UNC's academic scandal

mauf

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UNC will get a slap on the wrist because what happened there isn't all that uncommon.
 
I'm guessing that most of us took undergrad classes where you could never show up, turn in a paper that you banged out in a couple hours, and get no worse than a "C" grade. Also, a lot of schools place their less intelligent athletes in classes with professors who they understand will give them C's if they show up to class and hand in the assignments, even if the students' work is grossly substandard.
 
I guess what happened at UNC is a bit worse than that, but I don't understand the outrage. Is the formality of holding a lecture that most of the class skips, or requiring a student who can barely write a complete sentence to submit a "paper," the difference between being a bastion of academic integrity and being a total fraud?
 

DukeSox

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The point is that the classes were specifically created in the early 1990s to keep students eligible.  Like, they would not have been eligible even by taking the normal "easy" classes, so they had to create fake classes to boost their GPAs to stay eligible.  And then it exploded from there as a tactic.
 

mauf

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DukeSox said:
The point is that the classes were specifically created in the early 1990s to keep students eligible.  Like, they would not have been eligible even by taking the normal "easy" classes, so they had to create fake classes to boost their GPAs to stay eligible.  And then it exploded from there as a tactic.
 
I'm suggesting that a lot of schools wouldn't have faced that issue, because there would have been plenty of pliable professors willing to hand out C's (or better) for substandard work in the normal "easy" classes.
 

DukeSox

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The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges might disagree.
 
This week, a letter will be sent to UNC-CH officials informing them of the new probe, said Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges. The review will focus on the findings of the Oct. 22 Wainstein report, which revealed nearly two decades of academic fraud, including hundreds of fake independent studies and no-show classes in African and Afro-American Studies taken by more than 3,100 students.
 
The scope of the academic misdeeds is unlike anything Wheelan said she’d seen.
 
“It is huge,” she said. “It’s bigger than anything with which we’ve dealt before. … I just don’t know in what direction the board is going to go.”
 
 
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/03/4290889_unc-faces-more-scrutiny-by-accrediting.html?sp=/99/103/&rh=1#storylink=cpy
 

Cellar-Door

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maufman said:
UNC will get a slap on the wrist because what happened there isn't all that uncommon.
 
I'm guessing that most of us took undergrad classes where you could never show up, turn in a paper that you banged out in a couple hours, and get no worse than a "C" grade. Also, a lot of schools place their less intelligent athletes in classes with professors who they understand will give them C's if they show up to class and hand in the assignments, even if the students' work is grossly substandard.
 
I guess what happened at UNC is a bit worse than that, but I don't understand the outrage. Is the formality of holding a lecture that most of the class skips, or requiring a student who can barely write a complete sentence to submit a "paper," the difference between being a bastion of academic integrity and being a total fraud?
You still had to bang out a paper that was of a certain quality. It seems some of the "student" athletes in question were not capable of reading and writing at a college level which makes banging out even substandard assignments difficult. Also it counts on the students showing up and/or turning things in.
The whole point of these classes was that the kids couldn't even do that, there are two ways to fix that:
1. Have someone else write the papers and hope that all these different professors accept them and keep their mouths shut, also needing to keep their mouths shut are the TAs who do the initial grading, and the department heads.
2. Have fake classes graded by someone you trust to give the needed grades and keep her mouth shut.
 
The latter has obvious advantages of having a lot fewer people who can blow the whistle.
 

mauf

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Cellar-Door said:
You still had to bang out a paper that was of a certain quality. It seems some of the "student" athletes in question were not capable of reading and writing at a college level which makes banging out even substandard assignments difficult. Also it counts on the students showing up and/or turning things in.
The whole point of these classes was that the kids couldn't even do that, there are two ways to fix that:
1. Have someone else write the papers and hope that all these different professors accept them and keep their mouths shut, also needing to keep their mouths shut are the TAs who do the initial grading, and the department heads.
2. Have fake classes graded by someone you trust to give the needed grades and keep her mouth shut.
 
The latter has obvious advantages of having a lot fewer people who can blow the whistle.
I did, because I wasn't an athlete (and athletes didn't get preferential treatment at my school anyway). At D-I schools, I think it's pretty common to have a network of trusted professors who will look the other way on substandard work, particularly if the athlete shows up for class. UNC appears to have taken that a step further by dispensing with the classes. They deserve to catch hell for that, but I don't think it's radically different from what a lot of schools do. And that, more than anything else, is why I think both the NCAA and the accreditation bodies are going to go pretty easy on UNC.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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maufman said:
I did, because I wasn't an athlete (and athletes didn't get preferential treatment at my school anyway). At D-I schools, I think it's pretty common to have a network of trusted professors who will look the other way on substandard work, particularly if the athlete shows up for class. UNC appears to have taken that a step further by dispensing with the classes. They deserve to catch hell for that, but I don't think it's radically different from what a lot of schools do. And that, more than anything else, is why I think both the NCAA and the accreditation bodies are going to go pretty easy on UNC.
 
Why do you think that?  What is your evidence?
 
I have taught at three D1 schools with big athletic programs and have friends teaching at many others and I've never heard of this being a common practice.
 
Schools go to substantial lengths to steer athletes into easier classes, to make sure that professors inform coaches (or assistant coaches) if a kid is in danger of not making grades, and to assign tutors to kids to help them out even further (often to a degree that is inappropriate in my opinion).  But the idea that you have large secret cabals of professors - and you would need a lot of professors, not just a few, given that kids need to take a lot of classes  - that are passing athletes despite them doing almost no work simply doesn't pass the smell test for me.
 
UNC's scandal was qualitatively different than most shenanigans that go on in academia with "student-athletes."  That's why its outrageous.
 

Fred in Lynn

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My wish to Santa would be that the respective oversight and enforcement bodies stay in their lanes and mete out punishment in accordance with their regulations or bylaws, as appropriate, after complete review. It's not an outrage and it's not nothing. It's something in between that deserves a thoughtful response.

Now that's some funny stuff right there. Fat chance.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Lawsuit filed on Friday; plaintiff is Michael McAdoo; attorney is Jeremi Duru, who also teaches law at American University. McAdoo is an interesting story as he apparently left the team after allegations of cheating. Also, he claims he wanted to study criminal justice but was pushed into one of three majors, including African-American studies.

Article here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/us/unc-academic-scandal/

Lawsuit seeks class action status. Discovery I'm sure will discover even more interesting things. Part of the remedies that the lawsuit seeks is to stop forcing athletes into predetermined majors.
 

DukeSox

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Good news guys - just waiting for the NCAA here.
 
M

MentalDisabldLst

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Uh... waiting for them for what?
 
I know you're being snarky, I just can't follow the snark.
 

SoxJox

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Here's a WSJ article by Gregg Easterbrook, contributing editor at Atlantic, reviewing the new book, "Cheated", by Jay M. Smith and Mary Willingham, to be released this month.  Smith is a History Professor at UNC.  Willingham, of course, is the one who shed some pretty harsh light on the whole affair before she resigned as academic counselor to some (many?) of the athletes in question.
 
Much included here as been covered in this thread and elsewhere, but still this is just eye-popping.
 

SuperManny

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UNC to pay $335K in settlement
 
The University of North Carolina will pay a $335,000 settlement to Mary Willingham, the former learning specialist who was the whistleblower in the school's academic fraud case.
 
According to the report, Willingham, who made about $60,000 in annual salary, said she will receive the equivalent of three years' salary after legal fees are paid.
 
"It gets me out far enough that I will be able to get a job," Willingham said, according to The News & Observer.
Willingham resigned amid the scandal. She sued UNC in 2014, with claims of a hostile work environment and retaliation. She sought her job back in her suit, but that was not part of the settlement. 
 
In addition to Willingham's suit, the university faces two lawsuits from athletes, problems with accreditation and an NCAA academic misconduct investigation. The fraud is reported to have run from 1993 to 2011 and included more than 3,100 students, roughly half athletes.
 
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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So given that Notre Dame is going to have to forfeit two years of football games (including a near national championship season) for an apparently minor cheating scandal involving a student trainer helping two football players with their homework, will UNC have to vacate 18 years worth of basketball victories?
 

AMS25

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Why do you think that? What is your evidence?

I have taught at three D1 schools with big athletic programs and have friends teaching at many others and I've never heard of this being a common practice.

Schools go to substantial lengths to steer athletes into easier classes, to make sure that professors inform coaches (or assistant coaches) if a kid is in danger of not making grades, and to assign tutors to kids to help them out even further (often to a degree that is inappropriate in my opinion). But the idea that you have large secret cabals of professors - and you would need a lot of professors, not just a few, given that kids need to take a lot of classes - that are passing athletes despite them doing almost no work simply doesn't pass the smell test for me.

UNC's scandal was qualitatively different than most shenanigans that go on in academia with "student-athletes." That's why its outrageous.
I agree with Morgan's Magic Snowplow. There's no secret cabal of professors, just majors with different reputations for difficulty. I teach at a D1 school (Oklahoma), and have had several athletes in my classes (including football and basketball players). Only the athletes who are willing to put some effort into their studies choose our major (political science). For those who want an easier workload, there's always sociology and psychology, which have so many students that many of the exams are multiple choice. The school also recently made it much more difficult for students to participate in a major called "multidisciplinary studies," which many athletes had selected in the past. I suppose there are professors who are known as "athlete-friendly," but I don't know of them personally.
 

dcmissle

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So given that Notre Dame is going to have to forfeit two years of football games (including a near national championship season) for an apparently minor cheating scandal involving a student trainer helping two football players with their homework, will UNC have to vacate 18 years worth of basketball victories?
Don't hold your breath. Whatever one thinks of Roger Goodell and his 32 gangster patrons, they are amateurs compared to the NCAA.

We will get a sanction with bite on NC when Trump releases his tax returns.
 

IdiotKicker

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From chatting with some people who seem plugged into the situation, they seem to believe that the NCAA is setting the women's team up to take the fall for things.