OT: Macalester College Pres says UNC's accreditation should be toast
Reducing the number of athletic scholarships at Chapel Hill, or vacating wins, or banning teams from postseason competition, is in each case a punishment wholly unsuitable to the crime. The crime involves fundamental academic integrity. The response, regardless of the visibility or reputation or wealth of the institution, should be to suspend accredited status until there is evidence that an appropriate level of integrity is both culturally and structurally in place.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/10/24/unc-chapel-hill-shou…
I'm not sure whether I agree with President Rosenberg. Via FB, I see several other professors arguing that losing accreditation is too large a punishment, and that the appropriate response would rather be to nuke the entire athletic department and end sports at UNC for a period of years. These are the kinds of sanctions we should really be discussing in cases of serious academic violations, so I'm glad some people in high places in academia have the spine to say that it's much more than an NCAA issue.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 9:13 AM ^
So you're saying UNC is too big to fail?
I don't agree that suspending accreditation is an appropriate punishment, unless they find that these academic benefits extended to students outside the athletic department.
I think the benefit was reserved only for student athletes. Because of that, the athletic department should bear the punishment. I realize I tend to be a little harsh in these situations, but I think a death penalty may be warranted.
It may be a little too harsh, but I'm okay with that.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:13 AM ^
The benefit, AFAIK, was not reserved only for student-athletes.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:22 AM ^
I hadn't read or heard that, but if these "no-show" classes were open to all students, then it's a game changer.
My lazy ass has now read the article attached and see that they're saying non-student athletes were also enrolled in those classes.
This will be interesting.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^
They absolutely were. One of my favorite parts of the whole report was that once word got out to the "frat circuit", a ton of frat boys ended up with AFAM minors by accident.
The whole thing was really intended for athletes, but I think the problem was that in order to make these classes legit and capable of contributing to a GPA, they had to legitimately go into the system. And when they moved the system online, the classes were listed alongside all the other ones for easy viewing. So word got out after a year or so. There's an enormous spike in non-athlete enrollments starting about 10 years ago, right around when things would've been going online.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^
I have a colleague who said the classes were open to all students but that the particular course number wasn't in the class listing. he got in because his roommate was on the baseball team and gave him the course number.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^
more than half of the students in the sham classes were non-athletes.
They would send other struggling students there on purpose to keep grades up and reduce drop/failout rates.
October 29th, 2014 at 12:44 PM ^
were sent there? If so, that would be an even bigger academic issue. It would also show involvement outside of the AD and AFAM departments.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:14 AM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
So basically like Arthur Andersen in the wake of Enron
October 29th, 2014 at 10:51 AM ^
I think the better analogy would be a fortune 500 bank failed to have enough internal controls to prevent itself from issuing fraudulent loans. Plenty of banks went out of business for something like that.
What the investigation has proven is that UNC lacks internal controls and oversight to prevent something like this from happening. This may not be the only sham course that they offered (this is the only one they investigated), because it is now proven UNC has no clue when these things happen on their campus. Until they can prove that this was an isolated incident (not even sure how to go about it), they should have their accredation suspended.
This is a classic case of tail waggin the dog. The academic reputation of an institution is FAR greater than any benefit you get from athletics. UNC needs to think real hard about their culture and seriously consider dropping athletics all together. I would recommend that approach if something like this happened at Michigan.
October 29th, 2014 at 12:31 PM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 9:06 AM ^
A loss of accreditation is decidedly not a punishment that fits the crime. The crime: fake classes with fake grades for athletes. The scope of the crime: athletes. The scope of the proposed punishment: everyone.
Now that we're past the most obvious objection, let me shift your attention to something arguably more important: taking away UNC's accreditation would probably require the school to close. Is that appropriate, or does it sound like the nuclear option?
Finally, it's typical for a school threatened with loss of accreditation to go through a warning period. It would be atypical and unfair not to allow UNC this opportunity.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:12 AM ^
The classes weren't only taken by athletes.
More than 3,000 students over a period of 18 years were awarded grades and credit for nonexistent courses.
And despite the pull quote in the OP, I'm not convinced the real accreditation question is what feels most appropriate. There are standards for accredited institutions to uphold, and UNC blew it.
Your last point is plausible. I don't know what the usual course of events is, and while the headline of the article says UNC should lose its accreditation, the body says only that it should be suspended (per the pull quote in the OP). Are those the same thing? Either way, do you at least agree that UNC should now be subject to the kind of warning period you have in mind?
October 29th, 2014 at 9:46 AM ^
that 3000 students over 18 years is about 160 students per year. and i'm guessing the vast majority of those were athletes. what are there, 30k students at UNC? so penalizing the entire university is unwarranted. slamming the athletic dept is the right thing to do.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:58 AM ^
or at least the ESPN/SI/CNN coverage of it.
"The classes, which no longer exist, were available to all students. More than 3,000 participated; student-athletes accounted for 48 percent of the people who took them."
October 29th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
Failing/underperfomring students were also directed to the classes to help avoid negative dropout ratings for the entire University to game the rankings system. Tell me again why the University itself shouldn't be help acountable for its complicity? Truly disgusting behavior from supposed academics.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:25 AM ^
I don't know how to divide or use calculators, so your comment was really helpful.
But this reminds me that somebody should really do something about calculator companies. Calculator companies are super greedy. I mean, they're too cheap to buy enough ink for the second plus sign on calculators--you know what I mean, the funny symbol with the dots above and below the horizontal line that results from not using enough ink when trying to make a plus sign. Even worse, that plus sign doesn't even work. It's always returning numbers that aren't whole numbers even when you add two whole numbers. Calculator companies just the worst!
October 29th, 2014 at 4:16 PM ^
you act like it's some widespread problem when it's much less than 1% of the student population focused in likely one academic department intended primarily for athletes.
ya, good reason to take down an entire university.
kill that academic dept and penalize the athletic dept.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:58 AM ^
would get the serious attention of the defacto UNC decision making powers (including donors, etc.) without causing the collateral damage.
I think it would be good for UNC to have to face the possibility of the loss but then be given the warning and put on double-secret probation.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:12 AM ^
So the argument that "non-athletes took the fake classes too" they were using to hop out of the NCAA pot puts them smack dab into the SACS accreditation frying pan. Heh.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^
Dave, what are you doing here? Don't you have a fanbase to berate?
Thanks for your thorough analysis! Have a nice life.
Go Blue!
October 29th, 2014 at 9:22 AM ^
No, man, it's me, Dave! Open up, man, I've got the stuff.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:01 AM ^
Frankly, this is more important.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:28 AM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 5:17 PM ^
in a UNC thread.
Right by the intersection of Franklin & Columbia where the students jump over the little "bonfire" when a celebration erupts, there is a little dive bar called
http://hesnotherenc.com/legends/
Google Map of He's Not Here/Franklin Street intersection @ Columbia St
It might have been where the "student"/athletes were hanging out when they were supposed to be studying.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:15 AM ^
I think full removal or suspension of accreditation is overly harsh. The problem is that the school would lose half its enrollment thanks to loss of federal aid funds, and there's no easy transfer provision for those students the way the NCAA has when a program is cut. But the accrediting body (SACSCOC) should damn well be up in UNC's grill. A probation of several years should be in order and whatever annoying painful oversight they have in their power should be done.
Likewise, I'm not sure nuking the whole athletic department is the way to go either, although I have a harder time arguing against that than the accreditation thing. But maybe they should lose their ability to offer scholarships for a while.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^
If you wade into the comments on the CHE article itself, you'll see some discussion of whether people should be going to jail for defrauding the federal government by stealing federal aid funds in connection with these classes.
Curioser and curiouser.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:47 AM ^
Assuming you mean UNC's professors and admin, not students with loans, yes? Truth is that Julius Nyang'oro was charged with a felony and Debby Crowder was threatened with one (and in Nyang'oro's case, it was "obtaining property by false pretenses" and they went so far as to indict him) but the charges were all dropped in exchange for their full cooperation with Wainstein's report.
Those two are the ones at the center of it all, so I doubt there's any more charges on the way.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:15 AM ^
They were discussing faculty and staff, yes. Who filed those charges? I haven't filed this closely. I'd imagine there are other crimes here that are sufficiently distinct that double jeopardy would not apply.
October 29th, 2014 at 12:11 PM ^
Well, Nyang'oro probably could've been indicted on several counts if they'd felt like it, as it was based on just one instance of one class. But I doubt they'll bother, lest they send the message that cutting a deal to be completely honest is a sucker's bet.
October 29th, 2014 at 11:44 AM ^
/I will grow up one of these days
October 29th, 2014 at 12:09 PM ^
Free your inner 12-year-old, man.
Anyway, I'm sure SACSCOC will harden up and penetrate to the bottom of this scandal.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:29 AM ^
At least our shit storm isn't this bad.
My degree still means something.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
Many students were able to take advantage of these easy classes and the unversity should pay. I understand how a college like Macalester feels. They have an amazing college in MN where they truley focus on academics before anything else. Also they help all there students with great financial aid packages. A college like Macalester would face much more harsher penalities due to the fact they aren't connected to big time sports if they had fraud classes.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^
It might be worth noting that 3000 students is 150% of the size of the student body at Macalester.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
The bigger issue is this effort isn't just found at UNC. The NCAA knows it needs to be careful in what punishment they hand out.
October 29th, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^
of a punishment. They are a brand within the NCAA and ACC and the value of the NCAA and ACC is hurt by any punishment. This is where we are in college sports, a toothless entity unable to police itself any longer because the money has become so large.
2/3 years of "severe probation" with scholarship reductions across sports, post-season bans etc.
a Year or two later its reduced because "the punishment is hurting kids who had nothing to do with it"
Rinse, recycle, repeat.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:03 AM ^
Thing is, this may be out of the control of the NCAA. NCAA sanctions may be the least of their worries if there is any real threat to their accreditation. There can't be sports if there isn't a school (obvious hyperbole at this point).
October 29th, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
Accreditation is controlled by much more serious people than the NCAA. It is in the hands of actual adults.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^
On paper, the NCAA is governed by the university presidents who also, indirectly, govern accreditation. It should all tie together, but the money, power, influence and image that flows to the schools as a result of the NCAA is way out of balance with what comes from academic reputation for most of them.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:41 AM ^
The relevant difference here is that university presidents don't give a flying fuck about athletics or amateurism. They have real jobs to do. But ensuring that academic standards are upheld well enough to meet the basic requirements to retain accreditation and the associated ability to receive federal financial aid dollars is a central part of that job. They really do care about that.
October 29th, 2014 at 12:12 PM ^
I think some university presidents at some state schools like Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, etc., absolutely care a great deal about athletics. In some cases, that may be a result of the political atmosphere driven by their state governments (in re: Longhorn Network, Big 12 membership, etc. in recent years). Some of them have been intimately involved with the goings on of those departments.
Even at U-M, MSC was up to her neck in the Rich Rod transition from WVU. As I recall, it wasn't until her deposition was imminent that the university settled the buy-out.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^
lose its accreditation. I can guarantee that.
There have been numerous academic scandals involving universities over many decades, none ever lost accreditation and all of them blewover with minimal punishment and time.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:43 AM ^
Of course it won't. The question is whether it should. And I do think they'll have some serious questions to answer during their next accreditation review.
I also wonder what the next external review of their Department of African, African-American, and Diaspora Studies will be like. The media ought to be watching that and putting serious pressure on the external reviewers to be thorough.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:06 AM ^
Who is the organization that handles general accredidation?
October 29th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
UNC's accreditor is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
October 29th, 2014 at 10:33 AM ^
October 29th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
I believe what happens is that institutions are periodically reviewed by their accrediting bodies on a set schedule (e.g., every 5 years). I don't know if media or institutional revelations can trigger a change in that schedule, but I would expect UNC to get some serious scrutiny in their next regular review. I would not be surprised to see the accreditor demand evidence of acceptable academic standards in UNC's affected departments during the review, although I don't know if that demand would be FOIA-discoverable, so it may never come to light.