Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 21 to 40 of 77
  1. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    North of Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich View Post
    Well, it works for me and I do some hiring at my organization so I guess there is more power to me. I would now strongly question a resume that shows education of any grad from that institution when making a hiring decision. Perhaps my views are not widespread (outside of DBR), but I believe they should be.
    I guess I will be the exception to the rule here but I really think this is overdoing it. I am a passionate Duke fan and alum and despise UNC sports. But I have also worked with many UNC alums. Like alums of all schools (including Duke), they varied in quality - some were poor performers, some were superstars. A number of them chose to go to UNC because they were top students at their high schools in North Carolina and it was a way to get a good education at a very reasonable price compared to the other schools they were accepted to. For the vast majority, even those who were huge sports fans, athletics had almost no impact on their decision. I have spoken to several UNC alums (some of whom were former athletes, including a former football player who is extremely bright) who are embarrassed by the situation. But they know that the vast majority of the university's students and alums had nothing to do with this, and they realize that withholding their $100 a year of donations isn't going to really move the needle.

    UNC obviously has some serious flaws. We as sports fans happen to be more aware of them. Other institutions have similar problems that we might not be as aware of because it isn't in an area we focus on. Their flaws are exacerbated by the fact that their administration is clearly in denial about them. I have worked for several companies that have been involved in very major scandals or errors in judgement. These involved our senior-most leadership but not the people who I worked with every day. Management would publicly apologize but ultimately would try to minimize the pain we felt by hiring expensive lawyers to minimize punishment. I was embarrassed by the situation. To some extent it might have accelerated my efforts to leave the company, but at the end of the day, I have a mortgage, kids, and other bills to pay, so I was not going to stand on a soapbox and put my family's well-being in jeopardy over these issues. I feel similarly about those who went to UNC or who go there now.

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    No, I got the joke just fine. I guess I’m just reacting more to the many DBR posts over the years that have denigrated UNC as an academic institution. I know it’s good fun and all that. I just have always strongly doubted its veracity.
    The university as a whole is an excellent academic institution. I say that having just completed my second graduate degree from there. Degrees from nearly all degree programs at UNC are well-respected by employers in those fields.

    The university with respect to athletes in revenue sports and their academics, is a joke. So, again, the point that UNC athletes have, historically, been not asked to go to school, is the joke. They are, after all, talking about an athlete, not a general student.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    The university as a whole is an excellent academic institution. I say that having just completed my second graduate degree from there. Degrees from nearly all degree programs at UNC are well-respected by employers in those fields.

    The university with respect to athletes in revenue sports and their academics, is a joke. So, again, the point that UNC athletes have, historically, been not asked to go to school, is the joke. They are, after all, talking about an athlete, not a general student.
    Got you. I understand what you were trying to say and I agree with you on all counts.

  4. #24
    anybody who chose to go to UNC after 2012 made that decision knowing about the fraud. There is nothing unjust about them being tarred by it.

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    San Francisco
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyNotCrazie View Post
    I guess I will be the exception to the rule here but I really think this is overdoing it. I am a passionate Duke fan and alum and despise UNC sports. But I have also worked with many UNC alums. Like alums of all schools (including Duke), they varied in quality - some were poor performers, some were superstars. A number of them chose to go to UNC because they were top students at their high schools in North Carolina and it was a way to get a good education at a very reasonable price compared to the other schools they were accepted to. For the vast majority, even those who were huge sports fans, athletics had almost no impact on their decision. I have spoken to several UNC alums (some of whom were former athletes, including a former football player who is extremely bright) who are embarrassed by the situation. But they know that the vast majority of the university's students and alums had nothing to do with this, and they realize that withholding their $100 a year of donations isn't going to really move the needle.

    UNC obviously has some serious flaws. We as sports fans happen to be more aware of them. Other institutions have similar problems that we might not be as aware of because it isn't in an area we focus on. Their flaws are exacerbated by the fact that their administration is clearly in denial about them. I have worked for several companies that have been involved in very major scandals or errors in judgement. These involved our senior-most leadership but not the people who I worked with every day. Management would publicly apologize but ultimately would try to minimize the pain we felt by hiring expensive lawyers to minimize punishment. I was embarrassed by the situation. To some extent it might have accelerated my efforts to leave the company, but at the end of the day, I have a mortgage, kids, and other bills to pay, so I was not going to stand on a soapbox and put my family's well-being in jeopardy over these issues. I feel similarly about those who went to UNC or who go there now.
    I lean this direction, too, when it comes to judging UNC as a whole. Most casual UNC fans aren't even really aware of the details. That might seem hard to believe for those of us on a message board that kept up with every single twist and turn. But it's true. I have friends who are UNC fans who value education tremendously but also are really only interested in the basketball games, and that's about all they have time for. Honestly, I get it. It's not just the NCAA that failed to cover the scope of the scandal. ESPN and other sports media outlets hardly reported anything about it, either. If you're not on a college basketball message board every day like all of us are, you might have largely missed it or thought it was no big deal. Also, the scandal is already ancient history for high school seniors. They probably weren't even paying attention to ANYTHING serious on the collegiate level two-three years ago as the scandal came to a head.

    In addition, the university itself is gigantic. It's full of lots of students and grad students who are focused on their studies/research and who have neither awareness nor control over what the athletic department does. As for the administrators and professors who were complicit in the fraud, I think their reputations should suffer, accordingly. But they represent a small percentage of the faculty at UNC. And, again, most of the faculty are pretty far removed from the inner-workings of the Athletic Department. Heck, we know for a fact that most basketball players were steered into a pretty narrow subset of classes. I don't think the scandal really has much effect on the credibility of the biology or astrophysics departments.

    I've told this story a few times, but it's worth telling again. My father took a job at Auburn back in the 70's when he was finishing up his PhD. He had football players in his intro to Psychology class that never showed up so he was failing them. Two tickets to the Iron Bowl showed up on his desk one day with a letter that said "Come watch (insert names of the football players in his class) play this Saturday." My dad scalped the tickets and failed the students. He could care less about football. He was serious about academics. But his actions didn't really do anything to stop the fraud that Auburn was committing (although they were actually caught and sanctioned in the ensuing years). There are probably a lot of UNC professors who didn't like what was going on but were also so peripheral to it that they weren't making gigantic reports to give to the NCAA.

    This is not to say that what was done isn't awful. It makes my blood boil that they exploited the AFAM department, a field of study that still struggles to find legitimacy in the face of the ghosts of racial discrimination. It's even grosser that they steered so many African American athletes into bogus classes in AFAM. I won't go further in my feelings about this since it will quickly cross over into PPB terrifory, but suffice it to say that I think what UNC did was really, really disgusting on a level that goes beyond simple cheating to win basketball games. I get angrier than Jason Evans when I think about it =).

    But life in the academic world is extremely difficult for faculty. Finding tenure-track positions is getting increasingly more difficult. Most grad students and professors are occupied searching for funding for their positions/research, applying to new positions when the funding expires for their current position, and actually conducting their work to even notice the Athletic Department.

    The reality is that the NCAA failed because the cheating was so obvious and the information was readily available. There were flashing red signs signaling what was going on. The NCAA just chose to do nothing about it.

    To bring this back to 2019 recruiting, I DO think the scandal still hurts UNC's recruiting. It might not hurt them with every recruit. But there are going to be a few parents of basketball players out there who look at the scandal, look at the bevy of other top-tier basketball programs out there, and quickly steers their kid away from UNC.
    Who needs a moral victory when you can have a real one?

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Rougemont Nebulae
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    Got you. I understand what you were trying to say and I agree with you on all counts.
    I vacillate between these two perspectives. I hold a graduate degree from UNC which I busted my buttocks to achieve, from a program that is nationally acclaimed. Damn right I'm proud of it. But I caution against people glossing over the depths of subterfuge to which UNC sunk in its attempt to whitewash the scandal. It disturbs me immensely that UNC managed to get a former Governor to conduct a sham investigation and reach a conclusion from which he later backtracked by saying he "misspoke", the adult real-world equivalent of a co-ed's walk of shame. I don't know whether the Governor was incompetent or unwittingly duped by the University but that one aspect of the scandal was an unquestionable disgrace. People should have lost their jobs for the ruse.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    My comments are going to seem harsh...allow me to apologize in advance if they offend. But, this is how I feel about the lying, cheating, scumbags who have harmed what was one a great institution.


    UNC has traditionally been one of the "public ivies" along with Michigan, Virginia, Texas, Cal, and a couple others... public schools that offered some of the finest educations in the country. Those schools took great pride in that distinction and everyone knew a degree from one of those institutions meant the student was bright, hard-working, and well educated.

    Carolina chose to throw that reputation to the curb, to spit on it, and ignore the lasting implications for tens of thousands of current and past students all so they could experience a little more success in football and basketball.

    If we now mock UNC and show a lack of respect for the quality of the education provided there, that is the fault of the amoral administrators and leaders who allowed that scandal to happen and then refused to show any remorse or responsibility for it. What's more, I believe the students, alumnus, and professors who continue to remain largely silent about the scandal share an almost equal amount of blame. If 10,000 UNC students/alumni marched on the administration building demanding true punishment and accountability for their degrees being tainted, you can bet something meaningful would be done. If hundreds of professors went on strike insisting that the school take real action to purge itself of the folks who allowed this to happen and made meaningful changes to ensure it never happens again, something would be done.

    But, these sheep continue to cheer for the sports teams and laugh at the NCAA for not punishing them. I only lament that we cannot do more than make fun of them and ridicule their education. Your daughter is attending a school that does not truly care about education, a school that thinks its basketball and football teams are more important than its educational reputation. If she is inadvertently affected by scorn directed at this formerly admirable administration, well I just can't bring myself to feel sorry for her. My two sons were looking at schools a few years ago and we ordinarily might have considered Carolina (many in my family went there). But we did not and at least part of the reason is that we believed Carolina's reputation had been permanently harmed.

    -Jason "my statement here may seem harsh, but this is the reality of what happens when your school forgets why it really exists and what is really important" Evans
    No disagreement that UNC's cheating scandal took the rule-bending and breaking to a whole new level. But let's be honest, sports has corrupted every major university to some degree. While Duke does not lower its requirements to the degree that other schools do, there have certainly been basketball players who, without their athletic talent, would not be enrolled at the university. Then, there is the issue of what courses the kids take when they start at these schools. Yes, Duke kids have to and do go to class but how many of them are pre-med or engineering majors? There have been studies on how much being a scholarship athlete limits the choices of classes and majors, given the time commitment of practice and travel at a top level school. It may be time for the broader discussion of whether big-time college sports is really compatible with an academic institution at all.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by SueAxe View Post
    No disagreement that UNC's cheating scandal took the rule-bending and breaking to a whole new level. But let's be honest, sports has corrupted every major university to some degree. While Duke does not lower its requirements to the degree that other schools do, there have certainly been basketball players who, without their athletic talent, would not be enrolled at the university. Then, there is the issue of what courses the kids take when they start at these schools. Yes, Duke kids have to and do go to class but how many of them are pre-med or engineering majors? There have been studies on how much being a scholarship athlete limits the choices of classes and majors, given the time commitment of practice and travel at a top level school. It may be time for the broader discussion of whether big-time college sports is really compatible with an academic institution at all.
    I think that bringing up these questions in the context of what UNC did would really cheapen the value of that discussion with false equivalence. You may object that you're not actually equating them, but they shouldn't be in the same conversation. "Everybody does it" is the bull that UNC sold to everyone, but those who were paying attention know that it was much, much worse than the issues you raise about where to draw the line with valuing athletics in academic institutions. And while there were certainly honorable dissenters, the faculty, powers-that-be, and alumni of UNC by and large thumbed their noses at the idea that they should apologize or seriously reflect on the widespread fraud and exploitation done in the university's name. So it's hard to sympathize, even with those whose hard work academic work at the school may not deserve the extra scrutiny it gets as a result (especially because, outside of Duke and State message boards, it was completely swept under the rug and the world at large doesn't actually scrutinize).

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Stealth View Post
    I think that bringing up these questions in the context of what UNC did would really cheapen the value of that discussion with false equivalence. You may object that you're not actually equating them, but they shouldn't be in the same conversation. "Everybody does it" is the bull that UNC sold to everyone, but those who were paying attention know that it was much, much worse than the issues you raise about where to draw the line with valuing athletics in academic institutions. And while there were certainly honorable dissenters, the faculty, powers-that-be, and alumni of UNC by and large thumbed their noses at the idea that they should apologize or seriously reflect on the widespread fraud and exploitation done in the university's name. So it's hard to sympathize, even with those whose hard work academic work at the school may not deserve the extra scrutiny it gets as a result (especially because, outside of Duke and State message boards, it was completely swept under the rug and the world at large doesn't actually scrutinize).
    I disagree. These are conversations that need to be had and btw, I would not be surprised to learn that there are a number of places were athletes take no-show classes and pass to keep their eligibility. I am not advocating giving any one of them a free pass but there is a larger issue out here than one university and I don't think it cheapens anything to point that out.

  10. #30
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by SueAxe View Post
    I disagree. These are conversations that need to be had and btw, I would not be surprised to learn that there are a number of places were athletes take no-show classes and pass to keep their eligibility. I am not advocating giving any one of them a free pass but there is a larger issue out here than one university and I don't think it cheapens anything to point that out.
    Couldn't agree more. Does anyone really believe that all of the football players at Alabama or Clemson (just to pick out a couple) stay in good academic standing year after year without something we would consider cheating? It's a question of A) degree and B) getting caught. UNC cheated in a truly egregious fashion and they got caught red handed. Considering all that ensued, I don't think any fair minded person can ever view their athletic programs without a significant degree of skepticism again. But if you asked me, on a scale of completely clean to Carolina and worse, where I think many big time athletic programs sit, I'm doubtful that many are completely clean.

    Obligatory Carolina Cheating story: When I was in grad school there for Computer Science, my girlfriend at the time was a law student. One year we had a big party for her birthday. Several of the guys living across the street were varsity Carolina soccer players who came over for the party. After a couple of beers, one of the guys was complaining about J.R. Reid getting an advance copy of a test for a class they shared. Basically, his complaint was that his scholarship was just as good as J.R.'s and he thought he should also have gotten the test in advance. I'd like to think that sort of thing doesn't happen everywhere, and I'd be furious if I thought it was happening at Duke, but I guess I'm not naive enough to think it's not fairly widespread.

    Howard

  11. #31
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia
    Quote Originally Posted by howardlander View Post
    Couldn't agree more. Does anyone really believe that all of the football players at Alabama or Clemson (just to pick out a couple) stay in good academic standing year after year without something we would consider cheating? It's a question of A) degree and B) getting caught. UNC cheated in a truly egregious fashion and they got caught red handed. Considering all that ensued, I don't think any fair minded person can ever view their athletic programs without a significant degree of skepticism again. But if you asked me, on a scale of completely clean to Carolina and worse, where I think many big time athletic programs sit, I'm doubtful that many are completely clean.

    Obligatory Carolina Cheating story: When I was in grad school there for Computer Science, my girlfriend at the time was a law student. One year we had a big party for her birthday. Several of the guys living across the street were varsity Carolina soccer players who came over for the party. After a couple of beers, one of the guys was complaining about J.R. Reid getting an advance copy of a test for a class they shared. Basically, his complaint was that his scholarship was just as good as J.R.'s and he thought he should also have gotten the test in advance. I'd like to think that sort of thing doesn't happen everywhere, and I'd be furious if I thought it was happening at Duke, but I guess I'm not naive enough to think it's not fairly widespread.

    Howard
    That guy must not have been in the right fraternity to get the copy that J.R. got.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by NSDukeFan View Post
    That guy must not have been in the right fraternity to get the copy that J.R. got.
    Yeah you would think they would also give copies to few regular students so The NCAA could not mistake it for and “extra” benefit.

  13. #33
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lynchburg, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    But, these sheep continue to cheer for the sports teams and laugh at the NCAA for not punishing them. I only lament that we cannot do more than make fun of them and ridicule their education. Your daughter is attending a school that does not truly care about education, a school that thinks its basketball and football teams are more important than its educational reputation. If she is inadvertently affected by scorn directed at this formerly admirable administration, well I just can't bring myself to feel sorry for her. My two sons were looking at schools a few years ago and we ordinarily might have considered Carolina (many in my family went there). But we did not and at least part of the reason is that we believed Carolina's reputation had been permanently harmed.

    -Jason "my statement here may seem harsh, but this is the reality of what happens when your school forgets why it really exists and what is really important" Evans
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    anybody who chose to go to UNC after 2012 made that decision knowing about the fraud. There is nothing unjust about them being tarred by it.

    I also don't want to sound harsh but these statements strike me as out of touch with educational reality. People choose colleges for a variety of reasons and many of them don't have the luxury of turning down an education from UNC-CH. This is particularly true for North Carolina residents who pay less than $9,000/year in tuition and fees. I believe UNC as an institution deserves scorn but its students deserve some compassion. I also believe that most UNC students receive a high-quality education from honest professors in spite of systemic and widespread cheating in the athletics department. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend UNC if I were advising a high school student deciding between UNC and another school where they'd have to take out 2 to 4 times as much in student loans.

  14. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    I moved. Now 12 miles from Heaven, 13 from Hell
    UNC Chancellor Holt is resigning, effective at the end of the academic year...

    https://www.newsobserver.com/news/lo...224526250.html

  15. #35
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    Quote Originally Posted by DU82 View Post
    UNC Chancellor Holt is resigning, effective at the end of the academic year...

    https://www.newsobserver.com/news/lo...224526250.html
    Think she'll get a nice severance/retirement package for this achievement:

    https://www.wral.com/accrediting-org...tion/14704731/

    Quote from SACS:

    "It’s the root of what an academic institution does," Whelan said. "If you can’t count on the quality of the program that students enroll and are granted a degree then what can you do? Why do you exist as an institution?"
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by SueAxe View Post
    While Duke does not lower its requirements to the degree that other schools do, there have certainly been basketball players who, without their athletic talent, would not be enrolled at the university.
    SueAxe, I agree to a considerable degree with most of your post, but I am going to take a bit of an issue with this statement, which needs clarification. I would go so far to say that, starting at some point in time (let's just consider this century as a test case), there are probably hardly any Duke basketball players who could have enrolled and be accepted at Duke based solely on academic achievement. This is no slight at all … Duke is an incredibly tough university to get into. So that is my gripe with your statement, and I am going to go on a limb and say that there is probably no P5 university in the country that could make such a statement honestly; we all know that all universities have a different set of rules for admittance to athletic programs.

    In my opinion, the thing that makes Duke exceptional, if not unique, is that I still believe it could be said that just about any Duke basketball or football player could qualify for academic admittance at some institution of higher learning. And that is something that I firmly believe could not be honestly said by most P5 programs … including most ACC schools.

  17. #37
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Atlanta
    Wouldn't this thread be more appropriately placed on the off-topic board?

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by BandAlum83 View Post
    Living and raising kids in the ATL, I got really turned off to UGA by all the rabid fanatics in my work place. Truth be told, I would have had a hard time swallowing writing a check to any SEC school, except Vandy. Luckily I didn't have to endure that!
    I know a young man that went to Kansas but his father was a huge Missouri fan/grad. This was before Missouri left the Big 12. I asked him how his dad was handling him going to Kansas. His response was that he made his mom sign the checks. Never got a chance to ask what the dad did with his daughter went to Kansas as well. That might have been a bit easier as she did have a scholarship for soft ball.

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by mph View Post
    I also don't want to sound harsh but these statements strike me as out of touch with educational reality. People choose colleges for a variety of reasons and many of them don't have the luxury of turning down an education from UNC-CH. This is particularly true for North Carolina residents who pay less than $9,000/year in tuition and fees. I believe UNC as an institution deserves scorn but its students deserve some compassion. I also believe that most UNC students receive a high-quality education from honest professors in spite of systemic and widespread cheating in the athletics department. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend UNC if I were advising a high school student deciding between UNC and another school where they'd have to take out 2 to 4 times as much in student loans.
    I strongly disagree. UNC has suffered greatly from grade inflation and there are something close to 500 courses in which nothing but A's were given. The problem is you can't look at a UNC transcript and tell if a kid took a hard course of study or not. UNC's professional schools (law, business, medical) I would trust...but not their undergraduate program.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by BandAlum83 View Post
    Living and raising kids in the ATL, I got really turned off to UGA by all the rabid fanatics in my work place. Truth be told, I would have had a hard time swallowing writing a check to any SEC school, except Vandy. Luckily I didn't have to endure that!
    UGA fans think they are the New York Yankees of any sport with only 1 title in 60 years.They are obsessed with Alabama.Their fans motto is we will win it all next year.I've heard that for at least 40 years.

Similar Threads

  1. Duke History (new thread-- posts moved from unrelated thread)
    By jimsumner in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 43
    Last Post: 12-25-2019, 08:15 PM
  2. 2019 Men's Basketball Recruiting
    By BD80 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 4070
    Last Post: 07-08-2019, 09:43 AM
  3. 2019 Football Recruiting
    By chrishoke in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 266
    Last Post: 01-02-2019, 12:04 PM
  4. MBB 2019 Recruiting Thread
    By BD80 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 01-03-2018, 03:57 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •