The three-year saga of a scandal involving athletics and academics continues to permeate UNC’s administration and has spurred leaders to take action.
In that time, at least eight reports have been conducted on a scandal that has resulted in the departure of a chancellor and an athletic director, as well as the firing of a head football coach.
In December 2012, former Gov. Jim Martin released a report which found that all academic irregularities were confined to the Department of African American Studies, although the listing of no-show classes dated back to 1997.
Martin emphasized that only eight professors from the department were “unwittingly and indirectly compromised” in the academic fraud, but the report did not implicate any student athletes, coaches or athletic counselors. It laid blame primarily on two individuals, the former department chairman and a department administrator.
“We were asked to get to the bottom of this academic misconduct, and we have done everything in our power to do so,” Martin said at a January Board of Trustees meeting.
At the heart of the controversy is the former chairman Julius Nyang’oro, who was forced to resign in 2011 after a University report initially found he was involved in irregular courses. Nyang’oro was indicted Monday on a charge of accepting $12,000 for teaching a no-show course that summer. The indictment comes as part of a probe conducted by the State Bureau of Investigation that started in May 2012.
Administrators have taken additional steps to balance athletics and academics by creating the Student-Athlete Academic Initiative Working Group, led by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Jim Dean and Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham. In September, Association of American Universities President Hunter Rawlings released a report that lists 28 recommendations for the University’s athletic-academic relationship. The panel which developed the report was commissioned by former Chancellor Holden Thorp in the spring.
Among the report’s recommendations are a spending cap and a ban on freshman eligibility as a way to help athletes struggling with academics. This has been one of the most contentious recommendations — Cunningham said doing so could put UNC at a competitive disadvantage.
Many administrators, including Faculty Athletics Committee Chairwoman Joy Renner, say they agree with the report but want to make sure only practical suggestions are implemented. A year off from playing should not be applied as a one-size-fits-all solution, administrators said.
