affirmation for the school that bore his name.”
The story quotes a 2011 email in which then-Bloch school dean Teng-Kee Tan pushed business school administrators to raise the school’s standing in the Princeton Review rankings to impress Bloch. Tan wrote:
“Henry Bloch gets very upset when our rankings go down. We must do everything we can to increase it when we can by all means necessary.”
Bloch
In July, when The Star originally broke the story about the Bloch school having cheated to get inflated and undeserved rankings among the nation’s business schools, Mr. Bloch — through no fault of The Star — got a pass.
“No, I don’t think I would have,” he said.
That made him sound like his hands were clean. Little did we know, however, that his desire for high rankings — and wider recognition of the Bloch name, probably — played a major role in his benevolence.
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The two biggest goats in the original Star story were Tan, the aforementioned former Bloch school dean, and professor Michael Song, who formerly headed the school’s innovation management research department.
Tan
Song
In July, it wasn’t clear why Tan set the tone for cheating, but with the release of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, it is. Tan’s guiding philosophy, it seems, was, “We’ve got to do right by Mr. Bloch.”
Song, among other things, edited and may have helped write a “scholarly” article for a publication that ended up rating the Bloch school No. 1 in the nation in innovation management. Just as outrageously, at the time the article was written, its two main authors were visiting scholars (unpaid), at the Bloch School. (They had worked with Song elsewhere previously.)
The rankings put the Bloch school above such competing programs as Harvard, Stanford and MIT.
For their initial story in July, Hendricks and Williams conducted an off-the-record interview (understandably) with a professor who said he and his colleagues were skeptical even as the study’s results were announced.
“We all knew that this was bullshit,” he said. “We knew that UMKC was not better than MIT and Stanford.”
Amazingly, Song remains on the Bloch school staff…Whatever it took, steps should have been taken months ago to get him fired, regardless of what kind of legal standing he’s got at the school.
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This whole thing is very sordid and reprehensible. Here are the main points:
:: Tan created an unethical atmosphere by succumbing to the pressure of Henry Bloch’s presence and pressure.
:: Song was simply a crooked self-promoter.
:: Mr. Bloch should have given the money for the building and stayed out of the way. If the school had won big awards and rankings on its merits, great, if not, it still would have been a fine institution that Kansas Citians and Missourians could be proud of. But now it’s dug itself into a deep hole.
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A good friend of mine and a top Kansas City civic leader, Anita Gorman, was very irritated when The Star published the first story in July. She faulted The Star, not the cheaters, contending, essentially, that The Star did a disservice to the community and UMKC by airing the Bloch school’s dirty laundry.
Of course, Anita was way off the mark, and I told her so, saying, “You cannot blame the messenger; the individuals were at fault.”
Once Anita has made up her mind, it’s hard to dissuade her, and I haven’t talked to her recently. I hope that today’s story changes her perspective. I’ll let you know what I hear.
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Congratulations again to Mike Hendricks and Mara Rose Williams…A finer piece of investigative journalism would be hard to find. They have done Kansas City and, in the long run, UMKC, a big service by exposing a shocking and disturbing situation.
It’s time for UMKC Chancellor Leo Morton to fully acknowledge the wrongdoing and start the process of plucking UMKC and the Bloch school out of the mud and moving ahead with renewed integrity.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Oh baloney. The fact that a donor wanted top ratings doesn’t make it his fault that other people would cheat to get them.
Maybe…But a guy of his reputation and heft should realize he’s got to be careful what he pushes for and what pressure he brings to bear, especially when it’s not his institution or company.
Good to get your unvarnished opinion, Anne. (I was probably too dismissive of Thorson in yesterday’s post. You’ve probably still got the rigid jaw — Mike Waller’s great term — from that.)
Jim:
I have to agree with my distinguished former Kansas City Star colleague, Anne Canfield.There is nothing wrong with Henry Bloch, a Kansas City icon, wanting the best for his business school. If Tan and Song felt pressure, they should have had the guts to stand up to it, talk candidly with Mr. Bloch, and kept themselves and UMKC honest.
Best,
Laura
I’m under bombardment from two of the best…
If you want to cheat on your income taxes…sounds like H & R Block would be a fine place to start!!!
I’m honored to be mentioned in the same breath as Laura Hockaday! Thank you!
Thanks, Fitz, but one correction. The visiting scholars were unpaid.
Thanks, Mike; I’ll make the fix.
As long as Mike Hendricks is at The Star there’s still hope for the paper in this the RIF era. And yes, please don’t shoot the messenger – it’s the cheaters and the inflaters (or, in the case of the New England Patriots, the underinflaters) we need to concern ourselves with here.
Love that — the under-inflaters…Bunch of proven cheaters.
Fitz, Appreciate KC Star investigation and its findings, but you are reaching and inaccurate in your portrayal of Henry Bloch.
He is a kind and decent man, who I believe was duped by Tan and UMKC allies.
You were off the mark on your portrayal of Henry Bloch, my Man!
He wasn’t duped; he just wanted more plaudits, in my opinion. Once you’re used to being on top, it’s hard to step out of the limelight…Like I said, he should have given his money and let the school roll on its own. That’s not to say Song and Tan wouldn’t have cheated anyway, but I think there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have gone down the crooked path if Sir Henry hadn’t had his foot on everybody’s throat.
You can’t let these civic leaders off the hook when they screw up! Look at Don Hall; in 2013 he pushed the worst tax proposal Kansas City ever saw, the half-cent, “translational medical research tax,” which would have sent millions of public dollars a year to two private, nonprofit hospitals — Children’s Mercy and St. Luke’s. Holy Cow! Thank God the voters saw through that scam, turning it back by a record 84 percent “no” to 16 percent “yes.”
That doesn’t take anything away from what Don Hall has done for KC, but it shows that these guys living in the thinner air sometimes don’t get enough oxygen to the brain.
…There, take that all you idol worshippers!
We weren’t talking about Don Hal! We are talking Henry Bloch, who I have seen several times at Costco buying commoner stuff.
I know you’re trying to get a rise on blogging this Sunday, but admit it,
you over reached on Henry. Smoke that with your cigar!
I told you I would report back on what I heard from Anita Gorman, who was critical of The Star for publishing its expose back in July. So, I sent her an email yesterday, asking if the PricecoopersWaterhouse report changed her mind about the Star’s decision to publish. She wrote:
“I just feel sorry for Henry Bloch. I really like Henry and I don’t think this story will change people’s opinion of him; however, I do think this revelation is hard on all of UMKC.”
It sounds to me that Anita now realizes The Star was absolutely right in not holding back on this very damaging story — damaging to UMKC and the Bloch School. As for Mr. Bloch, it’s never too late to learn a lesson…
i was never a fan of Mike’s columns, but his journalism is top notch. I have had to rethink my positions on more than one occasion after reading one of his articles. And, while I know you’ve been critical of Mi-Ai Parrish, Fitz, I doubt if either of these articles would have been published were Art Brisbane still at the helm of The Star. When it came to dealing with KC’s elite Art was little more than a lawn jockey at the River Club.
As for the footbal references, has no one here looked at the final score? NE beat the Colts 45 – 7. Three of the touchdowns were rushing touchdowns from LaGarrette Blount who rushed for 148 yards. According to a Sports Illistrated article from 4 hours ago (http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/02/01/deflategate-only-one-patriots-football-underinflated) only one of the footballs was underinflated by over 2lbs and according to ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/deflate-gate-nfl-england-patriots-inflated-balls-half/story?id=28434830) the problem only occurred in the first half.
While both teams had the same set of game equipment to use, I would have to agree that clearly the Patriots were playing with a different set of balls than the Colts, if you get my drift. 45-7 45-7 45-7 game balls my foot.