UNC’s top leaders are frustrated with continuing reports of academic fraud involving athletes at UNC-Chapel Hill, said Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC-system Board of Governors.
Gage said academic fraud will likely dominate parts of today’s board meeting amidst ongoing investigations in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at UNC-CH.
Last week, Chancellor Holden Thorp said the University will take back $12,000 from former department chair Julius Nyang’oro for a summer class he agreed to conduct in lecture format last summer. Officials have since discovered that Nyang’oro taught the class, which was comprised of nearly all football players, as an independent study course where he didn’t meet with students regularly and asked them to hand in a 15 page paper at the end of the summer session.
The 2011 summer school class was conducted after UNC officials pledged reform following the discovery that members of the football team had received improper help from a tutor.
Gage said there is a culture throughout competitive sports programs, including at UNC-CH, that promotes winning at all costs and may obstruct reform efforts.
“This doesn’t mean that Chapel Hill is unable to get to the bottom of it, but they can’t snap fingers, make a few changes and hope that it will change,” she said.
“There must be a methodical, persistent effort to put greater oversight, policies and accountable people in place,” Gage said.
She said she has full confidence in UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp and the Board of Trustees, and said the UNC system currently sees no need to get involved with investigations. Thorp and UNC-system President Thomas Ross will speak at the meeting.
Joni Worthington, spokeswoman for the UNC system, said portions of the meeting on academic fraud may be held in closed session.
