New review will seek scandal’s origin

Former Gov. Jim Martin said he will undertake a new review of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies as a scientist would — he’ll follow the evidence.

The University announced Thursday that Martin, 76, who was governor of North Carolina from 1985 to 1993, will lead an outside review of academic irregularities in the department.

But in the University’s latest attempt to root out the origin of its academic scandal, Martin will focus on the time period before 2007, back to when the impropriety began.

Martin, who will be assisted by the consulting firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLC, will begin the review in about a week and expects to finish in early to mid-October, he said in an interview.

“We’ll be looking for evidence of proper reporting of class activities, looking at grade patterns, records of that kind and see where that takes us,” Martin said.

Chancellor Holden Thorp said the review will not be limited to any department.

A University report released in May detailed improper teaching practices occurring primarily in the department’s summer courses between 2007 and 2009, laying responsibility on then-department chairman Julius Nyang’oro and administrator Deborah Crowder.

“If they decide they need to go further back in time, we’ll provide them the resources they need to do that,” Thorp said.

UNC-system President Thomas Ross, who was a student at Davidson College when Martin was a faculty member, said he is glad the University’s focus is on bringing the “deplorable” scandal to an end.

“I think anyone who hasn’t been satisfied with what’s been done in the past will have to be satisfied with this investigation,” Ross said, adding that he thinks Thorp has done all that is necessary to get to the bottom of the issue.

“(Thorp) has taken many, many steps to get to the bottom of what happened, find out who the culprits are and get them away from the University,” Ross said.

Ross added that UNC-CH’s actions have become a model for other schools within the system, and chancellors at the various universities have been taking their own steps to make sure nothing similar is occurring on their campuses.

Martin said he will use his pride in the state’s education system as one of the motivations for getting to the bottom of the scandal.
“It’s important for North Carolina that if something went wrong, let’s get it out real quick.”

UNC originally picked the time period from 2007 to 2009 to investigate because of information that had surfaced and records requests that had been made, Thorp said.

“I think we identified the main patterns, but obviously there’s a lot of interest in whether that was the right period to choose,” Thorp said.

The announcement of a new independent review came days after the discovery of former football and basketball star Julius Peppers’ transcript on a UNC website. Peppers confirmed the transcript’s authenticity Saturday, The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported.

The transcript revealed that Peppers took 12 classes in the department between the summer of 1998 and the fall of 2001, three of which were independent study courses.

However, Thorp denied that the transcript leak and the review are related.

“(The review) is not something we worked on in the last three days. With school starting, we decided this was the right time to roll this out,” Thorp said. Martin said Thorp asked him to lead the review the day before the announcement was made.

Thorp also announced another initiative that will examine the relationship between athletics and academics on campus. That announcement came on the heels of a faculty report that recommended such a step.

Thorp said he and the rest of his administration have decided the time has come to put the questions everyone has been asking to rest.

“In the future, when people say, ‘Well, how can you be sure this isn’t going to happen again?’ we’ll have Virchow Krause to certify to everybody that we’ve taken care of this.”

Contact the desk editor at university@dailytarheel.com.