UNC Athletics Scandal - HBO Real Sports

[cspan37421]

Where did the group of football players go in Africa to dig a well? Can't remember if it was Senegal or not.

12 days in Ethiopia, apparently.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/...alk-about.html

But even if it was Senegal ... do you need a second course in Wolof for 12 days of well-digging and brief interactions with locals?

[rasputin]

12 days in Ethiopia, apparently.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/...alk-about.html

But even if it was Senegal ... do you need a second course in Wolof for 12 days of well-digging and brief interactions with locals?

The digging that UNC has been doing has been going on for way more than 12 days.

[Duvall]

Hopefully this won't get me put on holiday.

We all have had a great many laughs about players being guided into Swahili, among other classes, at UNC-CH. The players in the video said they didn't pick the class, it was picked for them.

Awhile ago I posted (and so did bluedog) that Kyle Singler, while still a student, mentioned on the Dan Patrick Show that he was taking Wolof, a language spoken in Senegal. In the interview, he declined to say anything significant in the language, except for hello and goodbye. OK. Well, a quick search of Wolof and Duke turned up this video featuring FB WR Braxton:

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...CLID=205243842

On the plus side, the class is actually meeting, and the students are actually speaking it in class! Whew. So that's good. It's not a no-show class.

But I found it curious that:

The class is entirely athletes, save for a fellow in his late 40s.
The class is held in the K Center. How many non-athletes have classes there?
BB said: "This is the only light of day we see, to come back outside at 5:15" - ??
Wolof has not been offered since the 2011-12 academic year, and then only in summer term, according to
https://registrar.duke.edu/wolof [all of a sudden it's irrelevant?]

I suppose legit answers to the first three questions might relate to the nature of what Duke students attend summer session, and what summer session can be like. But there can be other answers too, ones not so creditable.

But when you hear the Real Sports guy (Goldberg?) asking how useful Swahili has been, ask yourself, why did so many of our own athletes decide upon Wolof? Why weren't non-athletes taking it? Why take Wolof instead of, say, Spanish? I can think of answers our rivals and detractors might suggest.

First of all, Goldberg is a douche for suggesting that the value of a foreign language should be measured by its utility. (And doubly a douche given that Swahili is spoken by 140 million people.)

Looking back, this seems like it's always been a thinly attended couple of courses taught by a single instructor. I doubt there's much of a mystery here.

[Atlanta Duke]

First of all, Goldberg is a douche for suggesting that the value of a foreign language should be measured by its utility. (And doubly a douche given that Swahili is spoken by 140 million people.)

Looking back, this seems like it's always been a thinly attended couple of courses taught by a single instructor. I doubt there's much of a mystery here.

In fairness to Goldberg, it appears based on the other questions in the 2 minute segment that the emphasis in the piece is on the players being told what courses to take. It is one thing if a student voluntarily selects courses or a major with a lower value in the immediate post-graduation job market (like me - I majored in political science but assumed I was going straight to law school by the time I selected that major after my terrifying encounter with organic chemistry ended my pre-med career). Although a big part of justifying the cost of a college education these days is that it prepares you for a harsh job market, there is the perhaps touching concept of learning for the sake of learning as opposed to college as trade school with a better social life.

It is quite another when the university is telling you what to take with the presumed knowledge that Swahili and the AFAM major selected for the player will be of virtually no value to that player after the athletic department has used him up and he is on his own.

[Henderson]

First of all, Goldberg is a douche for suggesting that the value of a foreign language should be measured by its utility. (And doubly a douche given that Swahili is spoken by 140 million people.)

Agree absolutely on that point. The irony is that there probably isn't a single uncch athlete among those 140 million.

[BigWayne]

New video on ESPN OTL also... http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=10671809

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

New video on ESPN OTL also... http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=10671809

Ouch. "...I can still see the faces of all the athletes that I worked with that we cheated out of what we promised them, a real education..."

[moonpie23]

ok...look...how much more hard core can it get? geez....she just called out EVERYONE!!!!!!!

[blazindw]

Hopefully this won't get me put on holiday.

We all have had a great many laughs about players being guided into Swahili, among other classes, at UNC-CH. The players in the video said they didn't pick the class, it was picked for them.

Awhile ago I posted (and so did bluedog) that Kyle Singler, while still a student, mentioned on the Dan Patrick Show that he was taking Wolof, a language spoken in Senegal. In the interview, he declined to say anything significant in the language, except for hello and goodbye. OK. Well, a quick search of Wolof and Duke turned up this video featuring FB WR Braxton:

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...CLID=205243842

On the plus side, the class is actually meeting, and the students are actually speaking it in class! Whew. So that's good. It's not a no-show class.

But I found it curious that:

The class is entirely athletes, save for a fellow in his late 40s.
The class is held in the K Center. How many non-athletes have classes there?
BB said: "This is the only light of day we see, to come back outside at 5:15" - ??
Wolof has not been offered since the 2011-12 academic year, and then only in summer term, according to
https://registrar.duke.edu/wolof [all of a sudden it's irrelevant?]

I suppose legit answers to the first three questions might relate to the nature of what Duke students attend summer session, and what summer session can be like. But there can be other answers too, ones not so creditable.

But when you hear the Real Sports guy (Goldberg?) asking how useful Swahili has been, ask yourself, why did so many of our own athletes decide upon Wolof? Why weren't non-athletes taking it? Why take Wolof instead of, say, Spanish? I can think of answers our rivals and detractors might suggest.

I had classes in Wilson Gym (obviously, well before the K Center was built). The classes I had there were a good mix of students and student-athletes. Class locations can be changed and I bet that it was changed to the K Center once it was determined where most of the students in the class would be coming from (athletics), they switched it to a more convenient location for all the students but the one.

[oldnavy]

Ouch. "...I can still see the faces of all the athletes that I worked with that we cheated out of what we promised them, a real education..."

Well, don't feel too bad for them, they all have potential careers in children's day care and babysitting...

[Lord Ash]

A shame that the HBO focus on terrible academics might serve to distract from the OTHER story over at the Hill... the rampant CHEATING.

Two VERY different stories.



One, about what education for athletes should and does consist of across all schools. HBO covered this.

Two, about UNC in particular cheating to keep athletes eligible.

Don't ever let people forget that there are two stories here.

[SharkD]

But I found it curious that:

The class is entirely athletes, save for a fellow in his late 40s.
The class is held in the K Center. How many non-athletes have classes there?
BB said: "This is the only light of day we see, to come back outside at 5:15" - ??
Wolof has not been offered since the 2011-12 academic year, and then only in summer term, according to
https://registrar.duke.edu/wolof [all of a sudden it's irrelevant?]

I suppose legit answers to the first three questions might relate to the nature of what Duke students attend summer session, and what summer session can be like. But there can be other answers too, ones not so creditable.

But when you hear the Real Sports guy (Goldberg?) asking how useful Swahili has been, ask yourself, why did so many of our own athletes decide upon Wolof? Why weren't non-athletes taking it? Why take Wolof instead of, say, Spanish? I can think of answers our rivals and detractors might suggest.

Wolof was offered at Duke from 2006-onward, though support of the Department of Education's Title VI National Resource Center grant for the Center for International Studies. For the 2011-2012 academic year, it was to be offered at the 3rd year level, which is the minimum to allow a language to count towards the Trinity College foreign language requirement (else, it's simply an elective). Wolof classes were held in the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, save for the 2011 Summer sessions, which were held in the K Center.

Following an unexpected 70% across-the-board cut* in the Department of Education's nationwide NRC funding, due to Congressional budget games, beginning with FY2012 (the second fiscal year of the 4-year NRC grant cycle), Wolof was cut, alongside other programs at Duke's six International and Area Studies NRCs, as well as the CIBER at Fuqua. (It was offered in the 2011 Summer Sessions because the Federal Grant funding cycle completes on August 14, each year and does not conform to Duke's academic calendar.)

Ironically, part of the Provost office's justification for cutting Wolof was that UNC-CH offered Swahili and, thus, an African language was still available to Duke students, through the academic consortium.

* As noted in the article, the reduction was slightly more than 40% of the total NRC/FLAS grant award, but given the fixed-costs associated tin FLAS, the NRC programs bore most of the budget cuts for FY2012, FY2013 and FY2014.

[Dukeface88]

First of all, Goldberg is a douche for suggesting that the value of a foreign language should be measured by its utility. (And doubly a douche given that Swahili is spoken by 140 million people.)

Looking back, this seems like it's always been a thinly attended couple of courses taught by a single instructor. I doubt there's much of a mystery here.

Yeah, that was a cheap shot. I have a friend who gets significantly more use out of having learned Swahili than I get out of having learned German, or calc for that matter; she's an anthropologist who spends a lot of time on digs in Tanzania and Kenya. Incidentally, she also gave me this screen name (in high school, amusingly).

Relatedly, I don't see why it's a problem that Duke has Wolof classes. Remember, the important thing here is not "UNC is bad because they teach Swahili", it's "UNC is bad because they didn't teach Swahili".

[Bluedog]

I had classes in Wilson Gym (obviously, well before the K Center was built). The classes I had there were a good mix of students and student-athletes. Class locations can be changed and I bet that it was changed to the K Center once it was determined where most of the students in the class would be coming from (athletics), they switched it to a more convenient location for all the students but the one.

Right, I've seen classes in Wilson - and any student can get into Wilson. However, only athletes have key card access to the K Center...maybe they give access to somebody if they have a class there, though. Would be incentive to enroll - access to "private" gym and tutoring rooms!

[blazindw]

Right, I've seen classes in Wilson - and any student can get into Wilson. However, only athletes have key card access to the K Center...maybe they give access to somebody if they have a class there, though. Would be incentive to enroll - access to "private" gym and tutoring rooms!

Correct. I'm sure that an individual card would be granted access to the Center for purposes of attending the class (maybe with an hour window on either side of the class time frame).

[Duvall]

Marcus Paige, company man.

Board member Charles Duckett asked athletes on Thursday if they had ever been steered toward a particular major or course of study.

"There was definitely no one telling us what to do or even pushing us," Paige said. "When I came on my visit I really wanted to major in English. When I got here, I changed. No problem. They were very cool with it. They don't try to push you in any way. It's definitely a no."

[OldPhiKap]

Marcus Paige, company man.

Wasn't Paige on one of the All-Academic teams this year?

Paige may be a company man, but I think the kid is not one of the problem children that had to be diverted to remedial-level courses either.

[Duvall]

Wasn't Paige on one of the All-Academic teams this year?

Paige may be a company man, but I think the kid is not one of the problem children that had to be diverted to remedial-level courses either.

I'm sure he isn't. That's why I'm skeptical that his experiences are representative of UNC athletes generally, particularly during the scandal years before his time.

[El_Diablo]

Here's a screenshot of the one-paragraph "final paper" that earned an A- for some UNC athlete:

bjr6evvcyaays_j.0_standard_709.0.jpg

(click to enlarge)

It seems like an average- to below-average second-grader wrote it.

[CDu]

Wasn't Paige on one of the All-Academic teams this year?

Paige may be a company man, but I think the kid is not one of the problem children that had to be diverted to remedial-level courses either.

I've seen this mentioned before, but All-Academic honors just reflect that you have a good GPA and were a key member of your team. It does not necessarily mean you were a good student.

That's not to say Paige is or is not a good student. Just that GPA is not necessarily sufficient evidence of that. And yes, I'm admittedly sounding very cynical with this comment. But I think that cynicism is (unfortunately) justified.