OT: Scandal brewing in the AD at North Carolina, Chapel Hill

[semper]

This story broke in the NYT this morning, and the details are beyond anything I've ever seen: a professor teaching non-existent courses for football players.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/s...s-of-tar-heel-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

 

[UcMiami]

Thanks for posting, but this is an old story and the only new information is the indictment (which is important.) I am sure the University would have been very happy to have this go away completely, but being a state entity they did not control the process, a private institution could probably just have refused to file the complaint.
The interesting thing is that the NCAA just washed their hands of the whole thing rather than impose sanctions since in their opinion, the grades were filed for the players by the school so the AD was in 'compliance' with academic standards! Academic fraud being outside their purview. An interesting approach considering they jumped in with both feet at PSU in a matter that really had no connection to student athletes.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Yeah, an old story, and a joke that the NCAA did nothing here. Why? Because they say the fake courses included non-student-athletes therefore the student-athletes did not receive preferential treatment. I guess if football players cheat alongside regular students it's OK. The NCAA really can make up any reason to punish or not punish a school. Talk about a slap in the face to the UConn men's basketball team. Guess Calhoun didn't make the extortion payment on time?

 

[Icebear]

All because the NCAA is indifferent to violations depending on who you are.

 

[triaddukefan]

I have no comment

well just one comment..... some people might wonder why we refer to them as UNC

ok... one more comment.... for all the cheating .. you would expect them to at least finish with more than 8 wins in a season... guess they werent cheating hard enough.

 

[ScarlettB]

All because the NCAA is indifferent to violations depending on who you are.

I think you may be right. The NCAA was all over FSU in 2009 over an academic cheating incident. They lost scholarships, vacated wins and were put on 4 years probation. I don't get the stance that the NCAA only gets involved if only student athletes are given preferential treatment.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I think you may be right. The NCAA was all over FSU in 2009 over an academic cheating incident. They lost scholarships, vacated wins and were put on 4 years probation. I don't get the stance that the NCAA only gets involved if only student athletes are given preferential treatment.

I don't get it either, but after all, that IS what the rules are about. Why you can't give a ride to a drenched player you pass at a bus stop during a rain storm - because you wouldn't do it for other students.

However, one would think that if students are getting credit for fake courses, they must be ineligible, no? And the athletic department ought to have known about it?

 

[ScarlettB]

I don't get it either, but after all, that IS what the rules are about. Why you can't give a ride to a drenched player you pass at a bus stop during a rain storm - because you wouldn't do it for other students.

However, one would think that if students are getting credit for fake courses, they must be ineligible, no? And the athletic department ought to have known about it?

If any of those athletes were ineligible and they played, the school has to vacate the wins whether the athletic department knew or not. At least that was the NCAA's position in the FSU matter. FSU had declared the athletes they knew about ineligible as soon as they learned there was a problem, but they still had to vacate their wins as the NCAA said it didn't matter that they didn't know about it as it was happening. The person who caused the problem at FSU was a learning assistant assigned to help / tutor athletes. The course was an online music course that had been offered for 10 years prior to there being any problems. The UNC employee was a Professor "teaching" a fake course. I don't see how UNC's academic oversight can be OK with the NCAA if a professor can get away with what he did.

 

[semper]

Those who read the earlier stories (sorry I missed them) were women athletes involved?

 

[UcMiami]

The obvious answer to the issue for all schools to stay clear of NCAA violations is when you set up the fake course and change the grades on real course, you have to be sure that at least one non-athletic scholarship student out of every 19 gets the same treatment. Then it is all OK as far as they are concerned. (That was the excuse for UNC - 18 scholarship athletes and one non-athlete enrolled in the non-existent course.)

 

[huskybill]

This story broke in the NYT this morning, and the details are beyond anything I've ever seen: a professor teaching non-existent courses for football players.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/s...s-of-tar-heel-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

I think it's terrible that the football players were forced to take this course when they could have taken a music course and learned to play John Cage's piano concerto of silence

 

[wire chief]

It harkens me back to high school, where my PE teacher told of playing football for a southern
univ. He kept asking when his classes would begin. Coaches kept putting him off, and then he received a report card with all "B's", that without attending a single class. Way back in the 40's.

 

[loneycafe]

Those who read the earlier stories (sorry I missed them) were women athletes involved?

I have been reading the stories in the Raleigh News & Observer about this for the past couple years. Athletes of other sports in addition to football and MBB took the courses but the specific sports of those athletes (or gender) have not been revealed. It would take some time, but if someone went back and looked at the majors of past student-athletes, you could probably tell which student athletes might have been in the classes that didn't meet.

Reporter Dan Kane of the N&O has been writing about the multiple scandals involving UNC for several years. The NC State message board, Pack Pride, got the unveiling of the academic scandal going when a poster there discovered one of the papers submitted for one of Professor Nyang'Oro's courses was plagiarized.

And let me add this column from Business Week --> The Scandal Bowl: Tar Heels Football, Academic Fraud & Implicit Racism

 

[loneycafe]

To the person who asked earlier about whether female athletes have been involved, for the first time WBB players have been mentioned in new Businessweek story: UNC officials lash out at academic fraud whistleblower

From the above linked story:

In fact, as Willingham explains to me by phone, she is always careful to break down UNC’s roughly 800-person varsity student-athlete population as follows: “Four hundred of them at any given time are on the ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference] Honor Roll or the UNC dean’s list. They’re doing great. Most of them are in the non-revenue sports. Another 200 are doing O.K. And about 150 to 200 are underperforming—some of them badly underperforming. Most of the last group are playing football or men’s or women’s basketball. We’re not serving the best interests of a lot of that last group.”

h/t rexpack71 at Pack Pride

 

[UcMiami]

Thanks for posting the new links loneycafe. It looks like this has suddenly attracted some more national press. I really do think the scandal beyond UNC itself is that the NCAA is completely ignoring it and pretending it has nothing to do with athletics.

 

[Icebear]

Thanks for posting the new links loneycafe. It looks like this has suddenly attracted some more national press. I really do think the scandal beyond UNC itself is that the NCAA is completely ignoring it and pretending it has nothing to do with athletics.

Yes, the treatment to date of this vs the treatment of the UCONN men's program and it issues is COMPLETELY inconsistent. We now know the error at CT was not giving kids fake grades for fake courses.

 

[triaddukefan]

Im shocked at these recent reports

 

[pap49cba]

The arrogance of some college administrators is mind-blowing....

 

[huskeynut]

The arrogance of some college administrators is mind-blowing....

The arrogance of the NCAA is mind blowing!

 

[wire chief]

If Penn State honchos were willing to cover up child rape, I can't imagine that these lesser offenses escape administration abuse.