BOG Panel Accepts Previous Findings in Academic Probe
Posted on Feb. 7, 2013A UNC System Board of Governors panel investigating incidents of academic fraud at UNC has come to essentially the same conclusions as others who have looked into the matter. In a 36-page report released Thursday, the panel of BOG members adopted the findings of other investigators, including the James Martin/Baker Tilly report, and said there was no evidence of collusion between the athletics department and its academic support program and the architects of the fraud discovered in more than 50 classes in the department of African and Afro-American studies.
The report said it was disturbing that the actions of former professor and department chair Julius Nyang’oro and his assistant, Deborah Crowder ’75 — the only people implicated in the scandal — went undetected for several years.
“We may never know whether some student-athletes were advised to enroll in the irregular courses specifically as a mechanism to help preserve their athletic eligibility,” the report said, “but no evidence has been found to support a conclusion that a conspiracy or collusion existed between the Athletic Department and the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes, on the one hand, and the two complicit former employees in the AFAM Department on the other hand.”
The report went on to conclude, “It is, however, reasonable to assume that many students — athletes and non-athletes alike — enrolled in these irregular AFAM Department courses expecting to achieve good grades with little rigor.”
Evidence of fraud involved more than 50 classes, many of which had been taught in summer sessions by Nyang’oro. UNC’s initial in-house investigation covered the period of the summer of 2007 through summer 2011. In the period summer 2007 to summer 2009, nine classes containing 59 students were found to be “aberrant” — showing no evidence that a faculty member supervised or graded the work. Forty-three other courses were found to be “taught irregularly — the faculty member made an assignment and apparently graded it, but had no other discernible contact with the students. The fraud involved primarily independent studies courses, in which students study on their own and typically produce one or more papers, with expected supervision from the faculty member.”
In the most extensive of the separate investigations, Martin, who is a former North Carolina governor, and the consultant firm Baker Tilly discovered that in suspect classes held during a decade starting in 2001, athletes accounted for 45 percent of the enrollments. Martin reported in December that this was an academic, not an athletic, scandal because non-athletes also were enrolled and received the same benefits of poorly supervised or non-supervised classes.
The BOG accepted the Martin findings along with the discoveries of an initial probe led by two UNC associate deans, another by a task force appointed by the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and another by a special subcommittee of the Faculty Executive Committee. UNC still is awaiting the conclusion of an investigation of the State Bureau of Investigation into whether Nyang’oro committed criminal offenses in taking pay for classes he didn’t teach.
“The fact that these improper courses extended over a 14-year period (Martin’s findings went back to 1997) without detection is extremely troubling,” the BOG panel wrote. “Imperfect institutional processes and systems contributed substantially to the university’s failure to detect and stop these irregular courses and unauthorized grading practices. There was no process in place that required a periodic review of the department chair, so long as that individual remained as chair. There was no review of the department chair’s course load or course requirements by his supervisors. There were no policies limiting the number of independent studies courses that a faculty member could teach or that defined the responsibilities of faculty members teaching in an independent study format.”
The report acknowledged that the University has put in place new governing structures, monitoring systems and regular reviews since the scandal came to light and has placed limits on the number of independent studies courses a student can take and that a faculty member can teach.
The panel, chaired by Louis Bisette ’68 (JD) of Asheville, included Walter Davenport of Raleigh, James Deal ’74 (JD) of Boone, Ann Goodnight of Cary and Hari Nath of Cary.
The full BOG received the report at a regular meeting on Thursday but did not take action. The report released Thursday was stamped “Proposed for Adoption.”
More online…
- Martin Says Fraud Isolated to African Studies Department
December 2012 news report - Thorp Says Martin Has Freedom to Decide What Needs to be Done
August 2012 news report - UNC Plans Wide-Ranging Review of Academics-Athletics Relationship
August 2012 news report - Published Transcript Linked to Football Star Peppers
August 2012 news report - Judge Rules Lawyers Can Review Davis Cell Phone Records; Public Cannot
August 2012 news report - Faculty Committee: Should UNC Athletes Be Academically Separate?
July 2012 news report - The UNC’s Faculty Executive Committee report
- UNC Paid Lawyers $467,000 in NCAA Probe
July 2012 news report - Only Football Players Took Hastily Arranged Summer Class, Taught in Absentia
June 2012 news report - No Red Flags in General Independent Study Review
June 2012 news report - SBI Probing Fraud Report in African, Afro-American Studies
May 2012 news report - Evidence of Academic Fraud Found in African and Afro-American Studies
May 2012 news report - Associate Professor New Chair of African, Afro-American Studies
November 2011 news report - University Reviewing Independent Study
October 2011 news report - Practices in African, Afro-American Studies Draw Scrutiny
September 2011 news report - Department Chair Linked to Football Probe Resigns
September 2011 news report - A Flag Is Down: A football season that started with high expectations is being played beneath the shadow of an investigation into improper outside contacts and academic misconduct. From the November/December 2010 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.
