UNC To Face Accrediting Inquiry for Academic Fraud

Submitted by Muttley on

The shot across UNC's bow has been fired by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges accrediting agency.

http://news.yahoo.com/university-north-carolina-face-accrediting-inquir…

The public university could face warnings or probation as a result of the academic fraud findings, which showed student-athletes accounted for nearly half of enrollments in "irregular classes" over an 18-year period.

But the school is unlikely to lose its membership in the group, said Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

"We don't just drop schools," she said. "We give them time to fix things that are wrong first."

The possibility was first raised at mgoblog.com in an October 29 post:
 

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/ot-macalester-college-pres-says-uncs-accred…
 

Does Roy Williams and/or Larry Fedora get fired over this?

 

Note: I don't think this is OT as it surely will be a consideration in President Schlissel's pursuit of an Athletic Director.

Wolverine Devotee

November 13th, 2014 at 9:06 PM ^

What is the worst case scenario here for UNC?

Could they lose accreditation? The only DI school I personally know of that lost accreditation is Morris Brown.

Michigan once played the Morris Brown Wolverines in Basketball. It was in the early 2000s.

Once they lost accreditation......it was curtains for them as a school. I'm not sure they even exist anymore. 

Muttley

November 13th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^

to tens of thousands of students and what, thousands? of professors that are--in the grand scheme of things--just fans of UNC Athletics.  (Perhaps rabid ones, but still we're talking about livelihoods here.)

Now does the agency effect some draconian measures against the athletic department?  Perhaps.  UNC will be playing chicken with the agency if they don't give a serious response.

Muttley

November 13th, 2014 at 9:43 PM ^

to all of UNC.

Might academics across the country lobby to see this used as a means to reign in the influence of athletic revenues over the academic side of universities?  

Of course, the agency won't come down on UNC in one fell swoop.  But perhaps they do a dance with UNC in which the agency expresses disappointment in measures taken and ratchets up the pressure in a series of exchanges?

Sun Tzu's principles apply here.  The most effective way to win a war is to get your enemy to do what you want without firing a real shot.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-War-Sun-Tzu/dp/160459893X

Yostbound and Down

November 13th, 2014 at 9:28 PM ^

Massive difference between a private school like Morris Brown and a flagship university like Chapel Hill...one is a blip on the radar, the other is a 747. There's not a chance they lose accreditation, although some serious punishment could be handed down to the university itself. This is interesting to me as it could be bypassing the NCAA to still punish some of the athletic programs.

Timnotep

November 14th, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^

They were already pretty destitute, the president was embezzling federal financial aid funding in an attempt to prop up the college. She and her cohort were applying for more financial aid by using the names of current and former students as well as people not associated with the college to get federal moneys in order to dig Morris Brown out of their financial hole.

93Grad

November 13th, 2014 at 9:13 PM ^

The NCAA has shown over and over that they are far more interested in hammering smaller programs and/or smaller infractions involving money then they care about academic fraud which is of course the ultimate irony.

Njia

November 13th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^

Although it wouldn't surprise me if these accreditation proceedings didn't embarrass the NCAA into some kind of action on the matter. Not so much with respect to academics as related to the oversight of athletics at UNC. Of course, it's pretty hard to even make a charge of "loss of institutional control" when it's the "institution" breaking the rules!

Mr Miggle

November 13th, 2014 at 9:57 PM ^

Schools always contest charges of academic wrongdoing. Their investigations lead nowhere and the NCAA doesn't ever seem to do their own. This second time around UNC has handed the NCAA a fair amount of ammunition, after denying a lot the first time. Whatever their inclinations, all the publicity this scandal is generating will force the NCAA to come down fairly hard on UNC.

wolverineesq

November 13th, 2014 at 9:38 PM ^

the problem is they don't have any real leverage. Their only option, as far as I can tell, is revoking UNC's accreditation, which is basically the death penalty. The accreditor will issue a sternly-worded letter and there will be a press conference where UNC says they are Very Sorry and then everything will go back to normal.

Yeoman

November 14th, 2014 at 11:14 AM ^

The accreditor's leverage is damn near infinite. The reason schools so seldom lose their accreditation is that in virtually every case they do whatever their accreditor demands.

(And in the case of a major public university like UNC you can scratch the qualifiers "seldom" and "virtually". A tiny private school whose raison d'etre is threatened by the accreditor's requirements might choose suicide; UNC will not.)

Seth

November 13th, 2014 at 10:02 PM ^

The Wheelan quote pretty much says it. UNC will fix it and the NCAA will issue something silly like games that happened didn't happen or whatever.

 

MonkeyMan

November 13th, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^

Nothing serious will hit the big boys. These are not people with values anymore, they really believe in nothing but power.

NCAA is way more corrupt than the NFL- its sad that the organization that is supposed to look out for student athletes is so completely unethical. Why do kids get managed by the shameless and adults get higher standards?

All these money grabbing hypocrites are turning me off on college sports as a whole- NCAA and power hungry alumni are like a den of snakes.

But, then again, most of the fans seem to care only about winning so maybe its just a reflection of a broken culture.

Maybe its time to back out of following college sports-  NCAA seems tawdry compared to other athletic leagues. Something is very wrong with college sports- its getting worse not better. Getting hard to look the other way.

ndscott50

November 13th, 2014 at 10:59 PM ^

Fadora came in after the last guy was fired for the mess. I suppose Williams could be fired but the report seemed to indicate he was not involved and removed his players from the classes when he noted a bunch of them in the classes. He did not however have the university look into the classes.



The university president and AD also were fired along with everyone in the department who was involved. In addition to firing everyone the classes no longer exist and the university has put in new controls and procedures to prevent it from happening again. What exactly is the accreditation group trying to accomplish at this point? This just seems like investigating to appear to be doing something after the fact.



Jon06

November 13th, 2014 at 11:17 PM ^

Everyone is fired, except Williams who ought to be fired and may be before this is all over (although I'm sure they'll allow him to resign if it comes to that). The accreditor has to investigate. Making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen is more or less the only thing they do. They're just very slow organizations.

I suspect that UNC will explain the actions they've taken and the accrediting body will say that's enough and put them on some kind of weak probation. Maybe the accreditors will demand some additional oversight or something if UNC's existing actions aren't sufficiently impressive.

But a really interesting thing will be what the NCAA does after an accrediting body makes it undeniably official that the UNC AD was making an absolute mockery of the whole student-athlete thing.

maizenbluenc

November 14th, 2014 at 7:15 AM ^

Sort of like Congrssional oversight: come into town for the beginning of basketball season. Hang out and eat a bunch of catered food while "reviewing" the work UNC's independent review team already did. Talk to a few people (not the people involved who were fired already).

Then announce a probation with annual follow-up reviews around the time Duke and UNC play at UNC.

Either that or UNC Pembroke loses their accreditation.

superstringer

November 14th, 2014 at 9:09 AM ^

But I heard from a source that the accredidation review will be conducted by the same FIFA staff that looked into Russia and Qatar.  Nothing to see here, people, move along.