Bogus classes and automatic A’s and B’s are at the heart of a cheating scandal at the University of North Carolina that lasted nearly two decades, encompassing about 3,100 students ”” nearly half of them athletes.
At least nine university employees were fired or under disciplinary review, and the question now becomes what, if anything, the NCAA will do next. Penalties could range from fewer scholarships to vacated wins.
Most of the athletes were football players or members of the school’s cherished basketball program, which won three of its five national titles during the scandal (1993, 2005, 2009).
This is big news here in North Carolina, naturally. My husband read reports closely. Apparently Roy Williams, some years ago, noticed that way too many of his players were majoring in African-American Studies and began steering them instead towards classes that might assist them in getting jobs after college. It is hoped the basketball program will not suffer as the football program will, and, it sounds to me, ought to.
It would be nice if their accreditation agency took academics seriously.
[url=http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/06/20/2977833/unc-ch-will-be-monitored-not-sanctioned.html]From last year.[/url]
Even in the Peoples’ Republic of Chapel Hill, athletics, and the money it brings in, is more important than academic integrity. To believe none of the coaches or administrators knew of this is complete horse hockey. If Roy Williams and Dean Smith didn’t know, it was only because they didn’t want to know. And since ALL university presidents now use athletics to fund raise and thus increase their bonuses, there is a huge incentive for everyone involved to look the other way. If the NCAA followed the David Keller Rule none of this would be happening: If you can’t get in as a regular student, you can’t get in.
Another large part of the problem is the unwillingness of the liberal academic establishment to look clearly at the programs labeled “Studies” — Women’s, Gender, African-American, etc. It’s quite possible and constructive to do research on the history of Africans in this country, and to teach solid courses on the subject. That’s not what goes on in the AFAM department at UNC, for the most part, and let us not think that the problem is only in Chapel Hill. Students major in these “Studies” to their detriment. About half of the students in the phantom classes were athletes, and half weren’t.
Katherine, That’s exactaly my point. I went to college on a track scholarship in Texas in 1968. Even then the football and basketball players majored in PE and though they were supposed to take core courses as long as they passed 12 hours with a C average they stayed in school and eligible. Back in those days there were no gender/ethnic studies but there were courses in How to Play Football, Golf, Tennis, Basketball etc., ad nauseam. They were all taught by coaches and somehow unless you were a major sports scholarship athlete, you could never get in. Nothing has changed except now the money is so much more and as I noted the presidents use them to get bonuses. And the reason the leftie nut job profs go along is the presidents funnel money into salaries and retirement accounts for those with tenure. It is insidious!