Dan Kane @dankanenando 14m14 minutes ago
The commission that accredits UNC has found it violated seven standards, including academic integrity, failure to monitor sports.
The accreditation board has put UNC on a year's probation, the most serious sanction it has aside from pulling accreditation
SACSCOC President Belle Wheelan said "It's the most serious sanction we have," but gave UNC's current admin credit for addressing scandal.
Other standards UNC didn't meet: Operation of academic support services, the faculty's role in governance & handling of financial aid.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/loc...e23751628.html
Last edited by -jk; 06-11-2015 at 11:54 AM. Reason: added link
A year's probation doesn't sound like a particularly serious sanction, but maybe I'm wrong.
From ProfessorWolf over at PP, I believe probation isn't pleasant as it sounds. SACS comes back in a year and you have to prove everything is fixed or you stay on probation for another year or possibly even have your accreditation revoked. Normal "review" cycle is once every 10 years, so having to answer to SACCS two years ago and this year and then again next year is a lot of work for a lot of academics that likely don't like their integrity being called into question.
If some academic eggheads could chime in their insight would be invaluable. It certainly looks like a slap on the wrist and a stern look to someone used to the real world, but I've been told this isn't someone academic types like.
I will say the part about handling financial aid intrigues me...combined with the Pell Grant fraud that was touched briefly in the last thread there may be a new prong of this story approaching. UNC can only keep all the balls juggling for so long before some start getting dropped.
Last edited by PackMan97; 06-11-2015 at 12:09 PM.
Wait, SACS found UNC violated financial aid standards? Now, that's a problem. Financial aid is funded through government grants. If they did something illegal there, that could be the impetus for a qui tam case.
Of course, that's in addition to the humiliation associated with being on probation by SACS for a year for SEVEN violations.
According to the SACS Sanction Policy here is the definition of Probation:
They could have been put on the lesser sanction of Warning for two years first, but they cannot be placed on Warning after Probation, meaning that UCS now has a maximum of two years (if they received another year of probation after this one) to correct its deficiencies, after which loss of accreditation is the only other option.Probation - Failure to correct deficiencies or failure to make satisfactory progress toward compliance with the Principles of Accreditation, whether or not the institution is already on Warning, may result in the institution being placed on Probation. An institution may be placed on Probation for the same reasons as discussed above regarding Warning if the Commission's Board of Trustees deems noncompliance with the Principles to be serious enough to merit invoking Probation whether or not the institution is or has been on Warning. Probation is a more serious sanction than Warning and is usually, but not necessarily, invoked as the last step before an institution is removed from membership. Probation may be imposed upon initial institutional review, depending on the judgment of the Board regarding the seriousness of noncompliance or in the case of repeated violations recognized by the Board over a period of time. An institution must be placed on Probation when it is continued in membership for Good Cause beyond the maximum two-year monitoring period (see section on "Good Cause" below). The maximum consecutive time that an institution may be on Probation is two years.
If I recall correctly, 88 faculty members reacted swiftly to the allegations that several athletes had done bad things and brought bad press to Duke. Now, such a group could very well accuse the Athletic Department of bringing down the NCAA to run rampant through the University and then to cause SACS to put the University on probation for seven counts.
I think there are enough opportunities for "under bus throwing" for all!
This has other benefits in that many more words rhyme with 'probation' than rhyme with 'warning'.
I know that in the medical world with the Joint Commission, when you got a type I finding you had to do a ton of work and documentation to clear the finding.
So, it may not sound that bad, but I bet the folks that are responsible for correcting the issues are not very happy right now... I suspect lots and lots of work will be done to correct these issues.
I know that UNC can claim that the athletic costs associated with the scandal are covered without using tax dollars (I don't believe that for a minute), but I expect our tax dollars will be needed to pay for cleaning up this mess...
With the exception of the hospital over there, for which I have tremendous respect, I wish they would shutter the whole town!!
soooooooooooo...double secret probation....
can we go back to the old thread so that i can at least hold out hope that they aren't going to skate?
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
I agree with OP that UNC is "too big to fail" but this is serious. Where is the outrage? How many "flagship" state universities have been out on probation?
I see the SACS action as telling the NCAA that "yes there was LOIC" and "no it has not been fixed".
Poor Roy, now he has to deal with this horse----.
I think the warning to probation step sounds serious to me. Its not likely that any organization would go from warning to death penalty without some sort of in between. Probation itself doesn't sound like much, but they only get one year. Probation and 5 years would be much more discouraging, but only 1 year to clean up 7 violations sounds like a pretty daunting task to me. SACS and NCAA procedures combined is going to mean some long hours and likely some rolling heads.
This is right. Accreditation is a hassle and typically very stressful for all those involved. The "punishment" by SACS isn't being put on probation, it's being told that their response was insufficient and they'll have to go through it all again in the next year. This is really all SACS can do. They won't revoke accreditation. They'll just line up more hoops and make UNC keep jumping through them until they're satisfied.
Great question. When has a university, especially one that prided itself on academics gone on record during an NCAA investigation to claim that the academic side of the house was the problem??
I find it odd that the "leadership" (I use that term very loosely) went with this tactic, basically saying that we care more what you think about our sports programs than we do about our PRIMARY mission of education...
Just another in a long list of reasons I share Roy's sentiment when he says "he doesn't give a #$@# about Carolina".
If SACS were going to "punish" UNC, it would have to be something like mandating a shorter review period going forward. It might not be the worst idea to check in on UNC every 3-4 years to make sure they're following through. I don't know if the SACS bylaws would allow that though.