Rogueapalooza (Updated!)

Anyone who has ever wondered how UNC-CH has kept ~100% of their football and basketball players eligible for generations — wonder no more!

This piece from today’s N & O sheds light on some amazing “stuff” that was going on over there during the summer of 2011.  Before we get started, first think about the timing of this.  If they were pulling these stunts last summer, right in the middle of intense media coverage of the gigantic scandal, what do you think they were doing when nobody was looking?

Some good quotes from today’s front-page article:

A summer class at UNC-Chapel Hill that lacked any instruction was enrolled exclusively with football players – and it landed on the school calendar just days before the semester started, university records show.

They also show that academic advisers assigned to athletes helped the players enroll in the class, which is the subject of a criminal investigation.The advisers also knew that there would be no instruction.

and

The new information is more evidence that student athletes, particularly football players, were being steered to classes that university officials now say are evidence of academic fraud because there was little or no instruction.

 and

UNC officials released the information in response to a records request by The News & Observer. Before making it public, Chancellor Holden Thorp sent a letter to trustees on Thursday.

“While it appears that academic support staff (for student athletes) were aware that Professor Nyang’oro didn’t intend to teach the class as a standard lecture course, they knew that the students would be required to write a 15-page paper,” Thorp said in the letter. “They saw no reason to question the faculty member’s choice of course format.”

“15-page paper”?  Riiiight.  Is anyone else interested in seeing what these quote-unquote “papers” looked like?  Given the hilarity that ensued following the McAdoo paper’s release, can you imagine?  Of course, that assumes that there were any papers at all.  With no professor and no instruction, I’m not sure how the quote-unquote “students” would know what to write about.  What would they do with the quote-unquote “papers” after they quote-unquote “wrote” them?

But I digress.  Here is a pdf provided by the N & O showing course information for a lot of these “classes.”  I don’t have the time to do a thorough analysis right now — alert readers who have a good mind for numbers and statistics are encouraged to “go nuts” with this and let us know what it all means.

Of course, all readers will remember this N & O article from May 8th of this year:

University officials say they found no evidence that the suspect classes were part of a plan between Nyang’oro and the athletic department to create classes that student-athletes could pass so they could maintain their eligibility. They said student-athletes were treated no differently in the classes than students who were not athletes.

No evidence!!??  That’s great.

Today’s article follows this one from last Sunday that gives us the UNC BOG’s perspective on this whole thing.

System leaders say it’s difficult to compare the NCSU and UNC-CH situations. In the late 1980s, Gage said, there was a sense that the trouble could be traced to the top administrative ranks.

“Bringing in the SBI is about as independent a look as one can get,” UNC system President Tom Ross said. “… But based on what we know I think this is a much more confined circumstance than I understand was the case previously at State.”

Let’s see.  Confined to: professors, department heads, academic advisors, tutors, associate head football coaches, agents teaching classes.  I’m sure I am leaving a lot out.  Help me complete the list of what this is “confined” to.

This story now has been picked up and covered by the guys at the big lead.  Pretty funny take and worth reading.

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Update: Thoughts from our Authors’ Discussion

So, it appears that:

– A class was set up two days before the summer session began.
– Somehow, academic advisers assigned to the players knew about this class AND also knew that it was term-paper/no instruction…ALL WITHIN TWO DAYS.
– The class was totally filled by athletes and one former athlete

And yet UNC has the gall to claim that no classes were arranged solely for athletes? Are they really that stupid or do they think that everyone else is that stupid?

Since classes were created only days before the summer session(s) started, this also means that all other students were already registered. Meaning this class was NOT available to non-athletes.

Per UNC Registrar’s website the traditional fall and spring semesters require drop/add within 5 days of class starting.

In a summer session a class must be added by the first day of classes OR in some instances by the second day of classes (unless permission is provided by the professor and/or department head).

See calendar here:

Click to access ccm1_042529.pdf

So, if the class was set up just days before summer school classes started as is being reported by the N&0, then 1) it would obviously not be in a course catalogue and therefore both athlete and non-athlete students would have no idea it existed, and 2) no non-athlete student not “in the know” through a crooked academic advisor attached to the athletic department could even add the class should he somehow have learned about its existence unless he learned of it within literally 1, maybe 2 days of it’s creation without special permission from the professor/department head.

Speaking of the professor, the email released in which he discussed how many students made it into the class (19, 18 football players and one former football player) stating “I’m totally taken by surprise!” appears to be a wink-wink, inside joke given the totality of the circumstances and the 1 or 2 day possible drop-add period and the fact there was likely zero information provided to regular students that the course even existed.