Clemson President James Barker is once again on the defensive after one of his staffers unwittingly exposed some of the manipulative practices being employed by the school in its “Fatal Attraction”-style quest to become a Top 20 public university – at least in the eyes of U.S. News & World Report.
FITS has previously exposed how Clemson has altered every facet of its operations to conform to the specific U.S. News ranking criteria, which has many questioning whether or not the school is still serving its mission as a publicly-funded, land grant institution.
Now, in the wake of an embarrassing report from Inside Higher Ed – which was 100% self-inflicted, incidentally – Barker is scurrying to defend why he gave Clemson artificially high ratings on a “peer assessment form” that comprises part of the U.S. News rankings.
From the latest Inside Higher Ed report:
Barker … rated his institution as “strong” — but he gave no other university in the country that high a mark, handing out 18 “good”s (3′s), 94 “adequate”s (2′s), 126 “marginal”s, and 21 “don’t know”s in the 2009 ranking. Because U.S. News’s “national universities” category includes not only well-regarded public institutions such as the Universities of California at Berkeley, Michigan, and North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but also private universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, Barker has rated his institution more highly than all of those.
In an interview Monday, he defended his approach. “The request from U.S. News is to measure the academic quality of undergraduate programs,” Barker said. “It did not say research programs, it did not say prestige. It did not say size of endowments, or anything other than undergraduate education. And I took that charge seriously, measuring what I would think would be the full package of the undergraduate experience.”
What?
Frankly, a simple “yeah, I did it” would have sufficed, but Barker is hell-bent on defending his juvenile attempt to artificially inflate Clemson’s scores.
How pathetic.
This guy is an embarrassment to Clemson, to the State of South Carolina and to higher education in general.
Update – Sources tell FITS that Barker has sent out another one of his excuse-riddled “Dear Clemson” letters in response to the Inside Higher Ed report … we’re endeavoring to get a copy of that for you, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, if you want to see a newspaper perform fellatio on a public official, here’s La Liberbad’s take on Barker’s duplicity.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 9, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Hell, he probably actually thinks Clemson is better than Harvard, Yale, etc. All those Clemson guys think that school is truly the best of everything in the universe. They’re so serious about it that they loose all perspective.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 9, 2009 at 12:42 pm
The more I think about this, the more the appropriate response seems obvious. US News should respond to Clemson’s cheating the rating criteria the same way the NCAA responded to Clemson’s cheating in college football in the early 80s: probation. Just as Clemson was punished for running a rogue football program by, among other things, suspending it from post-season play for several years, the school should again be punished for its unethical conduct with respect to the magazine’s college ranking by essentially “suspending it from play.” If US News were to eliminate Clemson from appearing in its rankings or prohibit it from voting on other schools in the rankings for say, five years, it might dissuade schools from following Clemson’s despicable path by “manipulating” the data “around the edges” and elsewhere.
The strangest thing is why Barker would take such an approach when the school was already a damn good college. Ego, I suppose. Fat bonuses for him probably had a little to do with it, too …
By CNSYD June 9, 2009 at 1:23 pm
More Pollyanna. The data is about as accurate as the Coaches Poll in football. Each voter manipulates it to enhance themselves. Also I believe the Division 1 program in SC to most recently be on NCAA probation is located in Columbia.
By Cow College Alum 85 June 9, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Dear Clemson:
Is Clemson a better and stronger University today than we were 5 years ago or 10 years ago? If we are, it is the result of your hard work and creativity. It is also because we are determined to increase the quality of everything we do at Clemson. This collective drive has always been at the core of this place. Recently this drive for quality has grown to be more focused and accountable around specific goals that measure our progress. These goals are both qualitative and quantitative. Both kinds of goals are critical to our progress as a university.
We should never apologize or feel uncomfortable about having a desired destination that is measurable and accountable. Progress has been made because we have a plan and we are budgeting to this plan. However, a plan is easy. Working together to realize this plan is hard. It is particularly hard when resources are scarce.
There will never be a plan that has 100% support. There will always be critics. However, I will not apologize for believing that Clemson is the best undergraduate school in America.
We have not manipulated ourselves to this position; we have worked ourselves to this position.
We should celebrate the fact that we now have smaller classes for our students staffed by great teachers, a new Phi Beta Kappa chapter, a better faculty/student ratio than ever before, higher graduation rates and retention rates; and I think it is fair to say, a more stimulating intellectual environment on our campus.
These are the things that have substance and meaning. These are the things that have attracted over 20,000 graduate and undergraduate students to apply to be admitted to Clemson this fall. These students are some of America’s finest and they want to be a part of what we have created. They want to be a part of Clemson.
And as I have said before, let’s continue to focus on our students and the rankings will take care of themselves.
Sincerely,
Jim Barker
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 9, 2009 at 5:53 pm
What an asshole.
By CofC June 9, 2009 at 8:26 pm
No – he just believes that Clemson is the best all-around university in the country.
By bluetiger June 9, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Ask the young employees who have watched Barker take from them for years to buy the protection of his chosen bunch of Vice whatever’s who will stop at nothing for a couple of $$. Ask the ones who have been harrassed and embarrassed and begged Barker for help only to get a cold shoulder and a blind eye while the “good ol’ boys” are just pleasin’ themselves in any fashion they desire – ask the employees who have tried to tell the truth only to be fired, forced out, ridiculed, told to hit the road – stop the press, Barker’s folks have a couple of brand new words they’ve learned and just can’t say them enough – everybody’s a “disgruntled employee” – you get sexually attacked and complain – “oh, she’s just a disgruntled employee” – say anything contrary to the Barker line “oh, he’s just a disgruntled employee” – It’s pretty obvious where the truth is when the only explanation, reason for anything is it’s “disgruntled employees” – shameful and sickening!
By Juice June 9, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Would anyone really expect anything different from Clemson?
By What Next? June 10, 2009 at 7:10 am
NC State University is currently in the national spotlight because of alleged ethical and legal violations in the way it does business. The Chancellor of the University, James Oblinger, resigned on June 8, 2009. He said he was quitting “because that is what leaders do when the institutions they lead come under distracting and undue public scrutiny,” he wrote. “This is particularly true for leaders of public institutions.”
James Barker, Doris Helms (already retired) and their entire legion of over-paid, double-digit-raise-receiving, US News-manipulating flunkies need to resign. They are distractions, they are liabilities, they can no longer can lead Clemson University without the stink of corruption
By Jeffy June 10, 2009 at 7:20 am
They also think they are going to the BCS Championship every year. They are a very delusional bunch.
By CNSYD June 10, 2009 at 9:15 am
Jeffy, pray tell where is “wait til next year” bunch in Columbia going this year? I am talking about the end of the season not August. We all know USC east wins the MNC every August.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 10, 2009 at 9:58 am
OK, enough about football. Clemson always beats USC, blah, blah, blah. We know that.
Barker’s actions and especially this last letter shows he is detached from reality. Nobody except those choking on orange Kool-Aid seriously believe Clemson offers a better undergraduate education and experience than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UNC-Chapel Hill, UVA, Duke,etc. To seriously assert that it does destroys the credibility of the speaker, which in this case is the President of Clemson University. If he is serious, he can no longer be taken seriously as an objective thinker, which is unfortunate in a setting where critical thinking and analysis are supposed to take place like no other.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 10, 2009 at 9:58 am
Also, use of the phrase “pray tell” is solid gold proof that the speaker is a flaming asshole, and probably gay.
By CNSYD June 10, 2009 at 11:38 am
Not sayin’, just sayin’. Typical that when someone LIKE YOU has nothing worthwhile to say they want to attack the other side on non issues. Were you at Sanfraud’s lovefest last weekend? Having hired hundreds of employees over the last 30 years I can tell you that I would take a grad of USC, Clemson, NC State, etc. any day over the pukes from Harvard, Yale and especially UNC and Duke. The former group believes in working for a living and not having Daddy foot their bills. Also the latter group are so brillant that they can’t pour pi$$ out of a boot with the directions written on the heel. Nor can they walk and chew gum at the same time.
By Not Sayin', Just Sayin' June 10, 2009 at 12:44 pm
What issues did I avoid, aging Employer of Hundreds?
By Annoyed June 10, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I thought that higher academic standards were a good thing…
Silly me.
By CNSYD June 10, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Not sayin’. Just sayin’, I plead guilty to the charge of “aging”. There is only one cure that I know of. Since obviously you are not aging so you must have taken the cure.