Saturday, October 25, 2014

A Reckoning in Chapel Hill

By now I'm sure you've seen some version of the whole sordid story: how the University of North Carolina had a set of fake classes in the Department of African-American Studies that were taken by  3100 students, especially athletes, over an 18-year period.  While it was largely the doing of the department secretary, who established and "graded" the classes, her boss was complicit.  Who was minding the store?  The See No Evil monkey department chair and the Hear No Evil monkey dean?  Anyway, the big dude newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are riding on UNC's case like a rented pony, and I'm afraid the fall out or flying material is going to adhere to other surfaces like academics and research as well.  Holy academic schadenfreude, Batman!  

I'll scrape my UNC sticker off my ride for the trip back home in December and come back with a righteous LSU one..



8 comments:

Linda Kay said...

Oh, my....scandal, scandal, scandal! I understand that the athletes are kept so busy with practice, that I'm not surprised someone comes up with a way to get them by for grades. Ugh.

TexWisGirl said...

always something...

Grand Crapaud said...

The coaches were in on it, I'm sure.

Big Sky Heidi said...

That's a shame that a few renegade hyperfans can do things like that!

Mike said...

The only thing different about UNC and other schools is UNC has just been caught.

As for the cartoon. Aren't you glad you weren't standing in the spot where the phrase 'that's when the shit hit the fan' came into being?

Cloudia said...

Individual departments garner respect more so than the U as a whole when it comes to the individual field.

Notice they chose to trash the African American Studies dept.

More coming to light every day - so do right!

Deena said...

I guess you won't be wearing baby blue UNC panties after this fiasco!

Bilbo said...

Academic fraud in support of college sports? I'm shocked ... SHOCKED, I tell you! Is Deena right?