WRAL News is reporting that the UNC internal review was not thorough.
The UNC internal report, however, only covered lecture courses. WRAL News looked at data about independent study courses offered by the department and found additional red flags – lots of athletes with the potential for earning twice the credit offered by other departments for similar work.
After everything that has happened in the last two years, the initial response to the statement that the internal review was not thorough was “And this should surprise me how?”
Here is a list of the independent classes that WRAL is reporting that were unusual:
WRAL identified nine courses over four years where enrollment seemed out of the ordinary:
AFRI 396 Summer 2nd session 2007: 16 total students enrolled, 8 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFAM 396 Summer 1st session 2008: 4 total students enrolled; 1 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFRI 396 Summer 2nd session 2008: 13 total students enrolled; 2 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFRI 396 Fall 2008: 9 total students enrolled; 4 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFAM 396 Summer 1st session 2009: 2 total students enrolled; 0 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFRI 396 Summer 1st session 2009: 4 total students enrolled; 3 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFAM 396 Summer 1st session 2010: 6 total students enrolled; 6 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
AFRI 396 Summer 2nd session 2010: 11 total students enrolled; 8 current or former football and/or men’s basketball players
A couple of UNC professors were quoted in the article:
Lloyd Kramer, chairman of the UNC History Department, said the number of enrollees alone would be cause for concern. “That would be very unusual in our department. That would raise red flags,” he said.
“Typically, there would be one or, at most, two students doing an independent course with a faculty member. At least in our department that’s the usual course arrangement,” Kramer said.
The numbers also seemed high to Jay Smith, a professor in the history department. I[n] more than 20 years at UNC, Smith said he has only taught two independent study courses with one student each.
Smith also raised concerns about the number of athletes in some of the courses.
“You wonder how those athletes wound up in that course, what they were doing when they got there, what purpose that particular course was serving in their own academic schedules,” he said.
Those are good questions and ones that everyone (OK, most everyone) would like to get answered.
