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OT: UNC Academic Fraud Investigation

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You have to wonder how widespread this type of thing is among athletic programs. UNC is one of the top public universities in the country. Isn't one of the ACC bragging rights the quality of their academics? Since other students that are not athletes took these classes it seems to call into question the overall quality of a UNC degree. This is certainly a stain on the reputation of the ACC and it's claims of quality academics. Would the ACC ever kick a school out for such academic fraud? Doubtful. The All Cash Conference is unlikely to do anything at all.
 
If they go with the whitewash, I could see a creative attorney and a few Alums threaten a class-action suit claiming the value of their degree has been degraded due to willful and purposeful fraud by the Administration. I don't have the expertise to determine if such a threat holds water legally...but I could see Alums from that time frame who took those courses (maybe honorably is some cases) raising hell over this.

I don't think the NCAA will do anything unless they have absolutely no choice, but I still think UNC is in deep trouble.
 
Although Crowder insists that her motives were altruistic it makes me wonder if there is a bit of booster money jingling around in her purse.
 
Reading the Wainstein Report, Roy Williams admitted he had concerns about the classes and had his adviser, whom he brought with him from Kansas, taking care of everything, but then never did anything with his concerns or bothered to investigate the curriculum and coursework of his athletes. Basically saying that he smelled smoke, evacuated his group from the building, and then never bothered to alert anyone else or find out if the building was in fact burning down.

From the Report:
329 students (including 169 student-athletes) had at least one semester in which the grade they received in their paper class either pushed or kept their GPA above 2.0. In other words, for at least one semester in their college career, each of those students had an actual cumulative GPA above a 2.0 but a recalculated GPA (excluding the paper class grade(s)) below a 2.0. This number includes 123 football players, 15 men’s basketball players, eight women’s basketball players, and 26 Olympic sport athletes.
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So absent impropriety, 15 men's basketball players would not have been eligible. Not 15 semesters. 15 separate men's basketball players had at least one semester in their respective college careers where they were only academically eligible because of fraudulent grading.
 
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This situation is just dowright UGLY...........I wonder if this is one of the reason's DD decided to transfer. As I recall , a real reason was never given. At least not publically.

Just wondering.
 
loneycafe said:
Not quite OT. UNC WBB were among the student-athletes in the no-show classes and who benefited from unauthorized grade changes. About 6 percent of the student-athletes in the classes were on the wbb team.

This particular story here is disturbing on many levels and directly ties to WBB http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/22/4255051/wainstein-report-says-jan-boxill.html

ETA that it appears Jan Boxill is one of the nine who was fired or disciplined today. She is no longer listed as director of Parr Center for Ethics.
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Boxill was the Director of the Center for Ethics???? How outrageous, egregious and just plain disgusting is it that this all went on and the Director of the Ethics Center was involved?
UNC should shut that center down until someone at that school learns the meaning of ethics. (No sarcasm, I mean this straight out). What a revolting mess. And they will probably get away with few or no NCAA sanctions and the University accreditation will not be questioned or reviewed. A mere wrist tap perhaps. SMH till it rattles.
 
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CamrnCrz1974 said:
The "paper classes" lasted for 18 yrs affected 3100 students; athletes accounted for 47% of enrollment.

BASKETBALL (13 scholarships per year)
Dean Smith - 54 in 5 years. 10.8 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year. (83% of scholarship base)
Bill Guthridge - 17 in 3 years. 5.67 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year (44%)
Matt Doherty - 42 in 3 years. 14 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year. (108%)
Roy Williams - 167 in 6 years. 27.83 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year (214%)

But here is the whitewashing:


http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...vestigation-says-advisers-pushed-sham-classes
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wow, did anyone under Williams even take a real class?
 
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pap49cba said:
Haven't seen any mention of the woman whistle-blower, Mary Willingham, who was ridiculed and forced out during the initial cover-up. I would think she is lawyering up as we speak.
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She already has a lawsuit pending and this report is probably got her and her lawyers dancing the jig! I suspect UNC will settle this one out of court as quietly as possible - throw in a few $100Ks more to buy her silence in the media.

The earlier idea posted that UNC would vacate any athlete's diploma is crazy - they are just praying the athletes that were steered into these classes do not sue the university for fraud.

What is not stated here, but is obvious - these classes were initially set up for athletes. The fact that other students could take them and did is pretty standard procedure for 'easy' classes at every university. You have a heavy semester in your core coursework and your roommate or friend tells you about a 'gut' class and you use it to fill out your credit hours - most college students have done that. Once these classes existed, Crowder and Co couldn't deny an athlete's friend from taking one without perhaps raising a stink. I suspect however, the friends didn't have academic councilors calling Crowder to suggest the grades they should receive or helping them write their papers.
 
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Those students would have been complicit in the fraud.
 
In reply to ChicagoGG

Yep, the director of the ethics center (who also served as an announcer for WBB) appears to be involved. Here's The Daily Tar Heel piece on it: "Campus shocked by former faculty chairwoman Jan Boxill's involvement in academic scandal"

And sources confirm to The Daily Tar Heel that she is one of nine who has been fired or disciplined.

In addition to WBB, football, and MBB, women's soccer and baseball looks to be in this deep, too (with the head coaches knowing what was up). The emails are amaze-balls.
 
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pap49cba said:
Haven't seen any mention of the woman whistle-blower, Mary Willingham, who was ridiculed and forced out during the initial cover-up. I would think she is lawyering up as we speak.
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She ought to. And I hope she wins big.

The way UNC has handled this has been a disgrace from day one.
 
Not only head of the ethics center, but Faculty Chairwoman - that means she was elected by the rest of the faculty to represent them!!!
And what she did for the students she was advising - editing their papers, colluding in plagiarism and self-plagiarism, etc. would be a fireable offense at ANY academic institution for any faculty member had they themselves been helped in such a way during their student life and it became known.
 
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loneycafe said:
Yes, it is. Brian Williams with this quip: "We've all heard the jokes of athletes taking Basketweaving 101; turns out basketweaving would have been a step up at UNC."

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/56282940/#56282940

Also, my respect for Diamond DeShields went up. Good for her for transferring from that place. That entire athletic department was in on this. The emails are so revealing and disturbing.
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Wait. An athlete transfers seeking academic advantage? Alert the media!
 
CamrnCrz1974 said:
The "paper classes" lasted for 18 yrs affected 3100 students; athletes accounted for 47% of enrollment.

BASKETBALL (13 scholarships per year)
Dean Smith - 54 in 5 years. 10.8 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year. (83% of scholarship base)
Bill Guthridge - 17 in 3 years. 5.67 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year (44%)
Matt Doherty - 42 in 3 years. 14 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year. (108%)
Roy Williams - 167 in 6 years. 27.83 enrollments in AFAM independent students per year (214%)

But here is the whitewashing:


http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/11745036/north-carolina-investigation-says-advisers-pushed-sham-classes
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Nobody can scoop the poop on a Tarheel better than a Dookie. Crazy like a fox.
 
And the whitewash from UNC continues with this insistence that it was started in the academic side of the university and that then the athletic department took advantage. The justification for this is that The ASPSA [Academic Support Program for Student Athletes] is not part of the athletic department !!!
They share the same offices with the athletic department, their only reason for being in existence is the athletes, but they are part of 'academia and not athletics'. Somehow I suspect if one of the coaches decides one of the ASPSA folks isn't doing what the coach wants for his star players, they will be looking for alternative employment pretty quickly!
 
From Inside Carolina, regarding Roy WIlliams

Williams inherited a team in 2003-04 with five players in AFAM majors. That level of clustering made him uncomfortable because it appeared as though the players were being steered to the major, according to the report.

He later issued a directive to Holladay to make sure that ASPSA counselors were not steering players to AFAM.

“Those actions are inconsistent with being complicit or really trying to promote that scheme,” Wainstein said.
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But yet, this was the first part in the Roy Williams section/discussion of the Wainstein Report (beginning on Page 72 and continuing to Page 74):

- Williams, Holladay and Walden brought the same oversight process they had used in Kansas.

- Walden focused on keeping up with the players’ classes and monitoring their eligibility. He provided regular reports about academic progress to Holladay, who would counsel and/or discipline players with academic issues. Holladay, in turn, reported to Williams on the general status of player academics.

- Coach Williams was uncomfortable with that clustering in AFAM because it looked like the players were being steered into that major, and after a year or two on the job he asked Holladay to make sure that basketball and ASPSA personnel were not steering players to the AFAM Department.138

- First, to his knowledge, he believes he has never spoken to Mary Willingham. Second, even if he had spoken to her, he would never make that statement, as it is directly contrary to the belief that he constantly preaches that their number one responsibility as coaches and counselors is to make sure their players get a good education.
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So they use the same oversight system with the same individuals involved. The status of player academics was reported to Williams. Roy expressed discomfort with AFAM and issued a directive (that apparently was never followed). And he constantly preaches that it is the "number one" responsibility of coaches to make sure their players get a good education.

So if it is his top priority to make sure his players get a good education and he uses the same oversight/monitoring system that he always has and he expressed concerns over AFAM, how can he claim not to know what was going on?

Is anyone else reminded of this?

Jessup: We follow orders, son. We follow orders or people die. It's that simple. Are we clear?
Kaffee: Yes, sir.
Jessup: Are we clear?!
Kaffee: Crystal. Colonel, I just have one more question before I put Airman O'Malley and Airman Rodriguez on the stand. If you gave an order that Santiago wasn't to be touched, and your orders are always followed, then why would Santiago be in danger? Why would it be necessary to transfer him off the base?
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CamrnCrz1974 said:
From Inside Carolina, regarding Roy WIlliams




But yet, this was the first part in the Roy Williams section/discussion of the Wainstein Report (beginning on Page 72 and continuing to Page 74):




So they use the same oversight system with the same individuals involved. The status of player academics was reported to Williams. Roy expressed discomfort with AFAM and issued a directive (that apparently was never followed). And he constantly preaches that it is the "number one" responsibility of coaches to make sure their players get a good education.

So if it is his top priority to make sure his players get a good education and he uses the same oversight/monitoring system that he always has and he expressed concerns over AFAM, how can he claim not to know what was going on?

Is anyone else reminded of this?
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Whew. And I thought Vol fans had it in for us. :)
 
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Didn't the UCONN men's basketball team get suspended from post season play for a couple of years due to poor academics? And the poor academics was not fraud but accurate reporting of performance in "real" classes. Someone else posted that UNC is the academic equivalent of banking's "too big to fail" scenario. Therefore it will be interesting to see how the NCAA handles this hot potato. Clearly neither UNC or the NCAA has been interested in getting to the truth. And as I posted earlier, ignorance is not an excuse for senior management of the athletic department, the teams, and the university. Lastly I would love to hear from the ACC regarding one of their prestige schools' actions!!!
 
CamrnCrz1974 said:
From Inside Carolina, regarding Roy WIlliams




But yet, this was the first part in the Roy Williams section/discussion of the Wainstein Report (beginning on Page 72 and continuing to Page 74):




So they use the same oversight system with the same individuals involved. The status of player academics was reported to Williams. Roy expressed discomfort with AFAM and issued a directive (that apparently was never followed). And he constantly preaches that it is the "number one" responsibility of coaches to make sure their players get a good education.

So if it is his top priority to make sure his players get a good education and he uses the same oversight/monitoring system that he always has and he expressed concerns over AFAM, how can he claim not to know what was going on?

Is anyone else reminded of this?
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And the expressed concern appears to be over 'AFAM majors' - you don't need to major in AFAM to get the benefit of a couple of 'A's on your transcript to counteract the 'D's and ' from real classes. Its like he was saying - 'guys, lets not make this too obvious - spread this around a bit and just use it when you are desperate.' If I am reading some of these quotes correctly it sounds like one men's basketball player was taking four of these course in a single semester!
 
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Huskies Rule said:
Nobody can scoop the poop on a Tarheel better than a Dookie. Crazy like a fox.
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I enjoy your perspective as a CC, but the only palatable outcome of a Duke-UNC game is a double forfeit. The only "root-able" aspect is Sylvia Hatchell.
 
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