…and boom goes the dynamite

 

This News and Observer story posted recently proves that the Mayans were right after all!  There are actual adults in Chapel Hill.

 

CHAPEL HILL –        A report by a special faculty committee looking into the academic fraud scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill found an athletics program largely divorced from the faculty, academic counselors for athletes improperly involved in helping them enroll in classes and poor oversight of faculty administrators who have wide latitude in running their departments.

The three professors who wrote the report called for an independent commission of outside experts in higher education to review athletics and academics at the university.

 

As soon as I pick myself off the floor I have some other recent story links to add.

 

Stay tuned.

 

********** 8:30 UPDATE **********

 

You can read the entire faculty report here in pdf form.

That document has some tremendous material.  Including the conclusion that departments other than AFAM could be involved.  And this little nugget that put me right back on the floor:

“We believe that the cumulative effect of the proliferation of committees with limited charges to examine discrete areas of institutional governance has been more confusing than clarifying, and that their conclusions and recommendations will be viewed at best as not comprehensive and at worst self-serving. Further, the repeated revelations in area newspapers of information not previously or clearly reported in the University’s official statements and reports on academic fraud involving athletes on campus undermine the University’s assurances of the comprehensiveness of these reports.”

Stay tuned.  I have some other stuff I have not gotten to yet.

********* 9:00 UPDATE **********

 

Earlier today this hilarious N & O story shows that the UNC-CH “football major” curriculum takes distance learning to a new level, as it appears that Professor Nyang’oro was in Africa while he was quote-unquote teaching one of those quote-unquote classes last summer.  Maybe he had the whole class with him and it was a field trip!

This piece from big lead sports has some interesting tidbits about the UNC-CH basketball program’s possible involvement in academic shadiness.  Specifically, a guy named Wayne Walden is mentioned prominently.  It is a very meaty article worth a full read.  Here is a quick highlight:

But here’s really why Roy Williams might be faced with tough questions about his program and the academic scandal: Wayne Walden, his academic right hand man at Kansas and UNC.

Walden was with Roy Williams at Kansas. He was the basketball team’s academic adviser for 15 years. Then, when Williams left for UNC in 2003, Walden went with him and filled the same role – academic support for men’s basketball, overseeing scheduling, registration, structured study halls, tutorial services, etc.

That’s interesting.

 

UNC Scandal

47 Responses to …and boom goes the dynamite

  1. TLeo 07/26/2012 at 7:35 PM #

    Well, it’s about time someone over there did this and they even specified “outside experts”. However, the cynic in me doesn’t think this will ever happen over there and if it does, Thorpe or someone will hand pick the experts to ensure the outcome.

  2. Wufpacker 07/26/2012 at 7:39 PM #

    Thorpe may not be picking much more than a new job before too long.

  3. pakfanistan 07/26/2012 at 7:40 PM #

    I don’t think the dynamite goes boom until there are some repercussions.

  4. WolfBlood 07/26/2012 at 7:41 PM #

    Guys, they were obviously rogue associate advisors.

  5. Dogbreath 07/26/2012 at 7:43 PM #

    CHAPEL HILL – AP Wire – University of North Carolina administrators announced today that Nathan Thurm, a high dollar attorney with a practice devoted to special investigations, has been appointed as chairman of an independent council tasked with studying academic and athletic improprieties at the state university.

  6. tuckerdorm1983 07/26/2012 at 7:48 PM #

    Butch was dirty, plain and simple. My mama always says “dirty is as dirty does”.

    Dirty in the classroom (swahli and tutors)
    Dirty in the community (tons of parking tickets)
    Dirty on the field (late hits and cheap shots, even after the game ends)

    Dirty Dirty Dirty

    Butch: Hakeem I hear you have not been going to class all year
    Hakeem: Whatever coach
    Butch: Don’t worry you will be in the NFL and will have no problems
    Hakeem: Whatever coach
    Butch: You keep up the good work. That is the Carolina way.
    Hakeem: Whatever coach.

  7. wufpup76 07/26/2012 at 8:30 PM #

    Say everyone, what’s tomorrow again? …

    It’s Friday, Friday …
    Gotta get down on Friday!

    Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah!!)
    Cheatin’, Cheatin’ (Yeah!!)
    Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!!!

    7:45 we’re drivin’ down the highway
    Dickie B to my right …
    Holden T to my left …
    I got this
    You got this
    Now we can be exposed as frauds

    Lookin’ forward to those sanctions …

    It’s Friday!!!

    With apologies to Rebecca Black

  8. Old MacDonald 07/26/2012 at 8:38 PM #

    Hey guys…that pdf is AMAZING. I have to get offline for the night. Please dig through that pdf and post what you find. It has amazing quote after amazing quote.

  9. SaccoV 07/26/2012 at 8:42 PM #

    Dogbreath, too funny. “I’m not being defensive; you’re the one who’s being defensive!” I think it’s time for a re-visit to all the State investigations way back. UN* is continually re-asserting what every State coach and player had to endure for what seems like years. Where the hell is Golenbock now?

  10. OldWuf 07/26/2012 at 9:46 PM #

    WOW, I wonder if ol’Roy has read that pdf yet? He ain’t gonna like it. Glad to see that there are still some professors over there that are somewhat serious about education. These professors have been seething for quite a while.

  11. MrPlywood 07/26/2012 at 10:04 PM #

    re: “I’m not being defensive; you’re the one who’s being defensive!”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc2o8ywKqos&feature=related

    Crappy quality, but perfect!

  12. PackerInRussia 07/26/2012 at 10:07 PM #

    They shouldn’t have used so many big words in the report; no one in the athletics department will know what it says. They’ll be like Briscoe Darlin’: “He arguin’ with me?”

  13. Dogbreath 07/26/2012 at 10:17 PM #

    More Thurm…

  14. choppack1 07/26/2012 at 10:33 PM #

    You really have to wonder if the NCAA intentionally is avoiding this stuff.

    Let’s face it – you’ll be hard pressed to find 2 schools who have trumpeted themselves as what as right about with college athletics more than UNC and Penn State.

    These two stories should make the NCAA realize that the emphasis on graduation rates, is pretty short-sighted.

    Someone had a great list of people involved in the UNC scandal not talking/cooperating:
    * Jennifer Wiley
    * the Professor
    * Deborah Crowder
    * John Blake

    Here’s what I’d like to see – let Kane do a hardhitting interview with Dick Baddour – ask him this question:
    * When you testified that MacAdoo did his own work to the NCAA – where did you get this information? Did you do your own investigation? Did someone advise you that he had done his own work? Was it based on your interviews with MacAdoo?

    Ask Holden Thorpe – were you involved in any way with the meetings leading up to the appeal to the NCAA to reinstate McAdoo? What was your involvement.

    Finally, I’d like to ask the Committee on Infractions some questions:
    * Was UNC’s appeal for reinstatement of McAdoo considered when you weighed their punishment?
    * Do the allegations that have come to surface since the penalties were handed down to UNC require another investigation?
    * Were you aware of these?
    * Does the allegation that these classes were fraudelent make you reconsider in any way the emphasis on graduation over actual, verifiable learning?

  15. Alpha Wolf 07/26/2012 at 10:57 PM #

    Did UNC-CH or UNC-GA appoint the latest committee? I have no trust in Carolina’s willingness to investigate itself.

    Truthfully, if it independent and fully motivated, then the Truth (with a capital T) may be about to come out and that truth is going to hurt long and deep over there: the men’s hoops team is involved in these shenanigans, their program is dirty and that WILL bring the NCAA back if anything substantial comes out.

    Then, if that happened, the question becomes: would it be a separate investigation or part of the same one the covered football? If it were the same one, not as big a deal. If it is separate, would that not bring the death penalty into play?

    Oh, my oh my, I know there’s like a 0.01% chance of it in even the wildest of dreams, but just imagine if that happened.

  16. GAWolf 07/27/2012 at 5:29 AM #

    ^Baseball and boras, too,right

  17. GAWolf 07/27/2012 at 5:38 AM #

    Chop pack: I think you’re on to so,ethnic about theNCAA purposely avoiding coming back. They have something to lose in that event even if it’s just face. NCAA officials are either embarrassed or perhaps holding up their end of a crooked bargain. Either way, they lose face. Its sort of like the release of the 216 records. There is calculated risk/rewardin deciding to fight and allowing them to be released. The NCAA Is now getting beaten in the nTional media for not acting on new UNC academic issue. So they’ve clearly made the calculated decision that it’s safer for them to take this abuse than to return and levy further punishment for further misdeeds at UNC.

    “Why is that?”

    We are left to wonder.

  18. Greywolf 07/27/2012 at 6:32 AM #

    “It is our hope that such a panel of distinguished experts will both highlight what we are doing right and identify areas of deficiencies in organization and procedure, point to best practices that can be brought to bear on these deficiencies, encourage buy-in by all parts of the University community in solutions, and create a path forward towards implementation.”

    Let’s all get our panties in a wad over the latest panel. The mission will be to highlight what the great University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has done right and identify areas of deficiencies and point out a path forward.

    This whole ‘Great Unpleasantness’, as it is referred to by BobLee, is one big training manual on how to avoid responsibility and consequences for transgressions. Not a single mention of paying the piper for the dances of the past. Put an asteric by the records of ineligible athletes and move on. The phrase ‘going forward’ must be the mantra of U*NX.

  19. coach13 07/27/2012 at 6:56 AM #

    I want the guy that did the independent report at PSU to do Chapel Hell. The truth will NEVER come to light without a true unhampered 3rd party investigating what’s going on.

  20. tractor57 07/27/2012 at 7:45 AM #

    I suspect at any University you can find some academic issues (and probably so involving athletes) even if only students being directed to easier classes – hell in my day we tried to keep notes on certain professors. That is a LONG way from what we see here!

    Just maybe we have been a bit short sighted in thinking Butchie Boy instigated this. No doubt he and his program took it to more visible levels but I wonder if this goes back a lot further – maybe even before Dean Smith.

    I also vote for Freeh handling the investigation.

  21. NCSU88 07/27/2012 at 7:50 AM #

    Read the whole report. Well written with some big words and legal speak mumbo jumbo. I get the impression that no one is in charge at UN* and that there has been no coordination and communication between university leadership on getting to the bottom of exactly what happened and how it happened. Efforts seem to have been focussed on how to not let “it” happen again, but “it” keeps changing. They are treating visible symptoms with bandaids and not looking for a root cause.

  22. LRM 07/27/2012 at 8:12 AM #

    Keep in mind, the Af-Am program was created in the mid-90s explicitly for basketball players.

  23. VaWolf82 07/27/2012 at 9:28 AM #

    Further, the repeated revelations in area newspapers of information not previously or clearly reported in the University’s official statements and reports on academic fraud involving athletes on campus undermine the University’s assurances of the comprehensiveness of these reports.”

    The new revelations don’t “undermine the University’s assurances”, they prove that UNC hasn’t adequately documented the depth/breadth of the academic fraud AND HAS NO INTENTION OF DOING SO.

  24. wolfonthehill 07/27/2012 at 9:39 AM #

    My personal “wow” quote from the faculty report…

    “A substantial number of faculty have been left feeling that they have no say in academic decisions taking place at the university, especially with regard to student-athletes. A significant number of our faculty are also concerned that revenue athletics are seriously compromising the academic mission of the university.”

    The faculty have no say in academic decisions? Holy *&%^!!!!

  25. TruthBKnown Returns 07/27/2012 at 9:41 AM #

    Headlines like “boom goes the dynamite” makes the haters among us feel good. But to me it seems like the dynamite is being detonated in remote area of the Nevada desert. It is doing little or no damage.

    I’ll be happy when some of these revelations actually result in something tangible, like the independent investigation this mess as been BEGGING for for the last three or so years.

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