Dear Members of the GSM Community:

I wish to update you on an issue of interest to the UC Davis Graduate School of Management community.

In a few months, U.S. News & World Report will release its annual ranking of graduate business schools. These rankings incorporate several key MBA student metrics that are self-reported by the schools to U.S. News such as: grade point average, GMAT score and percentage of applicants accepted by the school.

The GSM takes very seriously the compilation, integrity and security of student data reported to U.S. News and other rankings media.

For example, we have, and have had, rigorous internal controls and checks in place to insure our data integrity. Data on our students are collected and compiled in a secure database and shared with rankings media by the GSM admissions operations manager, with oversight by Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, James Stevens, who has read-only rights to review and check the data, but not change it. Our operations manager has direct line access and reporting to me regarding the student data and its integrity.

The reason why I am reaffirming the importance and integrity of our process arises from a situation at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.

Last week, Tulane disclosed that it provided several years of false student data to U.S. News for the magazine’s annual graduate business school ranking consideration. As a result of the disclosure, I became aware that a recently hired member of our leadership team, who was formerly employed by Tulane’s business school, has been identified in a media blog as being associated with Tulane’s false reporting of student data between 2007 and 2011.

My staff and I had no knowledge of the allegations when he was hired by the GSM in June 2012, and this individual had no role in collecting, reviewing or submitting 2012 UC Davis MBA student data to U.S. News. Data submitted by the GSM was correct.

In the interest of fairness and transparency, I have directed an immediate investigation to determine if there is any basis in fact for the allegations that the former Tulane employee engaged in any inappropriate activity while at Tulane. To minimize the impact and stress on our employee, he has been placed on paid investigatory leave, effective last Friday, pending results of our investigation.

We look forward to the release of U.S. News’ annual rankings, and hope our community can celebrate our 18th consecutive year of recognition among the nation’s top business schools.

Please do call me if you have questions, concerns or feedback.

My door is always open.

Sincerely,

Dean Steven Currall