N&O: UNC-CH athletic advisers steered players to no-show classes

UNC Scandal47

The N&O’s Dan Kane is at it again this evening, this time highlighting the fact that athletes not only made up a disproportionate number of enrollments, but that there was a systematic and accepted practice of steering athletes to no-show classes.  So important was this mission that it took 115 employees and a cushy multi-million dollar workspace…..

CHAPEL HILL — For eight years, Bobbi Owen has been the highest-ranking official in charge of a program at UNC-Chapel Hill that keeps up with the studies of roughly 800 athletes so they can graduate while juggling the heavy demands of their sports.

The staff of more than 115 full and part-time employees in the academic support program for athletes includes counselors who track academic progress, tutors and specialists in learning disabilities and time management. Nearly all of them work in the plush confines of the new $70 million Loudermilk Center, a 150,000-square-foot building for athletics at Kenan Stadium.

Yet a faculty report released Thursday suggests the support program strayed from its original mission. The report spoke of “potential confusion” in the role of academic counselors at Loudermilk, with the authors saying that they had been told that support program staff steered athletes to classes in the African and Afro-American Studies Department. There, the report said, an unnamed staff member helped the players enroll in no-show classes.

 

Despite being well staffed, the “student-athletes” still couldn’t get a straight answer….

 The report also said that athletes complained they were receiving conflicting instructions from counselors at Loudermilk and academic advisers in the university’s main advising center, which serves all students. An adviser’s job is to help students select appropriate classes. The report, however, said that athletes could get counselors in the athletics support center to register them.

At the end of the 13-page report, the authors asked: “Why is there a separate center for support of athletes?”

 

So, in response to having (IMHO) way too many cooks in the kitchen already, they’ve decided the best course is to add a few more….

The university has made numerous other changes to try to prevent another scandal from happening. On the academic side, there are much tighter controls over course offerings and limits on independent studies. Owen has stressed that support program counselors should not be steering athletes to classes.

On the athletic side, the department has added two new officials from other universities to address academic support and compliance issues.

 

I also thought this was pretty telling…..

But some on UNC’s faculty doubt much can be done to remedy the situation. Football and basketball at the major athletic conferences bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue, making the temptation to compromise on academics in order to win championships hard to resist.

Stay Tuned….

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About Wufpacker

A 2nd generation alumnus and raised since birth to be irrationally dedicated to all things NC State. Class of '88 and '92.

UNC Scandal

47 Responses to N&O: UNC-CH athletic advisers steered players to no-show classes

  1. blpack 07/29/2012 at 9:07 PM #

    This is a slow burn to take the banners down as the diploma mill has been made public. So much for a public ivy. T minus how many days before Holdie resigns?

  2. Pacobee 07/29/2012 at 9:19 PM #

    T minus how many days before Holdie resigns?

    It’ll all be over by Friday. 😉

  3. tjfoose1 07/30/2012 at 1:24 AM #

    Nice to know the n&o has at least one journalist. Surprising part is he hasn’t been reeled back in yet or “Cory Bookered”.

    I guess someone over at un* really ticked off the power brokers at the n&o, a la Mike SlEasely.

  4. Prowling Woofie 07/30/2012 at 8:21 AM #

    “Nice to know the n&o has at least one journalist. Surprising part is he hasn’t been reeled back in yet or “Cory Bookered”.”

    Exactly, ‘foose… they sure got to Giglio, didn’t they ? He started poking around, asking meaningful questions during interviews, and all of a sudden, he’s silent. Nice sell-out, JPG !

  5. packof81 07/30/2012 at 10:13 AM #

    “This is a slow burn to take the banners down as the diploma mill has been made public.”

    The last 3 banners are ill gotten gains. But I wouldn’t hold my breath until they come down. It’s going to to take something more dramatic than what we’ve seen so far in order for that to happen.

    Thorpe is expendable. Now it’s all about the last 3 banners.

  6. runwiththepack 07/30/2012 at 11:11 AM #

    Giglio may not have sold out. He might have been threatened with his job, in which case who can blame him? Or he may have determined that the Carolina Machine was going to just get away with all this despite anything he said. I think he did his share of the work, and now Dan Kane has taken the baton and done well with it.

    What concerns me the most about Dr. Julius’s magic A program is that the ncaa says, in effect, that they don’t decide what constitutes a bona fide college course. Whatever a university wants to call a bona fide course is up to the institution – athletes just can’t cheat, especially with the help of the university.

    That seems pretty lame to me, given this circumstance at UNC. (Can 20 years of Dr. J’s fraud be regarded as a “circumstance”?) Where else is an undergrad’s work on a 10 page paper considered sufficient to constitute a 3 hour credit, despite no class time, no exam, and not even meeting the prof? And most UNC revenue athletes make A’s.

    But, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if UNC consulted lawyers to devise this African Studies scheme, knowing that technically, UNC isn’t violating an ncaa rule by having classes like these, since they sprinkled in some regular students. If UNC-CH isn’t embarrassed enough to admit to this fraud (creating a curriculum for easy A’s for jocks) themselves, without ncaa doing so for them, then all ncaa members need to take notice.

    What slimeballs they are in the UNC system administration if they let the athletic department off light (i.e. fire Thorp).

  7. sundropdrinker13 07/30/2012 at 11:38 AM #

    golf76, James Summers was never a 5 star QB, nor was a 5 star anything. He wasn’t even a consensus anywhere. Different sites listed him as either a 3 or 4 star QB, S, or Athlete. Since TOB and Co liked Stocker better as QB, the word was that Summers was going to get moved to either WR or S, which the word also was he didn’t like as he wanted to play QB. Manny Stocker from PA is a better QB from most reports, with a better arm and better vision and better decision making than Summers. So am I upset that Summers went to the Cheats? Nope, not at all.

  8. highstick 07/30/2012 at 10:17 PM #

    I hope that WE(meaning the entire SFN crew, Packpride, etc.) are not so pious as to think that “cheating” never took place at NC State. Not to the extent that we’re seeing at Carolina, but just “individual cheating” whether it is a student-athlete or just a “plain ole common student”.

    The only reason I’m posting this is that the tone of some of the posts on this site and Packpride is that “it never happens”. Bull Squat! Don’t even be that naive, guys!

    But, just keep it in perspective, the “Carolina Way” is totally different, so never be conned into letting the “CW” be compared to an “individual academic impropriety” at NCSU. I had a roommate my freshman year that “learned a lesson” and on more than one instance I observed a couple of basketball players involved in some less than honorable activities…

    But, I’ve also had Hole teammates that I have known for a long time, tell me that they were also guilty.

    Granted, this is “old crap” going back to the mostly to the 60’s. Since my academic tenure at State extended over two decades, I will say(and I’ve repeated this before) that there was a “different tone” after I came back to finish after the Army in 1970.

    Gosh knows that the Engineering Department in the 60’s had a vendetta to try to flunk everyone out in the first year back then. I know I matured a good bit carrying a rifle, but it was like a “different world” academically in 1970.

  9. McCallum 07/30/2012 at 10:33 PM #

    You are all just jealous haters that weren’t admitted the unc.

    So THERE!!!

    Peace out

    McCallum

  10. McCallum 07/30/2012 at 10:41 PM #

    And yes, despite how many teeth will be gnashed and the torrents of Orwellian double speak coming down, this is a racial issue.

    Now my friends before you hoist up the flag of surrender and start calling me names (to which I’ll say WHO CARES) things can not be a racial issue if only whites are to blame.

    unc wanted the best of both worlds and they couldn’t make it work. They wanted to excel in sports that generate revenue and they wanted to graduate unqualified “students”.

    Now pardon me while I head out to Chic-Fil-A for a “traditional” meal.

    Later I’ll be throwing darts (made in Germany) at the pictures of the leadership of the ADL.

    McCallum

  11. Wufpacker 07/31/2012 at 1:09 AM #

    No teeth gnashing or name calling, but I will vehemently disagree with you. If you’d care to actually back up your assertion and convince me, then have at it. But this….

    “…things can not be a racial issue if only whites are to blame.

    unc wanted the best of both worlds and they couldn’t make it work. They wanted to excel in sports that generate revenue and they wanted to graduate unqualified “students”.”

    …is little more than innuendo and philosophical nonsense. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into the subtlety of the quotation marks around “students”?

  12. McCallum 07/31/2012 at 7:46 AM #

    Wufpacker,

    The degree program speaks for itself, no “innuendo” to be had there. The levels of enrollment of a specific race in that degree program lacks “innuendo” as well as since those levels are concrete and objective.

    The only “philosophical non-sense” to be had would be the core principles found in such “victimology” degree programs. The basis for the AA programs around the country grew out of radical black power movements of the 1960’s and became more codified in the late 70’s and early 80’s with the rise of Afrocentric scholarship (contradiction in terms if there have ever been any). So you have meshing together various “views” which range from the Nation of Islam’s view that whites were created by Yakub (a black scientist) on the Greek Island of Patmos 6,000 years ago only to be banished to Europe while “mainstream” Afrocentric scholars claimed that whites stole science and math from the Egyptians, who were black BTW, and thus all basis for Western culture originated in Africa. The basis of these programs is to establish that whites corrupted black views and culture. Mind you, nothing is so diverse as the cultures in sub-Sahara but monolithic thought defines ideology.

    But back to the “students” (the quotes outline mockery) few of whom should have been admitted in the first place. Were they not all black? Is not the major professor involved here not black? Or are these items which simply can not be broached?

    The ready response is forth coming out of the left, the “students” in question were victims of systemic racism which has been visited upon them since 1609 (the first blacks came to America, again with the monolithic view) thus they should be entitled to redress since the system was stacked against them prior to their birth. I believe the federal government has an established system of this very type, no “innuendo” there either.

    They were not really “cheating” but instead had a racial remediation program in place to address the injustices of the past.

    Disagree however you wish but the facts are what the facts are my friend. These degree “programs” are what they are and they have a basis no matter how demented, subjective and ideological those core principles might be. With this mentality and the aforementioned lack of scholarship how could anyone say racial blame is shared?

    I hope I have addressed your desire to “vehemently disagree”.

    McCallum

  13. Wufpacker 07/31/2012 at 8:31 AM #

    Yeah, I’d say you addressed it ad nauseum, but not very well. I didn’t ask for a history lesson. And when people of multiple races are calling the shots and benefitting, that’s how I can say racial blame is shared, regardless of the department, degree program, major or whatever that’s being used to get the job done. Not a big deal.

    Also, I can sell you a used keyboard cheap if your quotation key goes out on ya.

    EDIT – Actually, check that. I wouldn’t say racial blame is shared because there is no racial blame….that’s kinda my point. Regardless of their race, the only “color” that motivated anyone in this scenario from top to bottom was green….directly or indirectly.

  14. Pack78 07/31/2012 at 9:59 AM #

    ^Read Tom Wolfe’s ‘Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers’ on this phenomenon years ago…probably worth revisiting…

    http://www.tomwolfe.com/RadicalChic.html

  15. Wufpacker 07/31/2012 at 10:51 AM #

    Already familiar with Wolfe and there as here, race is not the motivation, only the avenue chosen by which one party (or two) will try to accomplish their goal. And you’re presuming that a) D1 ballplayers, the ones at Carolina at least, are all of non-caucasian (or non-privileged Wolfe would probably say) origins; and b) that regardless of race that both the haves and have nots didn’t have equal and similar motivations. For some it was just more immediate or direct. Like I said…green. Just like in Wolfe’s essays.

    I get where you’re coming from, I just disagree. I think to try to apply racial motivations is to erroneously both complicate and oversimplify the issue at the same time.

  16. McCallum 07/31/2012 at 9:16 PM #

    Wufpacker,

    The core issue here is the admission and advancing of unqualified “students” (save the keyboard and buy a book) in an effort to continue the carolina way. The racial angle can and should not be missed or dismissed since it as obvious as bill clinton’s libido. The money claim of yours is not the sum total of the problem and to claim such ignores history.

    What you do not seem to grasp, largely because you refuse to know history, is how two forces came together to produce the mess we are witness to Wufpacker. One force is constituted of liberal victimology degree programs which seek to pour guilt onto Western culture. The other force in question is unc’s need to bring in, pass and graduate better athletes.(back to back 1-10 seasons in football, end of the 4 corners in basketball but that is history so color you bored) Revenue is part of the equation, you seem to have latched onto that with both hands, but you are blind to other factors and players in this drama. unc also is allowed a degree program which will help them to “increase” (again, buy a book) diversity by offering a degree program which has been proven time and time again to be both questionable and fraudulent.

    unc pulled it off for a number of years. The liberal faculty was able to produce students that were taught to see white culture as their oppressor and the athletic programs were able to keep players eligible. unc increased its “diversity”(that book again) and the carolina way continued.

    The issue of race is there standing before you. I never said it was the entire enchilada but to dismiss it in total and focus on the money alone is to be ignorant of history and the facts on the ground.

    Never said race was the motivation either but the school had to get better athletes and there aren’t 300 Grant Hills or RG3s out there so they had to shoot for the low road.

    McCallum

  17. Wufpacker 07/31/2012 at 9:47 PM #

    “What you do not seem to grasp, largely because you refuse to know history, is how two forces came together to produce the mess we are witness to Wufpacker.”

    First, you should really know your audience before you try to talk down to them. Swing and a miss on that one. Second, I sincerely appreciate your bringing this topic up. Despite the fact that I still disagree with you, I do enjoy the discourse.

    On the other hand, I’m not sure why you seem offended that I don’t share your view (that’s what it is by the way….a view, an opinion, despite your attempt to pass it off as hard fact); but subtle insults, which I’m sure you find clever, won’t get the job done of convincing me either. When I asked you to convince me, I was actually being sincere because I wanted to hear your view, not get insulted.

    But then again I suppose it’s my fault for not taking into account that you threw subtle pre-emptive insults out before anyone even offered to disagree, because obviously anyone who doesn’t share your view is a mouth breather whose reading comprehension is suspect and whose reasoning ability was damaged in utero. So I guess I got what I deserved. Is that about right?

  18. Wufpacker 07/31/2012 at 10:12 PM #

    Almost forgot. You seem to have keyed on “The money claim” of mine, as you call it. I never said money. I said green. Green encompasses both money and the desire (envy) for prestige, etc. (as Wolfe describes…how ’bout that). Green encompasses both greed and envy, two of those seven deadlies, which no race is immune to.

    The racial issues you seem so concerned about, if they even exist(ed) in the first place, are nothing more than a means to an end. So like you, I ask how/why that became your “sum total” issue?

  19. McCallum 08/01/2012 at 9:52 PM #

    Wufpacker,

    I could care less if you or anyone else agrees with me.

    Nice feint in the last response where you invoke envy. I missed that in your earlier comments, odd how it has now arrived on the scene since I’ve accused you of monolithic thought on the matter. You can’t have read Derrida so I’ll chalk the feint up to unintended deconstruction.

    I’ve never claimed that race is the sum total issue. Nothing in any of my responses to your well crafted article would cause anyone with an objective view to see that as my view of the sum total of this issue.

    It is a large part of the issue at unc since it is pretty clear they needed better athletes yet in doing that it means they must bend the rules to keep them in school. Hardly a coincidence that every single last one of them happened to be black.

    Interesting projecting you’ve done above, I’m interested in knowing my ends.

    McCallum

  20. Wufpacker 08/01/2012 at 11:34 PM #

    Kinda tired of this game, but sure I’ll play one more time…

    “I’ve never claimed that race is the sum total issue. Nothing in any of my responses to your well crafted article would cause anyone with an objective view to see that as my view of the sum total of this issue.” – McCallum

    Aside from the fact that you said it? Or at the very least strongly implied it. Then you threw out the cryptic philosophical nonsense that I originally spoke of, and the subtle pre-emptive insults…

    “And yes, despite how many teeth will be gnashed and the torrents of Orwellian double speak coming down, this is a racial issue.

    Now my friends before you hoist up the flag of surrender and start calling me names (to which I’ll say WHO CARES) things can not be a racial issue if only whites are to blame.” – McCallum

    Despite your best efforts to claim it was not philosophical nonsense, again poorly, using insults and quotation marks, that is exactly what it is…by the very definition of the word nonsense. Though now that I read it again, perhaps I was wrong after all….it isn’t very philosophical. Perhaps an SAT prep book with some of those analogy questions would help because – non-racial:only whites involved::racial:anyone other than whites involved – is not true. Then again, maybe that’s not even what you were trying to say with that cryptic nonsensical statement. Hard to tell for sure because, as already stated, it made no sense.

    In any case, the statement “this is a racial issue” seems pretty clear, but perhaps I was the one being unreasonable in thinking that “is” meant “is”. Maybe instead of nonsense, clever insults and unsolicited history lessons, you should actually clarify your statements next time someone asks? Just a thought.

    I thought perhaps this was unintentional (you know, your implication that the issue is racial by saying “this issue is racial”), which is why I asked you to explain. But after seeing your successive responses, and how you backed away from the original statement while deflecting with misguided attempts to insult me and list the causes of what you perceive to be my lack of insight, intelligence, and apparently my inability to find a bookstore, I now know better.

    And predictably, of course, now race is only a component of the bigger issue. Well, congrats. You had to compromise your opinion and back off your original statement to do it (though not admittedly, of course), but damned if you haven’t finally gotten me to agree with you. Well done, Sir.

    By the way, I shouldn’t have to tell you this since you are so obviously superior in every way, but the statement “I didn’t ask for a history lesson” doesn’t mean I have no interest in or knowledge of history…another poor assumption on your part. It simply means I didn’t ask for, don’t want and don’t need a history lesson from you (still true, btw).

    “Nice feint in the last response where you invoke envy. I missed that in your earlier comments, odd how it has now arrived on the scene since I’ve accused you of monolithic thought on the matter. You can’t have read Derrida so I’ll chalk the feint up to unintended deconstruction.” – McCallum

    Nice feint? Invoke envy? Unintended deconstruction? Is that what I did? Yeah, that makes much more sense than the fact that I didn’t say it earlier because you didn’t ask about it earlier. I’ve always thought it odd when folks didn’t address things before I brought them up too. I’m sorry. I should have addressed this before you brought it up. My mind reading app was temporarily on the fritz I guess. Apparently yours is working though, so feel free to go right on assuming you know what I have or have not read, or anything else about me for that matter. Seems to make you more comfortable.

    And finally, because I really am done with this crap (I don’t usually spend this much time talking to people I actually like and who don’t constantly insult me)…

    For someone who doesn’t care what I or anyone else thinks, you sure did come out with the gloves off (as far as getting personal) once you were disagreed with. I’d hate to see what you might say to/about me if I really got under your skin. But thank goodness that didn’t happen, eh? 😉

    Also, it says a lot about you that you were so obviously capable of rising above that kind of petty crap (that’s sarcasm, by the way….I tell you that only because you probably think knuckledraggers like me incapable of high thinking communication techniques like that).

    As far as projecting and/or knowing your ends, I’m honestly not sure what I’m now alleged to have projected. I assume this is another one of those things where you’ve once again read my thoughts and now know more about me than I do. Perhaps eventually I’ll also realize what my true intentions were and I can then punish myself for whatever it is. As far as your ends, probably pretty lonely if you talk to everyone the way you did to me (but that would fall under “what other people think of me”, so color you bored).

    EDIT – In my previous post when I used the phrase “means to an end”, I wasn’t referring to you but rather to the end in the UNC issue (the means and motivation of which we’ve been discussing). It just dawned on me that your inquiry about your ends likely meant you misunderstood that distinction. If so, it’s interesting that you thought it was about you and not the topic itself. If not, I still stand by my previous statement (actually, that’s still true either way I guess).

  21. McCallum 08/02/2012 at 5:55 PM #

    I see Midol is in order.

    McCallum

  22. Wufpacker 08/02/2012 at 10:44 PM #

    ^ Still winning friends and influencing people I see. SSDD. You’ll have to help me here. Was that something from one of Derrida’s texts? I must have missed it, but if so, touche…you really disarmed me with that one.

    For someone who likes to promote himself as some sort of well-read maverick academic, you sure do resort to insults a lot. But don’t worry, I know a lot of folks who do that when they’re wrong and can’t bring themselves to admit it.

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