Surprise Classroom Checks Find No Surprises
Posted on March 4, 2013The University has been calling the roll on attendance in classes this semester — not by individuals but to make sure the classes are being held and that a faculty member is present. An unadvertised program sent 16 staff people from UNC Information Technology around to College of Arts and Sciences’ classrooms — some of whom appeared in the classrooms and others who merely looked through door windows to see whether the room was populated.
Provost Bruce Carney initiated the inspections, one of the recommendations of the James Martin/Baker Tilly report on the scandal that arose from the department of African and Afro-American studies’ offering of many classes over a decade that never met with a professor.
Carney said the inspections, believed to be a Carolina first, were not related to an upcoming visit by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in April when the University will need to show that reforms announced after the scandal are up and running.
Faculty members were surprised and in some cases perplexed and outraged that UNC was checking up on them. The program included an audit on compliance with new requirements that every course syllabus be made available to a teacher’s higher-ups. The secrecy worked — the highest ranking members of the faculty administration either knew few details or nothing at all about it before they read about it in the newspaper.
Selected at random, 187 classes were checked out of some 2,300 course sections, and almost all were in their places. A few classes were meeting in different locations, and one went unfound; it will be checked again.
The same inspections were carried out in each of UNC’s professional schools at each dean’s discretion.
In a Feb. 19 memo to deans in academic affairs and health affairs, Carney wrote: “We need a report from you on the progress on checks of lecture and other courses that were intended to meet on a regular basis with an instructor. What method was used? How many classes were surveyed? What were the results? If a class was not underway at the expected time, we need a detailed explanation. In the College, for example, a few courses did not have students, one because the faculty member was sick, and in the other case the class meeting site alternates between Chapel Hill and Duke. Thus if a class is not meeting at its proper time and location, we need to know a reason, and the class should be checked again later.”
Even Faculty Chair Jan Boxill didn’t know about the inspections until after the fact.
“It’s kind of insulting,” she said. In her department, philosophy, Boxill said that her chair requires faculty to notify an upcoming absence or location change and that students usually come to the chair if a class unexpectedly fails to meet.
Lewis Margolis, an associate professor of maternal and child health in the Gillings Global School of Public Health, saw the shadow of Big Brother. “It doesn’t seem like something that we as a university ought to be engaged in,” he said. “I think in the context of lux and libertas, the basic assumption has to be that faculty and students are carrying on with integrity. If there’s a reason to think that’s not happening, we need to have a discussion about this. These questions are what we teach our students to ask about.”
In his regular commentary on WCHL radio, Margolis said, “It seems to me that no system short of George Orwell’s Big Brother cameras in each classroom can hope to document time in the classroom, even if we were to accept the hypothesis that time spent sitting in a room is a valid measure of the educational process.”
Other faculty took the visits in stride, even using them as teachable moments about the intrusion of the scandal on business as usual.
Dean Susan King of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication said it was a smooth process, with all the school’s classes in one building. “I wanted a snapshot for one week,” she said, so each class was checked every day. Three were found missing; they were being taught in the field. King said she told the faculty they’d be checked.
“It didn’t seem out of the ordinary for me in an accreditation process.”
One professor, who asked not to be identified, said that the inspections were not so surprising to him in the current atmosphere because he’s involved in faculty administration but that he believes those less involved could be angered. Another said it’s not too far-fetched to wonder whether faculty eventually will have to prove their presence daily in buildings that require card readers for access.
Bobbi Owen, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email, “The faculty with whom I have spoken have generally been amused and not at all troubled which just proves that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing (at least the ones talking to me)!”
Carney explained in an email: “Since this was a new experience for the campus, I gave the deans flexibility in how to undertake the efforts, and asked them to also report on how they chose to undertake the work. I believe that we have learned how to do this much better, should the new provost determine that the effort has long-term merit. We did lay out some basic ground rules ahead of time, such as the person checking a course should be objective. One dean asked if students could be emailed to confirm that the class was meeting as scheduled, but the dean was advised to make certain that people associated with the class should not be involved.”
More online…
- Accreditors: UNC Out of Compliance in Fraud Case
February 2013 news report - BOG Panel Accepts Previous Findings in Academic Probe
February 2013 news report - 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.
