Provost requests audit of classes

With a visit from an outside academic review team looming, UNC is working to prepare — by dropping in on classes unannounced.

Last month, the University’s accrediting agency asked UNC to prove it has taken sufficient action to address academic irregularities before a committee visits in April.

In response, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bruce Carney asked the University’s schools last week to verify that every lecture and course in their departments claiming to meet on a regular basis was, in fact, meeting.

And he said he needed the results within six days.

“Now we need to attend to the last remaining issues, and as usual we don’t have much time,” Carney wrote in an email dated Feb. 19.

He asked each dean for the results of the class audits and explanations detailing why some, if any, classes were not meeting as expected.

Gary Marchionini, dean of the School of Information and Library Science, said he understood the need for the checks, but getting them done for the 62 courses in his department was not easy.

“We have classes all around campus, we have evening classes, so finding someone who could cover each of them was a bit of hassle,” he said.

But other faculty members said they felt the request was more than just an inconvenience.

“We shouldn’t have to prove that we are doing something that we all think we should be doing — honest teaching, honest studying,” said Lew Margolis, an associate professor of public health.

“If there are cases where this very special educational relationship is not taking place, then OK, let’s think about that.

“But I don’t want to begin with the assumption that we’re not doing it already.”

Marchionini said some of his faculty were not entirely pleased with the auditing process.

“It’s a little bit insulting, but it’s part of what we have to do, and I think they all accept that,” he said.

Results from the checks were completed and returned to the provost’s office Monday.

The results of the audits, which are still being reviewed, will later be provided to the accrediting agency.

A sample of 187 random classes was audited in the College of Arts and Sciences, UNC spokeswoman Susan Hudson said in an email, and all of them checked out.

Marchionini and Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Susan King said all of their classes were accounted for.

King said as a new dean, she found the process helpful.

“With management, it’s always good to know what’s going on in your school and just to keep tabs on things,” King said. “I might just do it every semester myself.”

The audits are part of a larger effort to prove the legitimacy of classes within the University after a report by former Gov. Jim Martin, issued in December, exposed irregularities in more than 200 course sections. The report revealed that some irregular courses enrolled large numbers of student-athletes.

But Margolis said the issues should be addressed by the University as a whole, rather than divided between athletics and academics.

“If the professionalization of college sports is causing compromises to be made, wherever they’re being made, then we need to address that as a University,” he said.

Marchionini said all departments must work together.

“That’s part of the ‘uni’ in ‘university.’”

Contact the desk editor at university@dailytarheel.com.