UNC-CH’s promises still ring hollow

The local media outlets today are reporting at least part of what was forged from yesterday’s double secret behind closed door meeting of the UNC System BOG panel.  It’s hard to believe it took 5+ hours for this.

I’m going to paste some quotes below, but please click the links and read both in their entirety.

NewsObserver.com – UNC promises major changes in wake of academic scandal

Karen Gil, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the university would intensify its review of department chairmen, who previously had little oversight.

“The college depended on our department chair and our manager to do their jobs and do them with integrity,” Gil said. “It didn’t happen.”

Other policy changes and reforms are meant to beef up oversight of independent study courses, teaching assignments, summer school courses and other areas.

For example, from now on in the African studies department, only majors with at least a 3.0 grade point average will be able to take independent study courses. All faculty syllabi will be reviewed by administrators to ensure appropriate rigor.

“Please know that faculty and staff members share your concerns about the unethical practices,” said the new department chairwoman, Eunice Sahle.

The department is changing its curriculum and its name, Sahle said. It will be called African, African American and Diaspora Studies, she said, which denotes its worldwide focus.

[snip]

Cunningham, the athletic director, said the university has 720 student-athletes in 28 sports. Among the upperclassmen, he said, 34 different academic majors were represented. Two majored in African and Afro-American studies. No matter their major, he said, all face major time pressure in balancing their classroom and athletic demands.

The athletic director said there is room for athletics and academics to thrive alongside each other if they are integrated and done “in the right way.” It’s not a tradeoff, he said.

“We’re going to educate and inspire through athletics,” Cunningham said. “That’s our fundamental mission.”

[snip]

Thorp reiterated his promise to clean up the situation once and for all. It’s a promise he’s made over and over.

“I am determined that we will fix this and that it will never happen again,” he said. “Nothing is more important than restoring confidence in this university that we all love.”

 

WRAL.com –UNC-CH outlines AFAM reform, explains transcript release

Chancellor Holden Thorp said that it has been an “extraordinarily difficult time” for the AFAM department, but the changes implemented by Sahle were created with “great vision.”Also Thursday, Thorp outlined steps that UNC-CH has taken at a university level to restore academic integrity and ensure transparency. He announced a new, public website which will track the continuing investigation (academicreview.unc.edu).

“Students drink from the well every year because it stands for something. We owe it to those students to get this right and be sure nothing like this ever happens again,” Thorp said. “My interest, and I’m sure your interest, is that all students get the high-quality of education we expect at Carolina.”

[snip]

Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said that he has made a commitment to put academics first and is in the middle of developing a plan which will be released publicly in October. The development for a strategic plan started in April, Cunningham said.

“Our responsibility in athletics is to give them some life-lessons on the field,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham added that UNC is one of the leading universities in the country academically, but also competes at top levels athletically and priorities are most important in how measuring success. He outlined those priorities as Aligning operations with the mission of the university, succeed in academic achievement, be top in athletic performance and have strong academic support for student-athletes.

“(I’ve looked at UNC) as kind of a beacon for doing things right and doing things well,” Cunningham said. “I think we have the opportunity right now to build something different, but we are going to have to do that with other institutions.”

[snip]

Thorp said the issue dates back to 2001 when a staff member created a test copy for the student information system on what was at the time a secure server. The test transcript was a copy of Peppers’ transcript, although his personal information was removed.

However, during a 2007 technology transition, a second staff member moved the transcript to an unsecured server. The first staffer was disciplined and the second is no longer employed at the university.

Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer Larry Conrad said that the transcript was never published on the university’s website and that it was discovered on the unsecured server “through a sequence of targeted searches that ultimately yielded the URL.”

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill takes very seriously the obligation to protect students’ academic records, which is why the recent exposure of a version of Julius Peppers’ transcript and its subsequent publication in media outlets was extremely troubling,” Thorp said. “We greatly regret this, and we have apologized to Mr. Peppers.”

Don’t worry Rubik’s boy.  There are about a quarter of a million and one reasons why I believe Dr. Peppers holds no grudges.

–

While I won’t go into individual detail on the various talking points here, this overall line of feel good crap is getting on my nerves.  What we’re seeing here is nothing but PR.  Procedures and oversight methods were never the problems here folks.  It was the people in the positions of responsibility, the ones who were supposed to be doing the overseeing in the first place, who dropped the ball here.

Karen Gil, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, gets it…even if she doesn’t realize it or won’t admit it.  Read this short quote again please:

“The college depended on our department chair and our manager to do their jobs and do them with integrity,” Gil said. “It didn’t happen.”

Nailed it! (other than spouting the party line of Julius and Deborah acting alone, of course)

Since I firmly believe many of those ethics-challenged folks are still haunting the hallowed corridors of that awesome public ivy to the west, all of the well-intentioned oversight procedures, sign out sheets and departmental name changes in the world won’t fix the problems.  Instead of harping on how it happened and what BS changes will look good, they’d be well served to start looking at who and why (and when, for that matter).