New Bloomberg turns its attention to UNC Faculty Council Chair Boxill

[LRM]

BloombergBusinessweek:

Boxill is one of the most important academic officials at one of the nation’s most revered public institutions of higher learning. Her reticence, along with her past (lack of) leadership, help illuminate what’s gone very wrong in Chapel Hill, N.C. A new CNN national investigative survey of academic underperformance by college athletes, to which I’ll return in a moment, underscores why the UNC story should be of concern not just in North Carolina, but across the country.

Let’s start with Boxill. UNC’s faculty elected her chair in 2011, in the midst of a series of all-too-familiar fiascoes involving improper benefits for athletes from agents and excessive classroom help from campus tutors. The National Collegiate Athletic Association investigated; the athletic director and varsity football coach departed. Shortly after Boxill became faculty chair, a different and more troubling scandal came to light: Faculty members had created no-show classes to ease the lives of campus athletes, boosting their grade point averages and graduation rates.

…

Unfortunately, Boxill’s enthusiasm for Tar Heel basketball may have slowed her response to mounting evidence of academic fraud. The News & Observer‘s Dan Kane has dug up internal correspondence showing that that she “watered down” a faculty committee report into the no-show classes scandal to make it less likely that the NCAA would send investigators back to campus. At Boxill’s behest, the authors of the report diluted a suggestion that bogus classes were created within UNC’s African and Afro-American Studies Department as part of a larger campaign to maintain athletes’ eligibility. One of the most dismaying aspects of the UNC affair is that top university officials have consistently tried to obfuscate the connection between the Athletic Department’s goal of fielding top-flight teams and the creation of hundreds of phony classes going back to the early 1990s.

…

As the News & Observer has demonstrated, the NCAA has shied away from renewed investigation at UNC on the dubious grounds that the academic fraud doesn’t originate with sports and athlete-eligibility concerns. Boxill is in an ideal position to sound the alarm and initiate a house-cleaning program; she appears to have done the opposite. In an e-mail response to the News & Observer, she said she simply wanted “to make sure the facts were reported correctly without implications and innuendos we were not in a position to know.”

On reflection, one wonders whether a former basketball coach so dedicated to her sport that she still does radio commentary was the right person to be making such calls. Faculty colleagues have stood behind Boxill.

[wufpup76]

“One of the most dismaying aspects of the UNC affair is that top university officials have consistently tried to obfuscate the connection between the Athletic Department’s goal of fielding top-flight teams and the creation of hundreds of phony classes going back to the early 1990s.”

^Never thought I’d see that in print.

[TheCOWDOG]

I can’t seem to put my finger on the roots to the fresh chum in the water.

It’s comming in on a different current.

[Prowling Woofie]

CNN joins the fray:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html

While not exclusively UNX, our beloved “Flagship” is the centerpiece of the article…

[packbackr04]

I wonder why the sudden flurry of national pub. but i am enjoying it thoroughly

[bill.onthebeach]

At “low heat” and without a lid…. sometimes it takes a long time for a pot of water to come to a boil.
And as you engineers know… there is something in that old physics heat/pressure equation that explains why time to boil is exponential.

Mr. Dog’s radar, as usual, has locked in on something….

Maybe…that’s all about “invisible people”…
And maybe the “invisible” anti-NCAA crowd has figured out that UNx can be their Trojan horse that ultimately brings the NCAA down. Frankly, they could care less about UNx and some of them may even live in places like California or Pennsylvania.

As for the media… they are just willing participants trying to sell some ad space.

Just sit back, pop your corn, get a cold beer and enjoy the show… we are watching the previews…
The ‘Big Show’ has yet to begin…

Anybody want to start a pool on the date… UNx at the top academic levels…. responds to all this “new attention” ??

#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!

[doug]

Here is a link to a CNN report/Study. Being reported right now in Memphis on news radio.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/

[wilmwolf80]

Keep clicking on, commenting on, and sharing these stories. It looks like this writer is not opposed to stirring the pot, so let’s help him with the spoon.

[Author]

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