UNC buckles... Hires outside investigator to probe academic fraud scandal

[David 76]

Do you think the NCAA waited for all evidence to be in when they went after UCONN? After Boatright? No. It was clear they were they were looking into it. Long before a decision was made.

Hoops fan, you could not be more wrong.
1)You don't think colleges go after donations? You don't think they have drives to do this? How much of an endowment does PSU have?
2)The "University, as a whole" does not mean every student and employee. I was referring to the entity.
3)I deal with kids abused "under my nose" on a regular basis in my work. I've been a foster parent to 2 abused kids and adopted a third.
4)Oh, And I don't watch ESPN unless we are playing on it so that missed the mark
Finally, I respect where Bear is coming from, though I disagree with some of his conclusions. I think he is interested in the welfare of kids.
But I would ask other people to wear the shoes of the victim(s) or their parents. Kids traumatized in a manner that will affect them their entire life, by a trusted adult. Look at the situation from that perspective and see if you wouldn't be upset someone didn't do a little bit more at PSU.

 

[CL82]

I just think there is a tendency to oversimplify.

When I was in school I had a professor who was well known that he didn't tend to fail anyone. Now, he was an excellent instructor, and he certainly didn't give everyone an "A" , but I knew classmates that didn't get the material and none failed (this was when grades were still posted on walls).

Again, the next year, I took a class that was a bit over my head. I did my best, but got an "A" not so much for my coursework but for my honesty in the "exit" interview, where I acknowledged that I just didn't have the mathematical background (I was a chem major) to quite "get" some of the material (the course was described as best for math majors, I thought it sounded interesting and took it).

Were these professors committing "fraud"? because they graded maybe a bit high? Was the rather loony Organic Chem professor that didn't give "A" grades because he didn't think any student was really good enough to deserve one a fraud?

My point is, and I have no idea, did the fraud at UNC extend to every student in a class, or only selected students. Or was the class a complete fake - in which case, I agree, the students need to be disciplined, all of them.

I personally believe there were numerous folks in the UNC administration who knew what was going on and I believe they all should be terminated and, where applicable, charged. As I believed with Penn State where there were fewer folks involved.

I also have no issue, incidentally, with athletic sanctions, although, we know that isn't happening. What I do have is a problem with someone saying that, if the situation is cleaned up as it (hopefully) will be, the school as an entity needs anything more than academic probation.

Well that and having their APR retroactively recalculated and have them forfeit any post season game since they played with ineligible players. Oh and a five year post season ban seems about right as well.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Hopefully the NCAA doesn't sanction UConn basketball for that professor that did who knows what to those young women, as now it has come out that people knew as far back as 2006 and did nothing. Sure sounds like covering up potential crimes to me. Local news here in Connecticut has been all over the story. Stories like this hit home. It's why I refuse to judge what happened at PSU knowing that an outsider looking in could easily spin the story into something very negative and damaging for UConn.

 

[hjoerring]

I'll second that!

I think this is a lot more widespread than we think- not just at UNC, but the majority of D1 Programs. Deans are kept in the dark, but chairpersons in a variety of departments and don-granting degree programs look the other way as borderline classes are offer every semester solely to bring in students. Students equal TA-ships for grads and serves to legitimate some programs as relevant. One needs not speak of conspiracy: just identifying a need and satisfying it. It is the same reason why a chairman of dept A may stop prof A in the hall way about all the Fs + Cs s/he is giving out-- the battle ground is about bringing students in- not pushing them away. Deans appropriate monies to dept and programs base on 'service', etc. Some programs that do not grant degrees are seen as service programs/dept. Therein lies the slippy line between legit and illlegit practices. The bigger the school and Athl. program the more areas to hide these things.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

If either the PSU admins had done their job in the first place or if it had not been until 2011 that the evidence of Sandusky's crime had come to light and then been acted on swiftly, likely the NCAA would not have been involved and no sanctions against the team would have been leveled. It was simply the malfeasance of the school's admins that brought the NCAA into the case and the punitive steps taken.

The UNC case does appear to revolve around wide-scale improprieties commonly known as cheating that were carried out mainly for athletes and to gain an edge on the playing field, and that does squarely involve the NCAA.

And yet, for several years, there were WCBB fans who seemed to think a potential Wendy's lunch (maybe they had lunch via Skype from Russia) and a tour of ESPN were ruining intercollegiate athletics and were the downfall of honesty and intergrity in recruiting...

*insert low-flying sarcasm plane here*

 

[loneycafe]

Another story out about UNC, this one makes the cover of Businessweek: No Class: In fake classes scandal, UNC fails its athletes--and whistle-blower

 

[watanabe]

Trying to stay on subject (I can't think about PSU, it makes me see red, real bad)

The UNC case does appear to revolve around wide-scale improprieties commonly known as cheating that were carried out mainly for athletes and to gain an edge on the playing field, and that does squarely involve the NCAA. The muddling factor of some of the students not necessarily being athletes does not really seem a big issue to me as I thought that the term "student athlete" involved overlapping attributes (both an athlete and a student), and not something that can be separated, though I know some will argue that some of the UNC players were mainly just athletes and not really students. Is a team manager an athlete, and if not, would there presence in the classroom with athletes mean that the NCAA did not need to be concerned with course irregularities if the NCAA's only concern is about athletes. Ultimately, all students at a school through their student fees are involved with the sports on a campus and in some way connected to the NCAA. So it seems silly for either UNC or NCAA to argue that this scandal lies outside the domain of the athletics department if a few of the students in the case were not on a team.

This is outrageous that NCAA is hiding behind what Mr. DobbsR is saying. I've heard that the NCAA is taking a hands off attitude because of it. WTF?

 

[DobbsRover2]

Trying to stay on subject (I can't think about PSU, it makes me see red, real bad)



This is outrageous that NCAA is hiding behind what Mr. DobbsR is saying. I've heard that the NCAA is taking a hands off attitude because of it. WTF?

The essence of it all since the scandal broke out a few years back is this: Emmert and the NCAA have refused to get involved in the UNC scandal even though the school recently admitted much of the extent of the cheating.

Even though the NCAA has been happy to step into much more minute cases of this type of academics related malfeasance, on UNC they have refused to act until it is proved that the classes involved were specifically set up to keep athletes eligible. Not only is that likely a difficult or impossible point to prove, as there were likely some non-athletes in the classes and that the classes may have set up in the beginning as legitimate classes and then evolved into no-show-no-do classes. So the NCAA has set the bar for action impossibly high, but they have completely shoved aside the question of whether hundreds of athletes earned large amounts of fraudulent credits and whether that means that the integrity of athletics programs were compromised.

And for the posters who want to distract attention to the real or imagined fraud at other schools, that really has no bearing on whether action should be taken at UNC. It is certainly very possible that there are athletics related sham courses at other schools, and if clear evidence is brought to light then action should be taken there to, whether it be at UConn, Auburn, Mississippi, etc. etc.

 

[David 76]

..

And for the posters who want to distract attention to the real or imagined fraud at other schools, that really has no bearing on whether action should be taken at UNC. It is certainly very possible that there are athletics related sham courses at other schools, and if clear evidence is brought to light then action should be taken there to, whether it be at UConn, Auburn, Mississippi, etc. etc.

I never get this logic either. All people who drive drunk, don't get caught so we shouldn't arrest the ones we catch?

 

[watanabe]

I never get this logic either. All people who drive drunk, don't get caught so we shouldn't arrest the ones we catch?

It's no longer a crime in the US if you don't get caught. Also if caught, deny, deny deny. then try affluenza, or, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Come on, that's what we teach our children today on the stage of national tv. You're old school. Keep up old timer.

 

[David 76]

It really is an argument common among 14 year olds. After 16 years of age it really is developmentally inappropriate.