http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/25/2...e-new.html
A new report released today tries to suggest that UNC had bogus classes and grade changes that benefited more than just student-athletes, but students from all parts of the school. The report shows that at UNC:
Quote:athletes made up nearly half of the enrollments in 172 bogus classes within the African studies department, and also accounted for a just under half of 512 suspect grade changes during that period.
Their average grade: 3.56, between a B-plus and an A-minus.
Athletes made up less than half of the number of students that took these classes and that received grade changes. So this is is just an academic scandal, not an athletic one, right? Well maybe not.
The problem is the report doesn't address several other issues with the bogus classes:
Quote:(The) report did not disclose how many football and men’s basketball players were in the suspect classes, or how many bogus classes were taken by each athlete, compared to each nonathlete. It didn’t explain how numerous freshmen football players got into those classes, some of which were identified as being for upperclassmen.
It also did not disclose what classes had suspicious grade changes.
Uh oh. And Mark Emmert said last week he was concerned that freshmen were taking these bogus classes. On top of that, the NCAA might be looking into the matter because:
Quote:The new report shows that from 2002 to 2009, UNC athletes had their grades changed 38 times in ways that were not approved by the course’s instructor. All were in African studies classes.
Those grade changes, according to the new report and one on the same topic issued last month, were “specifically identified by the course section’s instructor of record as unauthorized.”
Quote:The report says that an additional 215 grade changes for athletes are suspected to be unauthorized.
The updated report highlights that the grade changes were made for athletes and nonathletes in similar proportions. But it is silent on other details, including whether athletes were kept eligible by the unauthorized changes.
Gerald Gurney, past present of the National Association of Academic Advisers for Athletics and a professor at the University of Oklahoma, said the way the new report is written “is obviously a smokescreen.”
From an NCAA perspective, he said, “it doesn’t answer the right questions.”
So here's the theory in a nutshell, for those who may have a hard time reading between the lines:
The African-American Studies Dept. is rife with academic fraud, not only for setting up dozens of bogus classes, but being notorious for changing grades. Whether this was at the urging of the Athletic Dept. or the Athletic Dept. knew about it and took advantage of those deficiencies remains to be seen, but what is evident is that athletes took these classes in proportions larger than not only the student body, but larger in proportion to even the minority population, and football and men's basketball athletes took them in even larger proportion to the rest of the athlete population - and freshmen were taking upperclassmen-level classes to boot. Even with these bogus or low workload classes, if an athlete needed to boost his grades to remain eligible, the
grades were changed by someone other than the instructor along with grades for other nonathletes to give the illusion that the impropriety was not limited to athletes.
I hope the NCAA handles this investigation better than they handled the Miami investigation. I don't hold out much hope. But we shall see...
Putting aside the obvious fraud that allowed UNC athletes to stay academically eligible, what purpose is this serving the poor non-athlete schmucks taking these classes? UNC was printing worthless diplomas and sending these kids out in the world to fail. This department should be shut down.
The NCAA has a two track judicial process. UNC is on Track 1 with Penn State, Alabama, and Miami. SMU was on Track 2.
172 suspect classes? Damn!!!
Anyone at Carolina talking about academics no longer has any legs to stand upon. I'd say they belong in the SEC. But any SEC school is much better at this sort of thing that UNC ever will be. So that rules that out. It probably rules out the B1G too, unless they want to jump on the hypocritic bandwagon...
JOOC, is UNC going to vacate some diplomas over this?
CommuterBob, I didn't see that you had already posted the latest article...looks like we keep similar hours.
I'll say this, I don't know who handles accreditation for universities and colleges in the Carolinas, but SACS does so for basically all of the Deep South. The ONLY time I've ever seen a university's administration, athletics department, AND board (Trustees in this case) join together in telling the big-money boosters to sit down, STFU, and keep their noses out of where they don't belong was when SACS came sniffing around Auburn's campus. Just the letter that they were looking in that direction caused the school to suddenly gain the testicular fortitude of 10 colleges! Plus 2!!!
(01-26-2013 09:24 AM)TRest3 Wrote: [ -> ]Putting aside the obvious fraud that allowed UNC athletes to stay academically eligible, what purpose is this serving the poor non-athlete schmucks taking these classes? UNC was printing worthless diplomas and sending these kids out in the world to fail. This department should be shut down.
Keep in mind that it was African American type Dept....
So the reason for having fake classes and giving out good grades was two fold and REAL. UNC wanted to graduate its athletes and its minorities, many of whom were not equipped to handle regular coursework (as seen in their other grades in regular classwork).
The problem is this isn't just easy classes, this is actual fraudulent classes, not taught as approved by the University and grades changed by forgery. UNC was trying to have it both ways, championing its curriculum while dumbing it down to the point of just giving out diplomas to a select few for special purposes. Those purposes were for athletic achievement and diversity. Whats really amazing is that UNC is one of the worst culprits of "grade inflation" in the country. It wants everyone to graduate with "honors" so they can get into a good grad school. It needs a good thorough housecleaning...its a house of cards in Chapel Hill.
(01-26-2013 12:36 PM)HP-TBDPITL Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 09:24 AM)TRest3 Wrote: [ -> ]Putting aside the obvious fraud that allowed UNC athletes to stay academically eligible, what purpose is this serving the poor non-athlete schmucks taking these classes? UNC was printing worthless diplomas and sending these kids out in the world to fail. This department should be shut down.
Keep in mind that it was African American type Dept....
So the reason for having fake classes and giving out good grades was two fold and REAL. UNC wanted to graduate its athletes and its minorities, many of whom were not equipped to handle regular coursework (as seen in their other grades in regular classwork).
The problem is this isn't just easy classes, this is actual fraudulent classes, not taught as approved by the University and grades changed by forgery. UNC was trying to have it both ways, championing its curriculum while dumbing it down to the point of just giving out diplomas to a select few for special purposes. Those purposes were for athletic achievement and diversity. Whats really amazing is that UNC is one of the worst culprits of "grade inflation" in the country. It wants everyone to graduate with "honors" so they can get into a good grad school. It needs a good thorough housecleaning...its a house of cards in Chapel Hill.
Yep! House of cards occupied by only 1 professor and 1 adminsitrative assistant and they are both gone from the University. It was a very small house.
(01-26-2013 12:15 PM)XLance Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 11:47 AM)lazydawg58 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 11:32 AM)XLance Wrote: [ -> ]http://www.news-record.com/home/640402-6...not-mainly
Sorry Lance but this is hardly a dead horse. UNC-CH has embarrassed all of us in the state of North Carolina. More importantly they have (at least) taken a blind eye to students that should never have been admitted to the school and could not work, even with remediation, at a college level. A system was functioning at the school to channel those students to classes that were a joke and do whatever it takes to keep them eligible.
Yep! it is an embarassment and as I have said many times before, this is a racially sensitive issue and at this point ...........
You need to give more creedence to the articles on this subject written by the Raleigh News & Observer and not as much to an AP article in the Greensboro News and Record. You can access articles going back over a year in the N&O that were written by their staff writers who did most of the investigative work.
This matter has created a major problem for UNC if it ever had plans to jump leagues to garner a bigger piece of media rights pie. The scandal is deeper than anyone ever thought it was in the beginning. As noted, it not only goes deep into the athletic department it also has exposed serious problems in both the school's administration as well as the Board of Trustees at Chapel Hill. After the recent Martin report failed to even investigate a number of serious matters where evidence of wrongdoing was in hand members of the North Carolina General Assembly are starting to voice their great displeasure and plan to do something about it. As you may know, the General Assembly and governorship are now controlled by the Republicans for the first time in 100 years and that, coupled with the embarrassment created by the scandal, has significantly reduced, what until now, has been the great influence that the Chapel Hill campus has had in state goverment. As would be the case in many states, legislators in North Carolina are not going to allow UNC's athletic department to receive a major financial windfall through realignment as some sort of reward for their wrongdoing, especially when it would leave N.C. State in a heavily damaged ACC where their annual athletic department revenue would plummet. The State of North Carolina is having financial problems and will not allow a situation to be created where N.C. State has to come to them asking for taxpayer dollars to make up for any loss in athletic department revenue relating to UNC moving to another conference. Furthermore, the issues in the UNC athletic department alone are far more serious than what was found in the N.C. State athletic department under Valano where their athletic department was negatively impacted for twenty years. The mistrust in the Chapel Hill campus and their board of trustees is now so deep, due to their continued and failed attempts to coverup the extent of the wrong doing, that there is a move to make changes in the makeup of the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors in order to investigate and monitor the situation. Finally, anger has been voiced by a number of the other 16 member institutions in the greater university system as they are not only embarrassed, they are beginning to receive negative remarks from outside.
In short, these factors will certainly affect, and probably limit, the ability of UNC to move to another conference.
UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
(01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
The NCAA may not do anything......but the State of North Carolina will. You can bet on that.
(01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Huh? Emmert was brutal on Penn State, and they certainly are not taking it easy on Miami either.
(01-26-2013 02:19 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Huh? Emmert was brutal on Penn State, and they certainly are not taking it easy on Miami either.
Oh really? Then why is the NCAA having to address hiring an attorney that has a conflict of interest to handle investigation?
(01-26-2013 02:19 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Huh? Emmert was brutal on Penn State, and they certainly are not taking it easy on Miami either.
What happened at Penn State was 10x worse than what happened at SMU. In 2012, Penn State went 8-4. In 2013, they'll probably go 9-3. Their FB program will emerge from this situation just as strong as ever, not permanently impaired like SMU.
And isn't Miami going to get off lightly due to the "botched" NCAA investigation?
(01-26-2013 02:48 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 02:19 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Huh? Emmert was brutal on Penn State, and they certainly are not taking it easy on Miami either.
What happened at Penn State was 10x worse than what happened at SMU. In 2012, Penn State went 8-4. In 2013, they'll probably go 9-3. Their FB program will emerge from this situation just as strong as ever, not permanently impaired like SMU.
What happened at PSU was irrelevant to sports. The DOE should nail them, but the NCAA had no business being involved.
(01-26-2013 02:51 PM)bullet Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 02:48 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 02:19 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote: [ -> ] (01-26-2013 01:55 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: [ -> ]UNC has nothing to fear. The NCAA will do nothing. The punishment will never fit the crime for schools like them, Penn State, and Miami. The athletes' parking lot could be filled with new BMW's and they'd get a one year bowl ban, if that.
The NCAA is a fraud. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Huh? Emmert was brutal on Penn State, and they certainly are not taking it easy on Miami either.
What happened at Penn State was 10x worse than what happened at SMU. In 2012, Penn State went 8-4. In 2013, they'll probably go 9-3. Their FB program will emerge from this situation just as strong as ever, not permanently impaired like SMU.
What happened at PSU was irrelevant to sports. The DOE should nail them, but the NCAA had no business being involved.
You're wrong about NCAA involvement. Anything that effects the integrity of NCAA athletics is their jurisdiction. I figure that includes molesting young boys in the showers, pimping them out to big money boosters, and any other illicit activity involving school employees with the young athletes under their care...
But you're right about about the DOE. I just wish they get off their duffs and do something. It's been over a year now...