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diablesseblu
02-05-2013, 12:20 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/nocera-academic-counseling-racket.html?hp

sagegrouse
02-05-2013, 09:34 AM
Deadly material that puts the UNC matter at a national level, involving Raven scrub, Michael McAdoo, ruled ineligible by the NCAA:

According to NY Times columnist Joe Nocera:


"... [U]niversities accept athletes who read at the fifth-grade level or worse; quite often academic counseling is remedial. But McAdoo wasn’t in that category. He had been an O.K. student in high school, and his mother, a schoolteacher, was adamant that he get a college education. He told his recruiters he wanted to major in criminal justice.

"Once he got on campus, however, he was quickly informed by his academic counselors that North Carolina didn’t have a criminal justice major. According to McAdoo, his counselor picked his major, African-American studies, because it wouldn’t interfere with football practice.

"Among the first classes he was “assigned” (as he phrases it) was a Swahili course, an “independent studies” class taught by the department chairman, Julius Nyang’oro. “There wasn’t any class,” McAdoo recalled. “You sign up. You write the paper. You get credit. I had never seen anything like it.

“I would still like to get a college degree someday,” he said. “But not at the University of North Carolina. They just wasted my time.”

Wow!!! -- sagegrouse

moonpie23
02-05-2013, 09:36 AM
"SO???"

signed.......UNC folks

Lord Ash
02-05-2013, 09:50 AM
Ouch. That was a bit brutal. Still, I wonder if ANYTHING will ever come of this, or if it will remain just the work of several departments full of rogues.

allenmurray
02-05-2013, 03:20 PM
Ouch. That was a bit brutal. Still, I wonder if ANYTHING will ever come of this, or if it will remain just the work of several departments full of rogues.

Nothing will ever come of it.

camion
02-05-2013, 03:32 PM
That's another body blow... if anyone is paying attention.

In 2012, the University of North Carolina, in an effort to avoid the punishment for ... Anyone? Anyone?... the biggest athletic Cheating Scandal ever, commissioned an 'Independent Investigation' by... Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Emmert?

DukeHLM'13
02-05-2013, 03:47 PM
It is really just shocking that, no matter the increasing pile of evidence, the NCAA just continues to pretty much completely ignore this entire situation. There was more talk nationally about the Lace Thomas/Jewelry (non)scandal than there has been about this.

Just think about that for a second...which one of those 2 seems like it should warrant more attention?

BigWayne
02-05-2013, 06:33 PM
Saw the comments on the article. A modicum of outrage, but mostly of a general nature against all big schools. Doubt this is the match to light a fire under the NCAA to do anything at UNC.

howardlander
02-05-2013, 07:36 PM
I read the NY Times article. I'm a Duke grad (Trinity 81) and a UNC grad (M.S. C.S. 1988) and I currently work at UNC. I can tell you one thing I didn't see in the article: many of the faculty and staff are angry and/or disappointed about this scandal. It's very telling that when some organized a rally in support of Holden Thorp 200 people showed up out of 16000 undergrads and probably 10000 faculty/staff. Many people, even if not the NCAA, are taking this seriously.

Howard

gumbomoop
02-05-2013, 08:48 PM
I read the NY Times article. I'm a Duke grad (Trinity 81) and a UNC grad (M.S. C.S. 1988) and I currently work at UNC. I can tell you one thing I didn't see in the article: many of the faculty and staff are angry and/or disappointed about this scandal. It's very telling that when some organized a rally in support of Holden Thorp 200 people showed up out of 16000 undergrads and probably 10000 faculty/staff. Many people, even if not the NCAA, are taking this seriously.

Howard

Thank you for this post. On one or more previous UNC scandal threads, I have posted a comment wondering how the faculty in particular would respond, and am aware of a few who have expressed their outrage publicly. No matter how often Roy Williams or former Gov. Martin gingerly describe this as "only an academic scandal," the UNC faculty will know it is both an academic and athletic scandal. And they will know that there was an understanding among Prof. Nyang'oro, at least one staff assistant, and athletic-sponsored counselors to steer many athletes into ghost courses. They will know that the ghost courses were established to help athletes, period. They will know that all attempts to deny that this was an athletic/academic scandal pass neither the smell nor laugh test.

The scandal was, at heart and in fact, an understanding among a yet-unclear number of academic and athletic employees to conspire to commit, on behalf of athletes [in a few pathetic and especially egregious cases without the knowledge of the athlete in question], athletic and academic fraud, and to forge faculty signatures.

Most important, UNC faculty know that their first-rate university has been harmed by this scandal. I will continue to watch for and applaud the efforts by UNC faculty, students, grads, and friends to repair the damage by stating the truth firmly and accurately, starting with labeling the scandal accurately. As opposed to gingerly.

I assume that both Roy Williams and Jim Martin are engaging in a form of "whistling past the graveyard," of which every form is a form of lying to oneself. I doubt that Roy Williams is in any position to allow himself to understand how deceptive the Martin Report is. And maybe Jim Martin is in no position to do anything other obfuscate, all in the name of finding the truth.

Faculty members have been known to lie to themselves, too, but in this case I am prepared to believe howardlander that many who love their great university, within and beyond its walls, are taking this seriously.

BigWayne
02-05-2013, 10:06 PM
I read the NY Times article. I'm a Duke grad (Trinity 81) and a UNC grad (M.S. C.S. 1988) and I currently work at UNC. I can tell you one thing I didn't see in the article: many of the faculty and staff are angry and/or disappointed about this scandal. It's very telling that when some organized a rally in support of Holden Thorp 200 people showed up out of 16000 undergrads and probably 10000 faculty/staff. Many people, even if not the NCAA, are taking this seriously.

Howard
Well maybe the NYT will have an effect then as university faculties are probably one of the biggest demographic groups that still take the NYT seriously.

OldPhiKap
02-05-2013, 10:16 PM
The faculty may take it seriously, but they are taking it silently as well.

Grow a pair, speak up.

Or, end not with a bang but a whimper.

I thought integrity was supposed to be part of the academic ethos.

sagegrouse
02-05-2013, 10:57 PM
Well maybe the NYT will have an effect then as university faculties are probably one of the biggest demographic groups that still take the NYT seriously.

Serious journalists, 1.5 million subscribers, most of whom are NOT college profs. Joe Nocera is a columnist, not a reporter, and his piece was pretty much a straight interview with Mike McAdoo. Can't imagine why anyone would not take it seriously, can you?

sage

Newton_14
02-05-2013, 11:03 PM
Nothing will ever come of it.

Agree. Too much political clout. Had this exact same scenario happened at NC State, they would have long ago been hit with major sanctions including Lack of Institutional Control in both Football and Basketball, and the total punishment would have more closely resembled Penn St/SMU than the slap on the wrist UNC got.

UNC will be forever protected by the politicians in our great State of North Carolina, by our UNC Grad ACC Commish, and sadly, by the NCAA. UNC will never admit any wrongdoing, and will always state that the Carolina Way was never dented, and all this is much ado about nothing, with a few roque people acting on their own.

I long ago lost track of all the "rogues" and would have to go back and research, but just off the top of my head..

1. Agent working as Assistant Head Coach of Football funneling players to his Agent firm and getting paid for doing so
2. FB players being given jewelry, cash, airfare, hotel fare, and free training at Agent owned camp in California
3. Agent runner who had been kicked off a UNC FB team and banished from school in disgrace, allowed to come back and hang out with full access to the FB program, and not only is he a runner, he is a known drug dealer, as well as a guy who had a hand in getting jerseys, helmets, shoes, etc from college players and hawking them for sales.
4. The McAdoo debacle
5. Fake classes with both normal and double credit hours
6. Corrupt Academic advisors keeping athletes eligible and funnelling them to fake classes and majors
7. Tutor gate
8. Tutor worked in the home of the Head Football Coach
9. Tutor pays several thousand dollars in parking tickets for players
10. Players driving cars with as many as 8 different license plates on the same vehicle.

There is much more I am not remembering...

BigWayne
02-06-2013, 02:35 AM
Serious journalists, 1.5 million subscribers, most of whom are NOT college profs. Joe Nocera is a columnist, not a reporter, and his piece was pretty much a straight interview with Mike McAdoo. Can't imagine why anyone would not take it seriously, can you?

sage Ever since the NYT treatment of the Duke lacrosse scandal, I can't take them seriously as a news source. Their agendas, political and otherwise, are all throughout the publication.

dukeofcalabash
02-06-2013, 04:12 AM
When you start bending the rules to get "special" people into a program you start to undermine the integrity of the program and all things associated. UNC, and I would say nearly every college and university, have changed the rules over the years to accomodate not only athletes, but others as well. I don't believe it helps the educational system one bit. It's only about money, money, and more money. Everytime it happens, however large or small, it puts the school into a losing position. What is wrong with keeping the unqualified out of a position that only makes it public that they are not ready? Some, like UNC, have changed the rules more than others, like Duke. When you examine the reasons you have to ask yourself what is the reason for the change, to educate or to make money. We all know the answer.