Another academic scandal; UNC is f-cked

Former U.S. Attorney Ken Wainstein released the results of his eight month investigation into academic fraud at UNC. It's the fourth such investigation the university has conducted, although for the first time this one appears thorough enough to have perhaps gotten to the bottom of the problem. The fraud goes back 18 years, was largely orchestrated by the AFAM studies department manager, touches football and basketball and apparently was fairly well known within the athletics department.

The N&O with excellent coverage here.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/22/4255098_unc-investigation-bogus-classes.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1

As an alumnus I am disgusted, not surprised and angry that it's taken four years and multiple investigations for the university to own up to the truth.

 

Will be interesting to see what punishment if any The NCAA brings down on
UNC.

Since it started in '93 I wonder if there will be calls to vacate that basketball
championship.

 

Great 93 East Region final, overtime win against Cincinnati. Nick Van was on fire, but Brian Reese rims a dunk at the buzzer and it goes to OT. Nick Van goes cold in OT and UNC wins by 7. Line was 5 or 5 1/2 and my buddy had a dime on UNC. Reese makes that dunk Cincy covers. We drank good that night.

 

Doubt if any of the titles get vacated, but that's the least likely of the three. The title was won in April. The scheme run by the AFAM manager didn't start until the fall 93 semester. The fake classes were still around in 2009, but that was a couple of years after Roy Williams asked Joe Holliday to steer players clear of AFAM because he was worried about the clustering going on there - although supposedly didn't know anything about the sham classes.

If a title is in jeopardy, it's 2005. I think more than half the team was AFAM majors and Rashad McCants was taking four of these bogus classes during the Spring '05 semester.

 

Yep, 10 of the 15 players on that team were AFAM majors.

 

""Like everyone who reads it, I feel shocked and disappointed," UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Carol Folt said in a statement. She blamed what she called "the actions of a small number and inactions of many people" for the problem and said the university had implemented more than 70 improvements to its academic oversight, including personnel changes within the school. Folt would not elaborate on any personnel decisions that have been made.

"When we find people who are accountable, we will take decisive action," she said.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

The report itself makes it pretty clear who is responsible. Perhaps the most egregious based on authority of position is ethics Prof. Jan Boxill, who as the faculty president feigned shock and disgust when Gov. Jim Martin's incredibly weak report was released two years ago. Meanwhile she was telling the AFAM secretary what grades to give specific women's basketball players on specific papers.

Most of the people involved are already out of the university, but it was announced today that nine current employees would be either fired or seriously disciplined. The chancellor wouldn't name them citing privacy laws, except that once they are fired or disciplined that becomes public under NC's FOIA laws.

 

Jan Boxill's bio has already been scrubbed from the Parr Ethics Center.

As angry as I am about the previous administrations' complicity in this thing, I'm getting the sense that Chancellor Folt wants to be a change agent and get this mess behind her. Unlike the previous chancellor, who was an alum and an in-house hire from the chemistry faculty, Folt is an outsider whose background is in the Ivy League - not a football or basketball factory. She's at least giving the impression she's not beholden to any of the constituencies that have perhaps held this mess up in the past.

 

Anyone else curious how hard the NCAA is going to come down on App. State because of this?

 

East Carolina just lost 18 scholarships over three years for this.

 

Until recently, I was unaware of this, and I was astounded to learn of it. That's really bush-league stuff, not the sort of thing you'd expect from any top-flight school, much less one of UNC's stature.

 

Winston-Salem State gets the death penalty in women's golf ...