Gameday: A Whistle-Blower's Story of the ...

Part 2

What many didn't know is that some student-athletes (as well as traditional students) were indoctrinated into an internal system that appeared to focus on keeping student-athletes eligible to play and not necessarily on their academics. ”No show” or "fake classes” were classes in which students either were not required to attend  or did very little work for the class to earn high grades. These fake classes (also known as "paper classes” and independent studies) were the primarily way that struggling student-athletes could remain eligible [7].  

From 1993 to 2011 UNC offered independent study courses within the Department of African and Afro-American Studies (hereafter AFAM), headed by the now retired department chair Professor Julius Nyang'oro, who consistently awarded high grades regardless of the quality of the work submitted. If the course required a final research paper, the papers were not graded by faculty members, but rather were generally reviewed by Debbie Crowder, the department administrator. 

During the 18-year period these courses existed, 3,100 students were enrolled with almost half being student-athletes. An October 2014 report known as the Wainstein report [8] showed that a number of faculty and administrators, including some members of the athletic support department and the director of the Parr Center for Ethics, had varying levels of knowledge about the nature of the courses. But it was Mary Willingham, former learning specialist that worked in the UNC's Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling, decided to speak up.

[7] Smith J. & Willingham M. (2015) Cheated: The UNC Scandal, The Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports. Potomac Books.

[8] Wainstein, K., Jay, A., & Depman Kukowski, C. (2014, October 16). Investigation of Irregular Classes in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved July 24, 2015, from http://www.wralsportsfan.com/asset/colleges/unc/2014/10/22/14104501/148975-UNC-FINAL-REPORT.pdf