…and boom goes the dynamite

UNC Scandal47

 

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. old13 07/27/2012 at 9:45 AM #

    This does well in further exposing the “usual suspects.” And it also begins to expose Chapel Hell as being just a puppet show, complete with clowns! The real trick is to expose ALL of those who are pulling the strings which could well go beyond the BOT and BOG!

  2. packof81 07/27/2012 at 10:03 AM #

    The dynamite has not exploded. They’ve just struck a few matches over there and threatened to light the fuse.

    This has been another active week in the ongoing UNC scandal. Sooner or later, the faculty is going to become convinced that the only way to make it stop is to totally come clean. Then the fuse will be lit.

    The dynamite will explode when the whole truth is made public.

  3. TruthBKnown Returns 07/27/2012 at 10:06 AM #

    packof81, that is more like it. The dynamite is packed and ready to be detonated!

    One thing I have enjoyed about this is that the Holes thought the scandal was over when the NCAA handed down those weak sanctions. But here we are, STILL learning new things all the time.

    I agree that when the national media really starts running with this, it will force more to happen (like independent investigations). But I hope they consider how many voices have been silenced by their removal from the university and payoffs received. Why would THEY talk? It’s almost like the mob “removing” witnesses before the case comes to trial. I’m afraid even an independent investigation, at this point, will have trouble getting to the whole truth.

  4. Old MacDonald 07/27/2012 at 10:31 AM #

    I’m really sorry my headline writing isn’t up to the standards so many of the readers expect. It is a Family Guy reference. Next time I will think twice before spending my leisure time writing for free.

  5. YogiNC 07/27/2012 at 10:33 AM #

    I think it’s time for the attorney general to get involved. Hush money is one thing but if ms crowder was facing jail vs. talking for her part in the academic fraud I’m pretty sure she’d start singing. Then with Uncle J in a very precarious place from her testimony then we might find out what the real point of origin is for everything that happened when he starts singing. I’d love to take bets on just how much corruption sits at the feet of certain BOG/BOT members. This could get beyond nasty.

  6. MatSci94 07/27/2012 at 10:51 AM #

    Why would the NCAA bother coming back yet, every couple of weeks there are new things coming out.

  7. SqlWolf 07/27/2012 at 11:07 AM #

    Old MacDonald –
    “I’m really sorry my headline writing isn’t up to the standards so many of the readers expect. It is a Family Guy reference. Next time I will think twice before spending my leisure time writing for free.”

    I like the title you put on this article. It’s the picture that suggests detonation has occurred. Nevertheless, I like the image of a bundle of dynamite that has been exposed (UNC*fraud) and there’s a long fuse that’s been lit. We just have to wait for the fuse to burn down…and boom goes the dynamite!

    The only problem is we just don’t know how long that fuse really is and how fast or slow it burns.

  8. Pack78 07/27/2012 at 11:16 AM #

    TBK and Old Mac-Let us remember:

  9. blpack 07/27/2012 at 11:20 AM #

    The few adults left in CH had better realize it is time to come clean or die by a thousand cuts. Even then the shadiness may continue. Get it all out, take the banners down and maybe then they can put ‘Student’ and ‘Athlete’ together as a relevant phrase again. The lie of a public ivy and gaudy APR numbers no one is buying. Let’s see if King Emmert is serious about academic integrity.

  10. wilmwolf80 07/27/2012 at 11:45 AM #

    So who screwed up and let this report come out on a Thursday?? We all know that it is SOP for these things to buried in the Friday night news cycle. Someone really dropped the ball on this one.

  11. sockerne1 07/27/2012 at 11:50 AM #

    ^^^”It is a Family Guy reference.”
    I have no complaints, and love all the updates….but you know the quote is from Brian Collins’ sportscast right???? If not, please entertain yourself by watching it.

  12. MP 07/27/2012 at 12:02 PM #

    “and there’s a long fuse that’s been lit.”

    This image (dynamite, long fuse) should have Holden Thorpe holding a ‘kink’ in the fuse. “This old water hose trick should work!”

  13. vtpackfan 07/27/2012 at 12:03 PM #

    Not the correct place to report this, but it does involve the N & O. Yesterday on the back page they printed an article about newly elected Prime Minister of Egypt, and recognized UNC Chapel Hill as where he graduated from- in Engineering, which, ofcourse is entirably possible had he been a “Choose your own Adventure” candidate in the College of Arts and Sciences 🙂

  14. gumby 07/27/2012 at 12:18 PM #

    Quick survey of Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, CBS Sportsline…nothing on the UN* report. Didn’t bother with ESPN because we all know they won’t report it. I’ve seen snakes with more legs than this story has…

  15. vtpackfan 07/27/2012 at 12:22 PM #

    Essentially what thus spells out is that there are two different systems running on a single campus. One under the Dean who oversees the colleges of the UNC system school widely known as UNC Chapel Hill and funded by tax payers of the state of NC. The other is a tiny little school loosely affiliated (more like estranged) with the aforementioned school. This school is headed by the Senior Athletic Director, and its staff is filled with virtually no one involved in academia.

    The only logical conclusion is to come up for some name and mascot for this revolutionary diploma mill University and let business proceed as usual. After all, most UNC Alums and homers hold no allegiance to the teams they root for just as long as they can put a bumper magnet on their car saying “Champions”. Today their Miami Heat fans, next year Lakers, ofcoutse The Cowboys and Yankees have had plenty of hats donned at “Top of Hill”, so on and so on.

    Any suggestions on a School name and Mascot?

    -be socialble and do share.

  16. TruthBKnown Returns 07/27/2012 at 12:36 PM #

    Pack78, this is a happy occasion. But at this point, there is nearly enough for the death penalty, and they only have to miss one bowl. I’m tired of all this dynamite that has no real impact on the Holes.

  17. Hungwolf 07/27/2012 at 1:07 PM #

    UNC-CHeat has paraded the hell out of the African Studies Program and African Cultural Center to recruits and the media. Telling their parents their kids would get education and parading to the world it bball players came back to school and graduated. Parents should be offended their kids got no education, the black community should be in an uproar that it was all a fraud, and the NCAA should be all over UNC for handing out bogus degrees to players both past and present while holding themselves up to everyone else in the NCAA as the model university!

  18. ncsu1987 07/27/2012 at 1:13 PM #

    Once again, this is damning information that is coming to light. It is highly suggestive that faculty factions are extremely unhappy and that there are some adults over there who want to take action.

    Unfortunately, the ones who want to take action appear to be powerless to actually make it happen. So this committee calls for an “independent” investigation. Even if it results in action, I don’t expect the resulting investigation to be truly external or independent. Oh they’ll trumpet to the heavens how independent it is while stuffing it full of members with ties back to the University.

    The truest measure of courage, of course, would be to ask someone like Freeh to conduct an unlimited, no holds barred, truly independent investigation. It takes a special kind of courage (or an extreme set of circumstances) to make such a move. But how many times have we been told:

    1) We’ve conducted myriad internal investigations and found basically nothing
    2) We’ve cooperated with the NCAA investigation to an unprecedented degree
    3) There’s nothing really wrong with our athletic/academic interface
    4) Nothing to see here

    Sounds really confident, doesn’t it? Sounds like there’s nothing to hide, because there’s nothing there, doesn’t it? Fine. If you really mean these things, if you’ve truly investigated yourself, found very little wrong, and put steps in place even for those minor things, then call in Mr. Freeh and give him carte blanche. You’re so freakin’ confident, so why not? The only possible reason for not doing so, IS BECAUSE YOU’RE LYING.

    Until something truly independent actually happens, there is really not much to this story, especially given the crickets that we hear from the national media.

  19. TruthBKnown Returns 07/27/2012 at 3:20 PM #

    I saw where someone suggested that the only effective independent investigation would be one with subpoena power. I agree with that because there is a LARGE number of people that are no longer employed by the university that cannot be compelled to talk without a subpoena. The people that had some good dirt to tell are mostly gone, and jumped out of the UNC airplane with a parachute made of GOLD.

  20. Wufpacker 07/27/2012 at 6:04 PM #

    @OldMac,
    Despite where the saying might have originated, I too cannot think of anyone but Cleveland Brown whenever I hear that now.

    “Roll up the window Brian. You’re letting all the stank out.”

  21. choppack1 07/27/2012 at 7:49 PM #

    GA Wolf – This is pretty much what I was talking about with the Penn State ruling.

    It takes no balls, no courage, to slam a program for doing something that isn’t truly a threat to college athletics.

    However, you go after a team for doing what UNC-Ch has done – and you bring into the question such things like:
    * What’s the difference between a terribly easy major and classes that don’t really exist where grades are given away?
    * What’s more important – graduating students OR actually teaching the students something?
    * How do you police institutions that exploit the system you’ve stupidly created?

  22. groupthink 07/29/2012 at 5:32 PM #

    debora crowder had access to registration and records files in order to be able to change grades. they have already stated that she changed grades illegally. just want to know who she changed them for and how many times did she do this to their knowledge. her computer hard drive should show how many times she visited the site and possibly how many grades were changed.

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