Posted on 08/15/2012 11:56:11 AM PDT by KingOfVagabonds
The free ride is over for North Carolina. It was good while it lasted -- but why it lasted so long, I can't say. It's astounding, how this academic scandal could go on for so many years and help so many UNC athletes without being stopped.
....How many athletes were given free grades from the Department of African and Afro-American Studies? We don't know.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbssports.com ...
Alleged Julius Peppers transcript could lead to more North Carolina trouble
If an academic transcript recently uncovered belongs to former North Carolina two-sport standout Julius Peppers and is not a test transcript as the university says, the academic scandal that has plagued North Carolina could get even worse, according to the Raleigh, N.C. News & Observer.
The newspaper published a 2001 transcript that the university said was fake, but a possible partial transcript that is allegedly Peppers’ was posted Sunday night on an N.C. State bulletin board and is nearly identical to the fake one.
The main issue is that two of the classes—AFAM 070, an African-American Seminar class—show up on the transcript four times as no-show classes. Those classes—54 similar cases were investigated by UNC and deemed “aberrant”—presumably just took place from 2007 to 2011. If those classes were being used to help athletes remain eligible for further back, more trouble could be on the way for North Carolina.
Nine of the 10 classes in which Peppers earned a B-plus, B or B-minus that could’ve helped ensure his eligibility came in the AFAM department where he was majoring, according to the possible transcript. Three were listed as independent study classes, another problem area cited in the school’s probe for a lack of supervision of work — often a research paper — performed by students.
The possible transcript lists a 1.824 GPA, beginning with classes during the summer of 1998 and finishing in the fall of 2001 during Peppers’ last year on the football field for the Tar Heels under first-year coach John Bunting. The link lacked grades for five classes in summer and fall 2001 terms.
http://philoofalexandria.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/151-lwezc-em-156.jpg
Julius Nyang’oro, Chair of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is under investigation for “teaching” courses that never met.
The African and Afro-American Studies program has been at the core of questions surrounding academic fraud involving UNC football players.
An internal university probe released this month uncovered 54 classes within the department in which there was little or no indication of instruction. The review also found at least 10 cases of unauthorized grade changes involving students who did not complete their work.
Football and basketball players made up 39 percent of students in the questionable classes, but the university has said there was no evidence of a scheme to steer student athletes to easy classes to help maintain their eligibility.
Nyang’oro, 57, a former department chairman, is retiring effective July 1. The professor, whose annual salary is $159,000, has not responded to The News & Observer’s requests for comment.
The university’s review covered 2007-11 and showed that Nyang’oro was the instructor of record for 45 of the 54 suspect classes.
He received $12,000 for the 2011 summer school course, called Blacks in North Carolina, that should have involved classroom lectures, research papers and exams. But Nyang’oro did not hold classes or require tests; students instead were assigned to do a final paper from their own research on one or two black leaders from the state.
University officials said last week that had they known the course was taught as an independent study, the professor would not have been paid.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/15/3239721/district-attorney-asks-sbi-to.html#storylink=cpy
Death penalty needed for the athletic programs. Worse than Penn State because athletes and academic departments were involved.
I remember how difficult it was my first year there. I got a D on a history paper because I misspelled three words. The history professor, he was a professor not a don, told me that during World War II he wrote reports for a sergeant who told him he was not allowed to use nouns until he was more proficient with verbs, LOL!
It happens at every school. Plus there is no way in hell the NCAA would kill the UNC Basketball program.
Exactly.
I saw examples of this being taken for granted, but was always too stubborn and proud (arrogant?) to participate myself.
BTW, a culture of cheating is even more ubiquitous in much of the third world. 10 years ago 3000 Indian law students rioted when stopped from cheating. They demanded a return to “normal” procedures.
http://rense.com/general38/banon.htm
I never did any of that when I was in school. Never. I'd have rather flunked on my own than passed by cheating. I certainly hope this is not the new standard in this country!
The scope of the UNC academic scandal continues to widen as national outlets are finally catching onto the story. Many of these stories are linked in this entry from yesterday. If you missed it, please take a moment to catch up on the recent developments concerning the UNC faculty’s request for an independent investigation given its collective (and reasonable, we might add) concern that the school has not been completely forthcoming or even diligent in its own investigation and reporting of the scope of potential academic misconduct.
As is the case with many North Carolinians, many of us Wolfpackers and SFN contributors are married to UNC alumnae. (Perhaps it’s just part of their narcissism that makes them forget we steal their women.) Just yesterday, the latest edition of the UNC alumni association magazine, The Carolina Review, was sent to some of our homes. (Thanks!)
In it is a surprisingly somewhat fair assessment of the most recent developments in Chapel Hill surrounding UNC’s African and Afro-American Studies curriculum (AAS) and that department’s connection to academic fraud involving UNC athletes. The piece mostly recaps the press releases. It by no means blazes any trails. That’s certainly understandable since this is, well, the official UNC alumni association publication.
There is, however, a most interesting tidbit of information provided therein that SFN has yet to see elsewhere despite what has become an onslaught of media coverage in recent days and weeks. The latest hit coming from NBC.
Specifically, the Carolina Alumni Review points out that Dr. Nyang’oro, the professor (and department head) at the center of the AAS athletic scandal, was employed by the University as a faculty member in 1988. Nyang’oro became the chair of the curriculum at issue in 1992. The Carolina Alumni Review also points out that Nyang’oro was the *first* and *only* department head.
As a matter of deduction, that means that African American Studies as a curriculum was created in 1992 when Nyang’oro was designated the first and only chair.
In 1992-1993, the University of North Carolina basketball team won the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship in New Orleans finishing the year with an impressive 34-4 record.
UNC’s roster for the 1992-1993 team can be viewed here. However, below is a clip from that link for your convenience:
Roster
——
Scott Cherry Sr 6-4 G
George Lynch Sr 6-7 F *
Henrik Rodl Sr 6-7 F/G
Travis Stephenson Sr 6-6 F
Matt Wenstrom Sr 7-1 C
Eric Montross Jr 7-0 C *
Derrick Phelps Jr 6-4 G *
Brian Reese Jr 6-6 F *
Kevin Salvadori Jr 7-0 F
Pat Sullivan Jr 6-8 F
Pearce Landry So 6-5 G
Donald Williams So 6-3 G *
Dante Calabria Fr 6-4 G
Larry Davis Fr 6-1 G
Ed Geth Fr 6-9 FAs you will see, the starting line up for the 1993 National Champion Tar Heels consisted of George Lynch, Brian Reese, Donald Williams, Derrick Phelps, and Eric Montross.
Before we move forward, a disclaimer: In the not-so-distant past, SFN was able to peruse old UNC Basketball Media Guides. For some reason we are having trouble relocating those online. But at that point, we were able to determine from UNC’s own publications the curriculum/majors of many of the former UNC basketball players.
The curriculum majors/minors for that group based on our best collected information and belief are as follows:
Lynch (Sr): African American Studies
Reese (Jr): Communications (minor in African American Studies)
D. Williams (So): African American Studies
Phelps (Jr): African American Studies
Montross (Jr): CommunicationsIt seems worth pointing out that in the first year a curriculum for African American Studies existed at UNC (1992) 4 of 5 members of the starting lineup of the National Championship Basketball team immediately majored/minored in the brand new curriculum with Dr. Nyang’oro at the helm. In just one year, an almost entire team happened to migrate to one particular, and brand new, curriculum?
Amazing.
Perhaps even more amazing is that some of these players were juniors and seniors when the curriculum was created!
There are so many side stories to this “coincidence.”
1) Roy Williams was in Kansas for the 1992/1993 season and for a decade thereafter.
2) Donald Williams was an NC State commitment only to finally sign with Dean Smith and the Tar Heels.
3) Not long thereafter Jerry Stackhouse, a lifelong Wolfpack fan, also signed with UNC.
4) Stackhouse, brace yourself, also purportedly majored in African American Studies.So many questions remain in light of The Big Lead and other national outlets starting to put pressure on the basketball program’s connection to AAS. If you haven’t read the story by the Big Lead linked above, you should immediately. It raises some great points and great questions, but does it even encompass the entire picture given the information above?
Just starting from 2003-04 the Big Lead provides this tidbit and data:
So in 2009, a year before the scandal went public, the academic adviser to the basketball team – a team which had a history of players who majored in African and Afro-American Studies – left UNC, as did a longtime administrator in that department. Since the departures of Walden and Crowder, records obtained by the News & Observer (click here for the UNC academic info PDF) show a dramatic drop in athletes majoring in African and Afro-American Studies. We specifically looked at the basketball team’s numbers in that major from when Roy Williams took over in 2003-2004, and here are the numbers we found (African & Afro-American majors/players who had chosen a major):
2003-04 AA 5/13
2004-05 AA 7/13 < —- Won NCAA title.
2005-06 AA 3/11
2006-07 AA 3/15
2007-08 AA 2/12
2008-09 AA 1/16 2009-10 AA 0/10
2010-11 AA 0/8
2011-12 AA 0/9There is little doubt to the objective observer that many questions remain unanswered. The scope of the investigation perhaps cannot be broad enough to truly get to the bottom of the questions that linger surrounding the UNC athletic department.
To leave you with just a few to chew on:
- Was AAS created at UNC specifically for basketball players?
- Was UNC tipped off that people were starting to make that connection?
- How many recruits did UNC lure away from other schools with promises of easy degrees in the newly created AAS curriculum after its creation under Nyang’oro in 1992?
- Is it fair to just point a finger at Roy Williams or does academic fraud in the athletic department and University as a whole long predate his arrival?
- Did Butch Davis take the fall for a system that existed long before he, too, arrived in Chapel Hill?
- If it worked so long for basketball, why not football? (There’s a cliche about a secret and three people… it’s anecdotal, but it’s likely applicable to a secret and 5 people versus a secret and 75 people.)
- Can the true breadth of the competitive advantage be even comprehended when a coach enters a recruit’s home and speaks of ridiculously over-inflated graduation rates to a superstar’s parents eagerly wanting to hear that “Junior” will earn a degree before he suffers a blown knee?
- Now that there is an immediate trend away from AAS by UNC athletes, or at least there was in anticipation of the NCAA investigation as pointed out above, is communications the degree of choice?
- Prior to the creation of AAS, was communications the degree of choice for UNC athletes? If so, why then and why a return to that now?
The questions linger, and for now no one at UNC seems willing to open up and address them.
The 216 decision lingers, and there seems to be no slowing down to this story anytime soon.
Stay tuned, Wolfpack fans. All those years of suffering through intolerable rhetoric from holier-than-though UNC fans and friends seem poised to be repaid… and some.
I have always wondered why universities don’t just give up the farce that the athletes are university students.
Looks like it a broader problem than just the football team. UNC fans wish it wasn’t so...
As a State fan, I can only say “karma is a b**** ain’t it?”
Go Pack!
I don’t understand what Roy Williams being “in Kansas for the 1992/1993 season and for a decade thereafter” has to do with anything. Williams was at Kansas starting in 1989.
One would think that with their football players taking fake classes for fake grades they would turn in better results on the field. UNC isn’t exactly a football powerhouse.
Not only that but the person is saying “Before you condemn the armed bank robber, recall you once took a dollar out of the tip jar so you could afford that 6-pack...”
I am not only a UNC fan, but a UNC and NCSU graduate. I know how much NC State fans envy the UNC basketball program.
They were asking for trouble when they hired an ex-Miami Hurricanes coach.
The only thing I can figure out is that he is saying the program was set up while Roy was elsewhere and since he’s been on campus, and that AFTER the 2005 Championship season, participation in the classes have steadily declined.
If course, he also implies the decreasing participation could be tied to the fact that UNC became aware the AA program had become toxic.
So who knows?
I brought up this point when he was hired.
Since 2001? Don’t make me laugh. This scam was going on when I attended UMass in the 60s. Football heroes somehow never seemed to have to go to class or do homework, but they all got good grades as Phys Ed majors. They had their own Animal House, Kappa Sig, which threw a 24/7 party that often spilled out and ran amok into my dorm, neighboring Gorman House, when the lumbering drunken animals threw beer at us, smashed-out window screens, and roughed-up some smaller kids just for yuks. I have no reason to believe it ever stopped.
There were also some basketball players who ended up in medical and dental school.
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