re: UNC Admits Academic Fraud: Lack Of Institutional Controls, *NCAA Issues 3rd NOA

UNC and NCAA are now in a partnership....b/c sure, if your transgressions fly in the face of the mission statement of the NCAA, but the NCAA doesn't want to do a damn thing about it...might as well circle the wagons with them....

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/unc-scandal/article18880224.html

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Six months after a report recounting 18 years of academic fraud at UNC-Chapel Hill, few clues have emerged as to where the NCAA is headed with its investigation.

But contacts with at least two potential witnesses show the NCAA is treating UNC as a partner in the case, despite the previous efforts UNC mounted to convince the NCAA and the public that the fraud had no athletic motive.

In one circumstance, the NCAA received documents from a former graduate school admissions director, Cheryl Thomas, that showed a football player had been admitted and given a fourth year of eligibility despite a low GPA and no entrance exam. It forwarded the documents to a lawyer representing UNC, emails show. The lawyer then sought to interview her.

When she didn’t respond, the NCAA contacted her by email for an interview. But that email shows the NCAA wanted UNC to participate.
When she didn’t respond, the NCAA contacted her by email for an interview. But that email shows the NCAA wanted UNC to participate.

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“It doesn’t make rational sense,” said Donna Lopiano, a former director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas. “I know the institution does have an obligation under NCAA rules to assess itself and report a violation. But as soon as the NCAA comes in, I don’t understand the university’s participation.”

She and others have criticized the NCAA’s handling of the UNC case. For more than two years, the NCAA accepted the university’s position that the fraud wasn’t about athletics because non-athletes were also in the fake classes and received the same high grades.

But Kenneth Wainstein’s investigation last fall found athlete eligibility at the heart of the scandal.

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NCAA officials declined a reporter’s request to talk about the UNC case, or the enforcement process. NCAA President Mark Emmert has said the scandal “potentially strikes at the heart of what higher education is about.” But he has not said whether he thinks what happened at UNC constitutes a violation of NCAA academic integrity rules.

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SACS is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which accredits UNC. The commission has requested more information about the scandal and is expected to consider sanctions against the university in June.

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Now this part is news to me. I thought SACS already washed their hands of it. We'll find out if SACS wants people to still value their academic institution accreditations or not.