At a Friday meeting of the Faculty Council, Chancellor Holden Thorp fielded the concerns of professors troubled by the recent NCAA investigation and interplay between academics and athletics.
Before dozens of his peers, microbiology professor and council member Steven Bachenheimer said the football program’s aspirations of becoming a top-ranked team came at odds with the University’s academic reputation.
“There is a connection between aspiring to be a top-10 football program in the country and the problems you’ve encountered here,” he said, during a question-and-answer session with Thorp.
Bachenheimer said that with the decision to hire head coach Butch Davis for the 2007 season, there was an understanding of wanting to vault the team into the upper echelon of college football.
“When a University aspires to national rankings in any sport, especially football, and as evidenced by hiring Davis, there is an implicit understanding that we’re sort of raising the expectations of the team,” he said.
Bachenheimer blamed those expectations for the recent investigation into allegations of academic misconduct by some members of the football team.
He added that it is important to ensure student athletes have a normal college experience and that UNC should better protect them from temptations of working with those outside the University.
In an interview, council member Thomas Linden said he was concerned with the investigation’s effect on UNC’s reputation.
Linden, the only other faculty member to address Thorp, said he was surprised by the $74,500 severance package former assistant football coach John Blake will receive. Thorp said such compensation is University policy, though it will be paid by the football program.
Thorp said he is using this investigation as a learning tool to improve the University as a whole.
