per ESPN.com
A University of Tennessee professor at the center of an NCAA investigation into academic fraud has resigned, repeating her belief the school exploits many athletes instead of educating them.
English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers sent a letter dated May 15 to John Zomchick, head of the English Department, announcing her resignation by the end of June after 17 years at Tennessee.
"It is with mixed feelings that I leave the department and the university, although, as you are somewhat aware, I have been forced to seek another position by the university's refusal to uphold the academic policies that I was charged to enforce as the Director of Composition for 14 years," Bensel-Meyers wrote in the letter obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The letter said she would join the University of Denver this fall, taking a position in Renaissance studies.
Bensel-Meyers came forward in 1999 with allegations that, among other things, tutors wrote papers for athletes -- particularly football players -- and that athletes were steered toward easy classes and had low grades raised after they completed courses. The NCAA's two-year inquiry into the reports ended in 2001 and found no wrongdoing.
Zomchick, in his first year as director, said many faculty respected Bensel-Meyers and that he was sorry to see her leave.
"I think there have been some positive changes here at the university because of her commitment and her efforts to bring the education of athletes to national attention," he said. "I think Linda also raised all of our consciousnesses to be more vigilant about academic honesty and dishonesty. Plagiarism is not something that is limited to college athletes."
Vice President and Provost Loren Crabtree did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Since the initial report of the allegations, Bensel-Meyers was removed from her position as director of composition and has been teaching undergraduate courses.
"To this day, no apology nor even a response has been made to the many members of my staff who filed formal complaints about physical and verbal abuse they sustained when attempting to report plagiarism in the athletic department office of student life," she wrote. "No apologies have been made to athletes who attempted to access an education per the letter of their scholarship, discovering they were forcibly labeled 'learning disabled' and told they had to let the tutors do their work for them."
Since the investigation, the university moved the authority over the academic support services for athletes from the athletic department to the university provost. Tennessee also adopted stricter guidelines for faculty to obtain copies of student transcripts.
Bensel-Meyers said the problems she has witnessed for more than 10 years have not been cured.
"It is clear that the faculty and the students at the University of Tennessee will continue to be used as mere investment capital for the profitable business of its intercollegiate athletic program," she wrote.
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