Pope Center member calls for investigation of UNC system(updated with details of gift to UNC-CH)

UNC Scandal58

To add some additional perspective, we are adding some links that can help our readers learn more about the Pope Foundation, its history, and its relationship with UNC-CH and UNC-CH athletics. They have been generous donors to UNC-CH for both educational purposes and athletics. This addtional information explains the reasons the donations to advance Western Studies weren’t made. That choice was entirely independent of the eventual decision to donate to UNC athletics. However, the fact that the foundation donated aproximately $5 million to UNC athletics with a portion of that specifically for the football program may still seem relevant to some people when considering today’s column in the N&O.

Here are some links on the Pope Foundation:

John William Pope Foundation Supports Football, Academics with $2.3 Million Gift

John Montgomery, executive director of the Educational Foundation Inc., UNC’s fund-raising arm for athletics, said the Pope family had been extremely generous to the university and the Tar Heel football program.

“The Pope Foundation believes in Coach John Bunting and wants to help grow the endowment to build and maintain a first-class program,” he said.

The Educational Foundation and the athletics department have emphasized building individual endowments to bolster each sport’s operating budget. Dick Baddour, director of athletics, and Bunting will use the new endowment to recruit and retain outstanding assistant football coaches.

“The Pope family’s generosity will help Coach Bunting have the necessary resources to better compete nationally and within the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Baddour said.

Said Art Pope, foundation president, “Student-athletes greatly benefit from excellent coaching. It’s no surprise that when you look around the country, the top programs have consistently strong staffs that stay together for many years. John Bunting has worked hard to cultivate and develop his current staff. He should have the resources available to reward a job well done and retain a key assistant coach who may be courted by other programs.

Apparently, there was some controversy surrounding the Pope Foundation’s support of Western Studies with the liberal faculty on UNC’s campus:

Just a few years ago, the university declined a multi-million dollar grant from the family foundation of controversial Republican magnate Art Pope to expand the university’s offerings in Western studies. Faculty feared Pope could use the grant to extend his own political agenda, or those of the conservative policy groups he has helped launch, to UNC’s classrooms.

Pope appears to have found more neutral territory in funding Tar Heel sports teams. On Tuesday, UNC announced it would accept $3 million from the John W. Pope Foundation, named for Art Pope’s father, to expand UNC’s academic center for student athletes. The existing center will triple in size to 29,000 square feet and serve nearly 800 students with classrooms for teaching and tutoring, computer and writing labs, reading rooms and offices.

This background information was necessary considering today’s article that spurred the entry that was written below. Enjoy.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Jay Schalin wrote a column today stating the entire UNC system should be investigated.

It’s time for the system to seek out potential problems proactively rather than avoiding them until they accidentally make headlines. AFAM’s problems came to light only because a single tweet by a football player started an investigation that wound a slow, sordid path to the department’s door. No tweet, or nobody noticing the inappropriate behavior described in the tweet, and Nyang’oro would still be the department chair, giving out good grades for almost no work.

Somebody – the Board of Governors, an independent commission, the SBI or the state auditor’s department –should investigate the academic integrity of the entire system.It need not be a massive effort with a large team of researchers taking several years to produce a report that can pass peer review. It simply requires, at least initially, that a few simple facts are cross-checked with each other by a single researcher who’s handy with a computer.
The facts that need to be cross-checked are the distribution of grades for each course in the entire system, the distribution of students in each course according to their year of study (freshman, sophomore, etc.), the course title and the professor. And certainly any course or degree program with an inordinate number of athletes enrolled should raise a red flag.

Like anyone didn’t see this coming? You know the theory that just because your neighbor gets caught selling drugs out of his home, therefore everyone in the neighborhood might also be selling drugs so all homes should then be searched because of the guilt of your neighbor. Makes perfect sense right?

After all Mr. Schalin is clearly a true scholar and independent of UNC-CH as noted in the N&O:

Jay Schalin is the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy’s director for state policy analysis.

Here is more on Mr. Schalin:

Jay Schalin joined the Pope Center in August 2007. He researches and writes about higher education issues, primarily in North Carolina, and oversees the center’s Web site.

A Philadelphia native, Schalin began working as a freelance journalist for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey in 1994 and has also written for several other papers in New Jersey and Delaware. In 1998, he returned to school to complete his education, graduating from Richard Stockton College in New Jersey with a B.S. in computer science in 2001. After graduation, he was employed as a software engineer for Computer Sciences Corporation. Schalin received an M.A. in economics from the University of Delaware in 2008.

He is independent enough, right?

So who are the Pope’s that have both a foundation and this “center” that Schalin is a part of:

In 2005, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked the John William Pope Foundation for a $4.8 million grant to enhance its curriculum in Western civilization. In 2006, after wrangling between the university administration and some faculty and students who opposed the proposal,[21] the Pope Foundation declined to fund the proposal. Instead, the Pope Foundation donated $100,000 a year for a visiting scholars program and student fellowships for the study of western civilization, as well as $2 million for an endowment for salary enhancements for assistant football coaches.[22] In 2011, the Pope Foundation gave the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $3 Million for its Student-Athlete Academic Support Center.[23][24]

So according to the Wikipedia entry, the Pope Foundation chose not to donate $4.8 million to enhance an academic program(due to UNC disagreement with UNC faculty), but did choose to donate $2 million total toward an endowment for assistant football coaches and then $3 million towards the new Kenan Stadium expansion that included the academic support center.

Anyone remember when Butch Davis was hired? 11/13/2006.

When I read this column, I instantly guessed that there would some sort of connection back to the “Flagship”. Little did I know that the connection might be to an organization that made a donation specifically to fund UNC’s football program and other student-athletes the same year Butch Davis was hired (again according to Wikipedia).

Credit to the sleuths on Packpride for helping gather this data. Without being a professional journalist or working for a foundation that may have helped to fund UNC’s football staff, it is hard to find time to be able to do this type of research.

Also, the N&O has done a lot of great work, but how could they not also include the information about the Pope Foundation and its connections to UNC-CH and specifically to UNC-CH’s football program?

UNC Scandal

58 Responses to Pope Center member calls for investigation of UNC system(updated with details of gift to UNC-CH)

  1. Wufpacker 07/13/2012 at 3:48 PM #

    “The Vanguard wanna be’s in this nation know Western Studies about as well as Dr. Kangaroo at UNC knew AFAM Studies.”

    See, now that’s not fair. If Julius ever actually taught a class we might find that he knows quite a bit about AFAM Studies.

  2. tractor57 07/13/2012 at 5:16 PM #

    Yes IF …

  3. mak4dpak 07/13/2012 at 6:56 PM #

    In case no one has heard, USC has a new AD, and it is our former baseball coach, Ray Tanner, who has stepped down from his job as the USC baseball coach.

  4. LRM 07/13/2012 at 6:59 PM #

    Just another example that The Flagship will set the standard to which it will be held accountable, and will not allow itself to suffer criticism or judgment from the lowly among us. Its arrogant elitism knows no limit.

  5. blpack 07/13/2012 at 11:19 PM #

    We should tell them, shut down the entire UNC-ch athletics department and then they can look at the other system schools. The NCAA and SBI has only visited Chapel Hill.

  6. T. 07/14/2012 at 1:16 AM #

    Minor error in the news story: the Pope Foundation and the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy are actually two different organizations.

    The Foundation — http://jwpf.org/ — is run by the Pope family (including Art and his sister) and just doles out grant $$$. It doesn’t engage in advocacy work.

    The Center — http://www.popecenter.org/ — is part of a bundle of advocacy-oriented groups that Art Pope has created: the John Locke Foundation, the Carolina Journal, the Center for Higher Education Policy, the Civitas Institute, etc. The Center seeks grant $$ (instead of handing it out) and hires folks who engage in issue advocacy like in Schalin’s columns.

    To the extent it matters, Schalin is part of the Pope Center and not part of the Pope Foundation.

  7. choppack1 07/14/2012 at 7:18 AM #

    In life, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to show that we are truly individuals with absolute integrity, decency and fairness. With this absurd position – UNC-Ch has without a doubt cheated, and we don’t know how far the cheating and dishonesty goes, so ALL schools must be investigated – Pope and his foundation have proven that they have ZERO integrity.

    He’s shown what really matters to him – his precious Tar Heels. He’s no different than Bowles, Ross, and Swofford.

  8. choppack1 07/14/2012 at 7:25 AM #

    The unfairness of the NCAA is that a school like CalTech gets punished the same way UNC did for having a system, not intended to deceive or gain advantage, for enrolling students…that’s it.

    OTOH, you can have a runner as an Associate Head Coach, you can have agents’ providing extra bennies to super-star players, you can have tutor doing their work(who also happens to be in the Head Coach’s employment), then lie about it in an NCAA appeal, you can have a tutor paying over $1000.00 in parking tickets (to allow the athlete to enroll) – who also happens to be in the Head Coach’s employment – and fail to catch this stuff on your own – and you receive the same punishment….You want to be pissed off that NCAA – be pissed off that you scumbag Art Pope.

  9. Daily Update 07/14/2012 at 7:45 AM #

    T: thanks. I think I fixed it.

  10. Wolf74 07/14/2012 at 7:57 AM #

    WOW, what a revelation. You knew this was coming since day one. The old redirection. UNC-CHeats is the best in the world at doing this. If the State of NC goes this route, the whole BOG and legislature should be ousted and have the state start over!

  11. packalum44 07/14/2012 at 1:57 PM #

    How about the UNC System fully and independently investigate Chapel Shit’s athletics dept. before suggesting systematic reform.

    What a joke.

    I would actually be in favor of real reform that didn’t “catch” cheaters but “prevented” it from happening to begin with. Hell State would have a better program b/c we DON’T cheat but play CHEATERS.

  12. McCallum 07/14/2012 at 2:55 PM #

    The problems for unc started in the mid 1980s. The change to a shot clock in basketball was the first tremor in the earthquake we are now witness to folks. Once the shot clock moved into college basketball the game sped up tremendously. With that increase in speed of the game came a need for more physical talent and that meant more black basketball players. You will all recall that unc had historically been a largely white team until the early 1980’s. Smith’s system could work in the context of out thinking and out executing other teams but that all came to an end once the shot clock entered into play.

    Couple the above happening with the rise of identity degree programs. Identity degree programs came out of the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s and you’ll recognize them now under women’s studies and African American studies programs (sexual studies is another outlier). I’ll spare you the depth of subjectivity concerning both degree programs and their histories but both came to prominence in the late 1970’s at highly progressive institutions and their application as valid degree programs trickled down to 2nd tier schools.

    The synthesis of the two prior paragraphs manifested themselves at unc with the creation of the African American studies program at unc in 1990. Several purposes were served:

    1) the university could mimic guilt laden Ivy League schools who were the first to adopt such programs.

    2) the university would have a safe degree program in which to place a large number of black athletes who would have never been able to matriculate in the traditional academic settings of unc.

    3) the university could continue its claim as a place where people were improved despite their intelligence and ability prior to entering unc.

    So you have a high level of athlete being admitted, passed and graduated while all of the criteria of the “carolina way” was supposedly maintained.

    The Pope family should have been knowledgeable of the dangers of the African American studies program since as far back as 1990 Dinesh D’Souza (I’m no fan since he attacked Sam Francis) outlined the troubles with such programs in his book “Illiberal Education”. The Pope’s have a big problem in that they seek to defend Western Culture while de facto endorsing a study program which is based on the rejection of Western objective valuations.

    Now in an effort to keep unc clean they have announced a need to study the larger system. This reeks of hypocrisy and elitism because unc’s claim has never been that everyone does it but rather THAT unc NEVER DID IT.

    Having corrupted their university in an effort to maintain a certain mythical “way” unc and the Pope family want to pull everyone else down into the mud with them.

    GO TO HELL carolina!!!

    McCallum

  13. beowolf 07/14/2012 at 2:57 PM #

    Daily Update, you have written excellent analysis of this situation, and I have appreciated your many posts here (one reason that I check here frequently). In this instance, however, your built-in expectations have led you to write something you should be embarrassed about — and it stems from your initial confusion between the Pope Foundation and the Pope Center.

    I know more about the personalities involved there than you. I also know a lot more about the Pope Foundation’s gifts to UNC *and* NC State, and the Pope Center’s work in general. You have unfairly characterized them all here. Worse, you’ve done it by implying conclusions that you couldn’t show.

    Feel free to write to me at my email address listed with my account; I’m assuming that as a site admin you can see it. You and StateFansNation are better than this.

  14. blpack 07/14/2012 at 11:11 PM #

    Reminds me of the OJ trial, political folks dodging, and now UNC-ch. Don’t look at us here, look over there. Dodge, delay, deflect, deny, etc. Unbelievable. This is not a system-wide problem.

  15. McCallum 07/15/2012 at 7:38 AM #

    If anyone can figure out who is paying Jennifer Wiley then it will all break loose.

    The log jam is to protect basketball. That has always been my gut feeling and the longer this thing goes it confirms my suspicion.

    That is the holy of holies gentlemen. We always thought that was the hill too far but it is within our grasp.

    Get there and they are completely reduced.

    The key appears to be the Wiley girl and who is paying her. Heaven knows where she is sequestered-a bunker in Vance County, a back room in a Mexican beer joint in Ellerbe, or a foreign resort littered with fine cheeses, 8 varieties of soap, and 24/7 waxing-but that is the key.

    McCallum

  16. Daily Update 07/15/2012 at 7:50 AM #

    Beowolf: the only conclusion I meant to draw was that the Pope’s are large donors to UNC-CH’s football program. Whether that impacted Schalin’s opinion or not, the connection of the Pope’s to UNC football is there and is something the readers of that opinion piece should know.

    Tell me about the Pope’s gift to NC State football. Tell me about the Pope Box at Carter Finley stadium that sits atop one side of our stadium like it does in Kenan Stadium.

    I know they donate to lots of organizations. I am unaware however of their support specifically for NC State Football/athletics.

  17. 61Packer 07/15/2012 at 10:31 AM #

    McCallum gets an A+ for pinpointing the true demise of college basketball- the shot clock. Most think that the 3-point shot is the culprit, but it’s the shot clock that has made talent, not skill, the holy grail of the college game, and has in my opinion ruined it. The folks who inserted the college shot clock knew this, and that’s why they added the 3-point shot to offset the talent advantage they knew a shot clock would create. However, two wrongs didn’t make a right.

    We now have a college game that mirrors the NBA, a major step in the wrong direction. The college game should look for ways to distance itself from the pro game instead of copying it. The NBA is the only pro sport I know of that is unable to tap a huge college base into its ranks. Most college basketball fans absolutely hate the NBA, me included.

    I think college basketball and the NCAA Tourney are on a gradual but definite decline. There hasn’t been a Cinderella winner since the advent of the current shot clock in ’85. Yes, the shot clock was in effect for Villanova, but it was a 45-second clock. And the ‘Cats, a senior-laden squad, shot an unprecedented 80% for the game against a conference opponent and won by 2 points.

    As much as I love NCSU, their ’83 run wouldn’t have happened had the shot clock been in place in the post-season, Valvano or no Valvano. The NCAAT is still fun to watch, but only in the early rounds. The Hamptons, Northern Iowas, Norfolk States and Lehighs have given a bump to NCAAT ratings, but have seldom gone as far as the George Mason run to the FF. And that’s about as unlikely to happen again as an 8-team NCAA football playoff.

    And speaking of college football, its popularity continues to soar above that of college basketball because college fans still prefer team over individual.

  18. highstick 07/15/2012 at 11:21 AM #

    With the shot clock came the “let them play” mentality…the rules of the game, i.e., the charges, blocking, hand checking, palming/carrying, traveling have been basically ignored and many times applied inconsistently. Then came the “flopping”.

    I absolutely detest what has happened to the game of college basketball. DT was called on multiple occasions for traveling on his initial move to the basket. Now, you just “hop” and it’s ok!~

  19. ancsu87 07/15/2012 at 1:59 PM #

    This is the write-up of the CalTech decision from the NCAA:

    “The problems came from the school’s system of “shopping” for courses, where students attend classes for three weeks at the beginning of a term before registration. That meant that under NCAA rules, some athletes were not considered full-time students when they took the field.

    The NCAA blamed a lack of oversight and communication between athletic administrators, coaches and the registrar.

    Caltech athletic officials discovered and reported the problems themselves. School officials said they would have a statement on the sanctions later Thursday.

    The penalties, many of them self-imposed by the university, include three years of probation, one year of no campus recruiting and the vacating of wins and records.”

    They got the same, actually more probation, penalty as UNC-CH for having a system in place for all students that resulted in a narrow time window where some student-athletes took the field but were full-time students.

    All I can say is “You have got to be shitting me”. What a crap of crap from the NCAA.

  20. ancsu87 07/15/2012 at 2:11 PM #

    LOIC … LMAO at the NCAA. So typical that UNC-CH would not get LOIC but CalTech did. Of course CalTech actually did a real internal investigation and admitted the issues unlike the cover-up at UNC-CH.

    http://www.d3sports.com/notables/2012/07/ncaa-cites-caltech-for-institutional-control

  21. beowolf 07/15/2012 at 10:22 PM #

    Daily Update: I think it’s obvious the conclusion you wished people to draw was that Schalin was told/”influenced” by Pope to urge an investigation into all UNC schools … because, you know, the only way UNC can “get away” with it is to make it seem like a systemwide problem.

    There are several problems with this scenario:

    1. You have no idea, none, of the Pope Center’s history of criticism of the UNC system. It apparently has never entered your mindset that what they wrote is well in keeping with years of pushing UNC to be more responsive and accountable to the people of North Carolina. Nor that such events being in media currency would provide grist for the mill to promote such reforms again.

    2. You don’t seem to understand the Pope Center’s mission is to promote reform of higher education in North Carolina.

    3. You nor anyone else of SFN have discussed the Pope Center’s previous criticism of the UNC-Chapel Hill football scandal especially with respect to academics.

    4. You suggest that Pope Foundation money given to FOOTBALL is all that matters, because that is where you can find the UNC-CH-specific funding disparity. You certainly can’t discuss money given to academics at NC State and UNC-CH. As pitiful as that Procrustean bed (look it up) is, you’re forgetting, of course, that this scandal isn’t just about FOOTBALL but about ACADEMICS as well.

    5. You suggest without KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL about how the Pope Center (or heavens, the world of philanthropy) works that the Pope Center would deliberately and mindlessly attempt an end run around direct inquiry into UNC-Chapel Hill merely because the foundation that gives it money also gives money to, among scores of other beneficiaries, UNC football. It’s a stab at an implied (because that’s the best you could ever do on this line of thinking) conspiracy that really is rather pathetic.

    6. You still, even after “fixing” the piece, refer in the title to a nonexistent “Pope Council.” Like I said, you and SFN should be embarrassed by this entry. And I know it’s the “online thing” to dig in and double down on something like this out of sheer pride, but that would be wrong. Consider the source of your criticism here; it’s not an enemy but a founding member of this site, and I was serious when I said you’ve provided lots of useful information. I’m sorry not to have said so at the time and only speak up in this instance, but that’s how out of character this particular piece is. It’s not a reflection on you personally, but in what you’re trying to paint with this, you’re just wrong.

  22. GAWolf 07/16/2012 at 6:39 AM #

    That’s a lot of words that ultimately land me at two questions for you:

    1) Do you agree that, as you have repeatedly incorrectly written above, this is about academic disparities across the board of the athletic department at UNC? It’s not just about football and academic impropriety at UNC. It’s about all sports at UNC and systematic academic impropriety.

    Assuming you can agree with that, and I think most any objective person can, that brings us to question 2.

    2) Do you not agree that ANYONE calling for a system-wide investigation is trying to mitigate the damage and deflect the finger pointing currently focused appropriately and solely on UNC and everything mentioned in question 1 above?

    Actually there are three questions.

    3) What would the motivation of your beloved Pope family cohorts to do this other than to protect UNC?

  23. Rick 07/16/2012 at 8:12 AM #

    “What would the motivation of your beloved Pope family cohorts to do this other than to protect UNC?”

    This is what I am having trouble getting past. Why call for an investigation of the whole system when one school is the problem? There is no reason other than to try to ferret out any problem, no matter how minor, in other schools so they can scream “Aha, we are not the only ones doing it”.

  24. Old MacDonald 07/16/2012 at 8:38 AM #

    What is the ballpark figure in number of millions Pope has given to UNC-CH football? Can we get an estimate?

  25. Rick 07/16/2012 at 9:48 AM #

    I have no idea but I know I sat in some of their seats on the 50 yard line of the NCSU-UNC game (when the TA touchdown was called back)

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