Interim Temple business school dean, appointed after rankings scandal, elevated to permanent post

Ronald C. Anderson, who was appointed interim dean of Temple University’s Fox Business School last July in the wake of a rankings scandal, has been permanently named to the post, the school announced.

“Ron has displayed exceptional leadership ability in shepherding the schools through a transitional period,” Temple president Richard M. Englert wrote in an email to the campus Thursday. “He has created a culture of openness and communication that has been felt throughout Fox" and the School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, which he will also head.

Anderson had been a professor at Fox since 2012 and was head of the finance department when he was asked to step into the top spot following the ouster of dean Moshe Porat. Porat was forced out after an independent investigation determined that the school sometimes knowingly provided false data about its online MBA program to ranking organizations. He has filed a lawsuit against the university, saying he was wrongly terminated and scapegoated.

Before the misrepresentations were discovered, the Fox program topped the national list for four straight years. Agencies including the U.S. Department of Education, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, and an accrediting agency launched probes, and the university subsequently found that inaccurate data had been reported about several other programs.

The university instituted its own review and took steps to tighten procedures for reporting rankings data throughout the university, including the hiring of an external auditor. It also agreed last December to pay more than $5 million to settle student claims over misreporting of the data.

Anderson will officially assume the permanent position on July 1.