AFAM Reforms Promised; Starts With New Name
Posted on Aug. 31, 2012The UNC System Board of Governors’ investigation of academic fraud at Carolina was out in the open this week in a public session in which UNC officials promised a list of reforms to guard against any repeat of what happened in its department of African and Afro-American studies.
Among steps being taken, the department will change its name to African, African American and Diaspora studies. The department’s new chair, Eunice Sahle, said that henceforth only AFAM majors who uphold a minimum 3.0 grade point average will be allowed to take independent study courses.
Sahle’s predecessor, Julius Nyang’oro, resigned the chair last year and retired this summer after he was found to have presided over a long list of questionable courses that appeared to abuse the provisions for independent studies.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that “deans, faculty members, department heads and Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham lined up” to promise the BOG investigators the University was committed to recovery and reform.
“They pledged more faculty involvement in athletics, a revamped African studies department, new oversight rules for academic administrators, changes to the tutoring program for athletes and a strategic plan for the university’s entire sports enterprise,” the paper reported.
The BOG probe is one of three now in progress. The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into whether Nyang’oro broke laws by accepting money for courses that were found to have little faculty involvement; and a group that includes former Gov. James Martin, a national management consulting firm and the president of the Association of American Universities has begun its work. Members of the faulty have hinted that they might initiate further review of the relationship between athletics and academics at UNC.
Also this week, Chancellor Holden Thorp ’86 apologized to Julius Peppers ’02 for the improper publication of his academic transcript on an unsecured server in the University’s computer system. The unauthorized publication resulted from a mistake by an internal computing staff person, according to the vice chancellor for Information Technology Services. Larry Conrad said in a statement Thursday that the football star’s transcript was put on a secure server in 2001 for test and demonstration purposes without identifying language and that a second person moved it to an unsecured directory in 2007 and did not remove the identification.
“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill takes very seriously the obligation to protect students’ academic records, which is why the recent exposure of a version of Julius Peppers’ transcript and its subsequent publication in media outlets was extremely troubling,” Thorp said in a statement. “We greatly regret this, and we have apologized to Mr. Peppers.”
More online…
- NCAA Tells Carolina It Has No AFAM Issues
News report from August 2012 - Julius Peppers Upset by Transcript’s Release
News release from August 2012 - Thorp Says Martin Has Freedom to Decide What Needs to be Done
News reports from August 2012 - UNC Plans Wide-Ranging Review of Academics-Athletics Relationship
News report from August 2012 - Published Transcript Linked to Football Star Peppers
News report from August 2012 - Judge Rules Lawyers Can Review Davis Cell Phone Records; Public Cannot
News report from August 2012 - Faculty Committee: Should UNC Athletes Be Academically Separate?
News report from July 2012 - The UNC’s Faculty Executive Committee report
- UNC Paid Lawyers $467,000 in NCAA Probe
News report from July 2012 - Only Football Players Took Hastily Arranged Summer Class, Taught in Absentia
News report from June 2012 - No Red Flags in General Independent Study Review
News report from June 2012 - SBI Probing Fraud Report in African, Afro-American Studies
News report from May 2012 - Evidence of Academic Fraud Found in African and Afro-American Studies
News report from May 2012 - Associate Professor New Chair of African, Afro-American Studies
News report from November 2011 - University Reviewing Independent Study
News report from October 2011 - Practices in African, Afro-American Studies Draw Scrutiny
News report from September 2011 - Department Chair Linked to Football Probe Resigns
News report from September 2011
