OT: UNC's academic fraud investigation
Via the Chronicle. In short (and these are quotes from the Chronicle article):
- A department manager assigned papers, devised grades, and forged signatures.
- The athletics department was in on it.
- Ms. Crowder was the architect, but the tent was much bigger.
And my favorite part:
Among the host of people who had some knowledge of the classes’ existence were football players’ academic advisers, a counselor to basketball players (and a member of Coach Roy Williams’s inner circle), other professors in the department, the former football coach Butch Davis, other members of the football staff, and an academic dean. Even advisers for the college’s prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship steered students toward the classes, though it’s unclear the extent to which they knew the courses were fraudulent.
One of the most notable cases may be that of Jan M. Boxill, a philosophy professor and director of the Parr Center for Ethics. She was also an academic counselor to women’s basketball players who sent students to Ms. Crowder and suggested the grades they should receive. Ms. Boxill went on to serve as chair of the faculty for three years.
Also, this was shown to football coaches when Crowder's retirement was imminent:
October 22nd, 2014 at 6:57 PM ^
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^
This type of thing needs more than the death penalty. This is really bigger than athletics in the sense that they gave out degrees to people who didn't do anything. I'm sure glad I don't have my degree from there.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
Their african american program should be shut down, period. And every program that might have similar paper-courses should go through the accreditation process again. Academic faculties who had knowledge but went along with it should all be disciplined, some of them should be fired.
October 22nd, 2014 at 10:03 PM ^
Somehow I don't feel like this reflects at all on the courses I took in Cognitive Linguistics, Russian Literature, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Birmingham School Cultural Studies, Differentiable Manifolds, Representation Theory, Algebraic Topology (okay, I took this one through the graduate school at Duke -- one of the many nice perks available to UNC undergrads who are driven), 3 semesters of Quantum Theory, Nuclear Physics, General Relativity, Formal Languages & Automata Theory, Byzantine Iconoclasm, Chromatic Harmony, Orchestration, the 20th century clarinet recitial I spent two semesters preparing for "experiential education" credit, or the many long hours I spent rehearsing and performing with the UNC Symphony Orchestra. The value of my experiences at UNC is not in the credentials I received (and I have nothing but disgust for the universal and empty-headed attitude that the purpose of a college education is to obtain certification -- a chilling and very recent development in the thousand-year history of universities) but in the first-class education I received working with some of the finest minds in the world.
And though it may surprise you, I bear not one iota of resentment to anyone who received credit for bogus classes. If you listen to what Mary Willingham has to say on the matter, the real shame is that the NCAA does not allow student athletes to receive credit for remedial classes when many of them are desperately underprepared upon coming to college (they can't go professional in their sport -- their best chance at providing for themselves and their families -- without first going through the NCAA farm league) but don't have time to take remedial classes on top of normal classes while also sacrificing their time and physical well-being in gruesome sports for millions of dollars of NCAA profit (which they themselves see... precisely none of).
Can we stop pretending that a college education is adequate compensation for the sacrifices that student athletes make? Anyone who decries these student athletes and the many long hours of work they put in deserves to have their own degree revoked for failing to develop any sense of perspective or empathy.
October 22nd, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
October 23rd, 2014 at 12:00 AM ^
As a now out-of-state resident, it would currently cost $51K/year to send a kid to Michigan. That is more than the median household income of the United States.
Not shedding any tears. Very few revenue college athletes make it to the NFL; so for every Devin Funchess who has the potential of being a mid 1st-rounder, you have a a Jeremy Gallon playing in semi-pro ball.
Not my fault if you choose to blow that free education.
October 23rd, 2014 at 7:51 AM ^
October 23rd, 2014 at 9:39 AM ^
Yes. This is exactly the point.
A free college education is not useful to someone is way behind on their reading and writing levels, but the NCAA prevents these kids from doing anything about it.
The solution is exactly what you've said: lift the restriction on remedial classes and have mandatory redshirts for those who are academically underprepared. You eat, live, practice with the team and take special courses that will allow you to actually see some of the value of that $50,000/year education.
October 23rd, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
If these kids aren't ready and prepared to enter into college, then what are they even doing in college. Sorry for the lack of empathy, but if you aren't prepared to get into college, go the juco route or community college route. Give the 50,000 scholly to someone who can actually do the work and has earned the chance to be at said school.
October 23rd, 2014 at 10:37 AM ^
OK so now you're blaming students because their dysfunctional families, schools, and communities couldn't / didn't adequately prepare them.
COOL. stay classy.
as someone who works as an educator and mentor for young people, I don't think you have any idea how hard some of these kids are struggling just to keep their heads above water. I don't think you have any idea what kinds of responsibilities some of them are dealing with that go way beyond the classroom.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:04 PM ^
OK so now you're blaming students because their dysfunctional families, schools, and communities couldn't / didn't adequately prepare them.
Nope, not blaming them.
I just don't think the university has a moral imperative to turn away the qualified to help the unqualified.
We as a society have a moral imperative to do so - but letting unqualified folks into universities isn't a solution. ONLY fixing the underlying causes will do anything.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
It would be easy to allow these students to take remedial classes to prepare themselves for college level work. This would allow them to actually experience the academic value of their scholarship, and the institutional resources required are a pittance relative to what the university already has in place.
>ONLY fixing the underlying causes will do anything.
Education is exactly how you combat such intergenerational dysfunctions. It's how you break these cycles. And the university is our social instrument of education. If our society has a moral imperative to address social ills, which I like you agree it does, then the NCAA and the University have a moral imperative to implement changes which allow these young people to actually realize the value of their scholarship. That begins with making time in their schedules to actually work on foundational skills.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^
And the university is our social instrument of education.
I disagree.
Public primary and secondary schools are our social instrument of education.
October 24th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^
So UNC, the nation's oldest public university, is... not a public institution of education?
You're doing gymnastics here.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^
Can we stop pretending that a college education is adequate compensation for the sacrifices that student athletes make?
Can we stop pretending that it isn't?
Division I schools with football spent $91,936 per athlete in 2010, seven times the spending per student of $13,628.
99% of the athletes in D1 COST their school money as opposed to generating it. For the great, great majority of college athletes - a college education is orders of magnitude greater thantheir market value.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:30 PM ^
Except it isn't when you have an 8th grade reading level and the NCAA effectively prevents you from taking remedial reading/writing courses while on athletic scholarship.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:24 PM ^
If you have an 8th grade reading level, the NCAA shouldn't prohibit you from taking remedial classes.
They SHOULD prevent you from getting an athletic scholarship.
Someone reading at an 8th grade level doesn't need remedial college classes - they need to still be in 8th grade.
...and 99% of college athletes DON'T have a need for remedial classes. A lot of football and basketball players have a need for remedial classes.
October 22nd, 2014 at 6:58 PM ^
This was all within the Afro-Amer. Studies Dept? Well, everyone associated with this in that Dept and at the AD at UNC should be on a black list in academia for the foreseeable future.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:03 PM ^
The courses were within that department but the problem doesn't seem to have been entirely confined there or a professor of philosophy who also served as director of the Parr Center for Ethics wouldn't have been named.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:13 PM ^
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:01 PM ^
A nice whopping settlement for Mary Willingham would be one nice outcome from this.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:05 PM ^
Welp. Right about now, I'd be rather embarassed if I had a UNC diploma hanging on my wall. This is disgusting coming from an "academic" institution.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:05 PM ^
No wonder they were able to be so good at basketball.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:17 PM ^
Hey, that paper kept my interest from start to finish. And it ends on a cliffhanger!
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:29 PM ^
I like how he added some mystery by opening with "On the evening of December." That could be any day.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:18 PM ^
Can't wait for them to play at Cameron, should be some fun chants.
October 22nd, 2014 at 10:23 PM ^
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:19 PM ^
Just WOW! And I am sure this is not the only institution that is doing this sort of thing!
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:22 PM ^
didn't go there to play school
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:26 PM ^
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:27 PM ^
How about the AAU? It's a bigger embarassment for the academic side than the athletic side of UNC.
October 23rd, 2014 at 12:06 AM ^
10,000 mgopoints says this isn't exclusive to Chapel Hill
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:30 PM ^
remember when PSU got what was considered to be WORSE than the death penalty from the NCAA?
yeah, I'm not expecting much
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:46 PM ^
Roy Williams's Inner Circle...any relation to Urban Meyer's Circle of Trust?
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:46 PM ^
pretty severe academc fraud violations fairly recently, they survived, UNC will too.
October 22nd, 2014 at 7:48 PM ^
Specifically said there were no members of any department except AFAM who KNEW KNEW there was no show classes going on. But it chided members of academic support for not following up on red flags and continuing to send struggling students into the AFAM classes.
The most insane thing to me was that this stuff went back 18 YEARS. That means this was going on when St. Dean Smith was still the head coach of the basketball team. It's truly staggering and again, makes the reports claims that nobody outside of AFAM had direct knowledge of sham classes even harder to believe. They went through 3 inspections by SACS during that time and nothing was uncovered, so unless Crowder was a criminal genius, she had help keeping the lid on this stuff.
And the kicker is that because regular students got these benefits too, it's probably outside of the NCAA's hands. It wasn't improper benefits if regular students had access to the same no show classes.
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:04 PM ^
They might have had access to the classes but they probably didn't have the benefit of receiving grades suggested on their behalf by the athletic department.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:42 PM ^
Have a friend who graduated from UNC. Those classes were a guaranteed A for pretty much everyone who took them.
October 23rd, 2014 at 6:44 AM ^
One of my favorite parts of the report was that once word of this practice got around, frat boys ended up with AFAM minors without even realizing it.
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^
The NCAA considered throwing the book at UNC, but they don't know what a book is.
If the NCAA threw the book at UNC their players would probably drop it.
Ok, I'll leave now.
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
Lets see how long they take to drag this one out. We all know that the NCAA picks and chooses what battles to fight. My guess is that UNC will not get hit as bad as Michigan did back after the Fab Five (Webber).
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:39 PM ^
on this. Maybe it wasn't institutionalized across 18 years like UNC, but didn't we have our own psychology professor running independent study courses that were highly attended by athletes who generally received good grades for the class? Maybe that only appeared improper and really was legitimate, and in Michigan's credit, they did make some changes after the cat was out of the bag, but it never felt to me like we were 100% squeaky clean on that one.
My take is UNC should vacate any game they won in which an athlete played who's academic eligibility was due to these questionable seminars. Other than that, the NCAA can determine how severe they want to go on current day penalties.
I think the right discussion is the one we were having in another thread on this topic: how the NCAA and Universities can find a reasonable way to balance course loads and athletic responsibilities to better prepare these kids for life after sport.
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:49 PM ^
I'm of the opinion that if Mario Manningham managed to stay elegible during his years at the university, some rules must have been at the very least bent.
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:42 PM ^
Same for Tai Streets
October 23rd, 2014 at 10:39 AM ^
At MSU, clearly Plaxico Buress never attended class. I have never heard a player speak that sounded so dumb, until I heard Plaxico speak.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:01 PM ^
Jameis?
October 22nd, 2014 at 8:44 PM ^
Ignorance is not an excuse for UNC leadership. Unfortunately, leadership in both public and private settings always seem to be fully aware when anything positive is discussed , but totally ignorant of any negative things in their organizations.
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:21 PM ^
recall the grading system that Doc Losh had for her Astronomy classes:
A for Athletes
B for Boys
C for Coeds
October 22nd, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
Liar Education.