Accreditation and UNC

By Professor Doom

     The UNC “paper courses” scandal ran for 18 years, despite years of complaints from faculty and whistleblowers about the fraud. UNC administration maintains the fraud they were committing was only due to a rogue faculty, and they had no idea anything was going on, despite the many previous investigations into the matter that were squelched found nothing, despite the thousands of students involved. UNC also promises that the paper courses fraud is the only fraud going on at UNC.

     I maintain that the fraud at UNC is actually fairly typical in higher education, and that accreditation really couldn’t do anything about the fraud at UNC, even if it cared. I maintain this is because accreditation is run by the same administrators that run the institutions…the system is set up so that fraud is easy, and so that administrators can do whatever they want with little input from those that are actually educators instead of plunderers of our nation’s tax dollars and destroyers our nation’s youth.

     But, why take my word for it? UNC, for example, is accredited by SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (they refer to themselves as “the Commission”). Surely it was a fluke that UNC’s open fraud took 18 years to discover despite many such complaints. SACS is responsible for accrediting the education of millions of students, wouldn’t it be nice to know what they do in general about complaints of fraud? 

     Well, actually, it’s pretty easy to find out, since SACS is kind enough to put their procedures online. Thus it is that anyone who cares to know can find out how trivial it is to run an 18 year fraud like UNC, and how reasonable it is to claim that such frauds are everyday, business-as-usual, events in higher education today.

     So, let’s pretend you are faculty at UNC, say, around 1996, and you see that students are engaging in totally fraudulent classes...not just one student, but dozens, hundreds, engaging in open academic fraud. Since you have integrity, and want to work at an institution with integrity, you decide to report the fraud to accreditation. You go to SACs, and get their information. It’s possible policies were slightly different 18 years ago, so just trust me that the rules were close enough to today's rules. So let’s accept the current policy at face value in this regard:

“The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) recognizes the value of information provided by students, employees, and others in determining whether an institution’s performance is consistent with the Commission’s standards for obtaining or maintaining accreditation.”

     Great! SACS sound like they’re willing to hear complaints. That’s certainly a good start. Let’s read on:

“Because the Commission’s complaint procedures are for the purpose of addressing any significant non-compliance with the Commission’s standards, policies, or procedures, the procedures are not intended to be used to involve the Commission in disputes between individuals and member institutions…”

    

     Ok, fair enough, SACS only wants to hear about accreditation issues, and not about disputes between individuals and the institutions. While this sounds good, keep in mind that, immediately, this means administration can do whatever they want to faculty, and faculty are helpless against it, at least as far as accreditation is concerned. Any faculty trying to complain about violations like “lack of integrity” (this is SAC’s first principle of accreditation) in treatment of faculty will get nowhere with SACS, since their own policies don’t allow for hearing of such complaints.

     Hmm, accreditation in no way protects faculty from administrative abuses.

     But that’s ok, remember, we’re pretending you’re a faculty member complaining about those bogus paper courses UNC offers, and that’s not a personal matter at all. Still good, right? Read on:

     The Commission expects individuals to attempt to resolve the issue through all means available to the complainant, including following the institution’s own published grievance procedures, before submitting a complaint to the Commission. Therefore, the Commission’s usual practice is not to consider a complaint that is currently in administrative proceedings, including institutional proceedings, or in litigation.

     Ok, so SACS says that before complaining to them, as faculty you should try to resolve things at your own institution. Oh, wait. Time and again I’ve documented that any faculty who dares make a complaint against administration is in for a beating…if you go that route, then you’ll probably have to fight a legal battle for ten years or more (and be out of a job, and unemployable, while doing it). Vicious administration might use a child’s t-shirt to justify suspending you. They will hurt you any way they can…and I’ll stop linking examples of exactly what you’ll face if you make a complaint traceable to you.

    After you fight this ten year battle just to get administration to honor its basic policies, THEN, hopefully, you’ll be able to get administration to do something about the actual thing you complained about, that is, the fraudulent paper courses on campus. THEN, if administration doesn’t do anything about it, you can then hope to get SACS to “look into it.” But only after you’ve destroyed your career and made your own life miserable first.

     Let’s suppose you don’t want to fight a decade long legal battle before you can even have a slight chance that SACS will do something about the egregious fraud going on at UNC. Read on, and there’s hope:

“However, if there is substantial, credible evidence that indicates systemic problems with an accredited institution, the Commission may, at its discretion, choose to proceed with the review…”

     This is a little problematic. You have to first destroy your life and career before you’d be able to show there are “systemic problems with an accredited institution” (and, keep in mind, SACS probably put this line in here because many institutions have systemic problems with fraud). So let’s suppose, as faculty, you watch a few other faculty members try to get the fraud fixed. You watch them get destroyed by administration for complaining about the open violation of accrediting standards. You gather your evidence, and then make your complaint.

     That’ll take at least two years, but I guess letting the fraud run for 2 years isn’t so bad, in the name of collegiality. Keep that in mind, by SACS’ own policies, every institution can have multiple-year long fraud policies running, because of their defined procedures. This is actually quite common; accreditation reviews can easily be spaced out 5 years or more, and many faculty have reported things are VERY different when there’s a accreditation review…and revert as soon as the very limp investigation by the accreditors ends.

     But, you wait two years, gather impressive evidence, and make your complaint. It’s now 1998. Let’s see how to do that:

In order to be considered, a formal complaint must be submitted in writing using the Commission’s “Complaint against Institutions: Information Sheet and Form,” signed, and two copies sent to: President, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia, 30033

-4097. The Commission will entertain neither complaints that are not in writing or which are anonymous,

    Ok, so you have to submit your complaint in writing—they won’t accept e-mailed or faxed complaints (did I mention how little policies change over the years? You can fax orders for pizzas or buy bullion gold with an e-mail…higher education is slow to change, I admit). Alas, SACS will not accept anonymous complaints.

 

     That’s a problem. If you turn in a complaint, and it has your name on it, then administration at your institution is going to know. They’re going to make your life hell, and there won’t be a thing you can do about it.

     But hey, you’re faculty, you’re smart. If you can’t submit your complaint and evidence anonymously, well then, you’ll just get a lawyer to submit on your behalf. Let’s suppose you’re willing to pay a lawyer a few thousand bucks to do just that. Good enough? Nope:

In addition, the Commission will not act on complaints submitted on behalf of another individual or complaints forwarded to the Commission

   

     Obviously, other faculty have tried to protect themselves in this manner, and so administrators at SACS (and thus the same at the institution) saw to it that faculty wouldn’t be able to safely make a complaint. So much for that idea. Even if you have a complaint, and evidence, that administration at your institution is condoning the rape of children and the theft of billions of dollars via academic fraud, SACS will do nothing about it unless you’re willing to sacrifice your own life and career.

     So, you make the sacrifice, do the right thing, and submit the evidence to administration first. You fight your ten year battle to be treated decently. It’s now 2008. You then give administration 3 years to clean up its act (remember, SACS won’t address any ongoing proceedings, by their above policies, and administration isn’t motivated to move quickly here). Still alive? Then, finally, assuming administration doesn’t screw you again and make your life more hellish, you can report to SACs all that evidence you gathered a decade earlier.

     It’ll take SACS five years or so to make their own investigation…it’ll be at least 2013 before SACS finally acknowledges there might, maybe, possibly, be a problem. Too bad policy doesn’t allow for evidence to be considered without a personal sacrifice.

     It doesn’t matter what the evidence is, the person supplying the evidence must come forward and be destroyed by the criminals that would be hurt by the evidence.     It’s almost as though the policy were written by the very people that could possibly be hurt by a complaint. Well, that’s because it has been written by those same people. 

  

     Seriously, looking at the above, it becomes quite understandable why UNC could engage in systematic fraud over the course of 18 years with only half a dozen or so faculty willing to make complaints, and even then mostly only willing to make quiet, whimpering, “please stop doing this” type complaints, as opposed to formal complaints to accreditation.

     And suppose you make this sacrifice? Well, then, let’s look at UNC. After 18 years of fraud, what will accreditation do about it?

     Next time.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

UNC’s Systemic Fraud Was A “Typo.” Shameless!

By Professor Doom

     The academic fraud at UNC was intergenerational: it went on long enough that a participant in the early days of the fraud could see his child grow up, come to this university, and also participate in the fraud.

In one exchange, regarding a basketball player, Crowder asked Boxill if a "D will do."

“I’m only asking,” Crowder wrote, “because 1. No sources. 2, it has absolutely nothing to do with the assignments for the class and 3. It seems to be a recycled paper.”

"Yes," Boxill replied, "a D will be fine; that’s all she needs."

--I too have been on a campus where you had to ask permission if you wanted to fail a student, and I’ve covered many other faculty who’ve said the same. I maintain my claim that UNC is not alone here…

     For latecomers, a quick summary of the fraud: UNC had institutionalized “paper courses” running out of the African Studies department. All a student needed to do was submit a paper, any paper (not even written by the student), and the student would get a passing grade, with “A” being pretty common.

     There are several reasons the “fake classes” went on so long. Primary was because Admin has complete power: every whistleblower found himself out of a job and career ruined (a specific shout out to Mary Willingham, who received a 6 figure settlement for being punished for whistleblowing). Since it was an academic fraud, their accreditor, SACS, should have found it in their many “accreditation reviews” over the intergenerational fraud, but the same admin who run UNC also have a guiding hand in SACS: SACS policies make it impossible to detect even the most egregious fraud, even when the whistleblower provides documentation, and SACs allows the universities to perform all self-reviews, self-affirming their own legitimacy. Because the fraud was so blatant, so widely known, there were investigations, but admin squelched them regularly.

      Eventually there was so much evidence that it was no longer possible to cover up the fraud going on there, and, finally, UNC admitted to fraud. The accreditor stepped in, and levied the biggest penalty it could: pay raises were granted to administrators, for their failure to cover up the fraud. Yes, that’s the penalty. I’m putting some spin on that interpretation but bottom line, UNC didn’t have to pay a price for their academic fraud. The admin there just had to submit some paperwork showing that they investigated themselves, and were satisfied they weren’t committing fraud anymore. SACS accepted UNC’s self-investigation, as always, and then admin gave themselves pay raises and bonuses for doing the paperwork covering up the fraud…these guys just can’t lose.

      So, no penalty for the academic fraud which UNC admitted to, and lost court cases to whistleblowers trying to stop it.

     What of the NCAA? Our college athletes are supposed to be students as well, supposed to be getting a college education in exchange for sacrificing themselves at sportsball. The NCAA exists to protect those students and see to it they’re getting a fair shake (stop laughing!). It’s also supposed to make sure everything is fair (stop laughing!), and if one school is putting the athletes in fake classes, that’s not fair to the other schools, who are assuredly working hard to make sure their student athletes are getting a legitimate education (stop laughing!). I concede it’s hard to do this with a straight face but I’m trying to take the NCAA at their word, here (stop laughing!).

     So, the NCAA should take issue with UNC’s open fraud. The UNC defended itself from the NCAA:

The university aggressively fought the NCAA's efforts to assert its authority in this case, spending roughly $18 million on legal and other fees.

      I really want the gentle reader to put things in perspective here. UNC is a state school. Your tax dollars went to support an intergenerational fraud, a fraud which no administrator lost her job over….not even one, although quite a few got pay raises and bonuses for covering it up.

      Your tax dollars also went to defend this school from the consequences of that fraud, to the tune of $18 million, raising tuition all the while.

     Classes at this school have hundreds of students in them, and are taught by sub-minimum wage adjuncts, because the taxpayers just aren’t contributing enough money to pay a decent wages to the teachers.

       But UNC has millions of dollars available, your tax dollars, when it comes time to defend themselves from their own fraud. If you think the purpose of the university is to have sportsball, it was money well spent:

But after a three-and-half-year investigation, and despite the institution even agreeing that it had engaged in academic fraud, the NCAA said it couldn’t definitively conclude that the “paper courses” in the department of African and Afro-American studies had been designed and offered as an effort to benefit athletes alone. Thus, according to the NCAA's Committee on Infractions, which adjudicates allegations of wrongdoing, they did not violate the group's rules.

     Wow, a written confession and hundreds of pages of evidence still isn’t enough to “definitively conclude” anything here. It’s demented how admin’s failure to cover up the fraud actually helped them.

     See, these paper classes, when they started up nigh 20 years ago, were intended just for athletes; it was supposed to be hush-hush, just a single student in each class, all “taught” by a compliant professor who’d keep her mouth shut. That was the plan, and with a single-student-per-class setup, it should have worked. But the fraud went on for so long that word got out; thousands of students, about half of them not athletes, were now partaking in the fraud.

      And because of admin’s failure to keep the fraudulent system private, it was ruled the system was not “an effort to benefit athletes alone,” and so the NCAA sees no need to intervene.

"The panel is troubled by UNC's shifting positions ... depending on the audience," the report states.

      Yeah, those shifting positions are pretty shameless. SACS looks the other way on this fraud because they decided it was mostly about athletes (that’s what UNC told them, after all) and so not SACS’ concern. The NCAA looks the other way on this fraud because they decided it was mostly about students (that’s what UNC told them, after all), and so it’s not the NCAA’s concern.

     The fact that the fraud was widespread saved UNC. I can’t make this stuff up.

      But it’s fraud, right, UNC even admitted to it, finally, right? Not so fast. Turns out UNC’s written admission of fraud was a typo.

 “…the panel notes that the university contended that its use of the phrase "academic fraud" was a typographical error.”

     Whoa. UNC is claiming that their lawyers accidentally typed out a confession to “academic fraud” in their confession of academic fraud, in response to a 100+ page report exhaustively detailing the academic fraud. That is one gold-plated HECK of a typo.

     You want to bet no lawyer will be fired over this “typo”? And the NCAA bought this ridiculous story?

     You betcha.

     How do these suit-wearing admin manage to sleep at night while supporting such obvious lies? How do they handle the incredible headaches from holding the cognitive dissonance of lies of this magnitude in their minds? I guess I’ll leave such questions to the philosophers, but I do want to highlight some choice comments from normal decent people (i.e., people who could never work as a college administrator or for the NCAA):

The NCAA gives the green light to "colleges" creating fake courses for athletes, so long as:

1) The "college" claims they aren't fake; and

2) the athletes get enough of their girl friends to enroll so that the majority of "students" aren't athletes

     This is a major point. Both accreditor and the NCAA have said this level of fraud is perfectly acceptable, and accepted UNC’s contradictory claims that the fraud was simultaneously exclusively for athletes and not exclusively for athletes. The gentle reader had better believe that administrators at other universities are taking notes, and realizing that even a slight patina of integrity at their schools is completely unnecessary.

It is like a dirty cop not even stepping out of the street to accept his payoff or a bank robber not even bothering to put on a mask before entering the bank. The corruption is right out in the open and they don't punish it.

     Another important detail to highlight: this corruption was wide open. Thousands of students partook. Many faculty knew about it, but were helpless to stop it. Every administrator had to know, despite their denials; there’s a nice racketeering case here if the Feds ever decide to pursue it. Granted, if they did so, UNC would be spending infinite taxpayer dollars to defend themselves from the infinite taxpayer dollars the government could spend to prosecute them, so I reckon I can see why this open racketeering is tolerated.

     Of course, the UNC would be getting a big chunk of its money for lawyers from the student loan scam…maybe we could get rid of that, and then we’ll see an iota of justice here?

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

The Price of UNC’s Fraud: Nothing

By Professor Doom

     So, last time around I went step by step through SACS accreditation procedures to see what it would take for SACS to even notice a direct, documented, extreme case of fraud like what was going on at UNC (and parallels of such fraud go on at many other institutions, I promise you). 

     After some 18 years, it’s now established beyond all doubt that UNC was engaging in widespread fraud, and now SACS, the organization that accredits UNC, and in the eyes of many, guarantees the legitimacy of education at UNC and other institutions of higher education, will slowly, reluctantly, try to do something about it.

      You can go to jail for grade fixing. So what’s the penalty for this level of institutionalized fraud?

This week, a letter will be sent to UNC-CH officials informing them of the new probe, said Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges. The review will focus on the findings of the Oct. 22 Wainstein report, which revealed nearly two decades of academic fraud, including hundreds of fake independent studies and no-show classes in African and Afro-American Studies taken by more than 3,100 students.

The scope of the academic misdeeds is unlike anything Wheelan said she’d seen.

     First thing SACS will do is write UNC a letter.

     A letter! Oh man, UNC must be a’quaking.

    This letter will let them know that SACS is coming to take a closer look. While this might sound scary, the gentle reader needs to realize that the purpose of this letter is to give UNC the time it needs to set up a Potemkin school, one that looks all nice and legit. Having been at a few schools that set up Potemkin classrooms for accreditors, I know this part of the game.

     SACS’ Poo-Bah says the scope of the fraud is unlike anything she’d seen before, but the gentle reader needs to also realize, SACS’ complaint and investigation policies are set up so that it’s all but impossible for SACS to see any widespread fraud, as my previous post discussed in some detail.

     Against all odds, the fraud at UNC has at last been revealed.

     What of the penalty for such fraud? In every other business that is regulated, gross violations of the rules results in some sort of penalty. What’s the price for the last 18 years of fraud?

     So far, basically nothing:

The board found deficiencies in UNC-CH’s compliance with its standards for academic policies, student services, student records and class credit hours. It required UNC-CH to offer students and graduates, at no cost, courses to make up for the phony classes.

No graduates returned for the classes, but about a dozen students took another course, because the AFAM courses in question could not count toward a diploma.

     So, the penalty for giving fake classes was…offer legit classes, legitimacy determined by UNC (!!!). Of the THOUSANDS of students that were involved over the course of 18 years, “about a dozen”  decided to take another course. No graduates, of course, as they’re long gone with their bogus degrees…I’m sure legitimate alumni feel great about that. Or am I making a bad assumption about there being legitimate alumni?

      A few students still on campus did take another course. Not in the African Studies department, naturally, since everyone knows that department’s “coursework” is worthless. I really feel the need to point out that African Studies is not by any means the only department offering widespread bogus courses (hi, Education department!). Keep in mind, the students that took bogus courses in AFAM almost certainly just moved on to taking a bogus course in a different department. Anyone with half a brain would ask what those students took, and what their majors are, but I digress.

     But…wait a minute here. That’s not how penalties for criminal behavior work anywhere else. I mean, if I rob a bank, the penalty I pay when I’m caught isn’t simply “return every dollar”, right? If I claim I’m selling diamonds and charge for diamonds, but I’m actually selling glass, and I’m caught after 18 years of such fraud, my penalty isn’t going to  be “you’ll have to give a few of them another piece of glass.”

      Heck, UNC doesn’t even have to return the tuition money it stole, money mostly stolen from taxpayers. Instead, they just had to offer the robbed students a chance to take some other bogus coursework.

      Believe you me, the Poo-Bahs at other institutions are looking at this and breathing a sigh of relief…they know when and if the fraud going on at their institutions is ever caught, their slap on the wrist will feel more like a kiss.

          I often trash higher education administrators for their utter lack of integrity, and the shamelessness in which they exploit our children and our Federal government’s student loan scam. I acknowledge that I’ve actually met a Poo-Bah with integrity, and there are certainly a few around:

The revelations prompted the president of Macalester College in Minnesota to pen an Op-Ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education calling for the suspension of UNC-CH’s accreditation. Accreditation is vital because it’s required for universities to receive federal funding; colleges that have lost accreditation have gone out of business.

“Any accrediting agency that would overlook a violation of this magnitude would both delegitimize itself and appear hopelessly hypocritical if it attempted, now or in the future, to threaten or sanction institutions – generally those with much less wealth and influence – for violations much smaller in scale,” Macalester President Brian Rosenberg wrote. “If falsified grades and transcripts for more than 3,000 students over more than a decade are viewed as anything other than an egregious violation of those standards, my response to the whole accreditation process is simple: Why bother?”

      President Rosenberg (I refer to him as President rather than Poo-Bah because he’s actually worthy of a real title) makes an extremely valid point, albeit one I’ve made in my blog many times. If accreditation in no way assures even the slightest level of legitimacy of an institution, what’s accreditation for? Why BOTHER with it? UNC engaged in creating fraudulent courses and transcripts for 18 years, and the best penalty accreditation can come up with is “you’re gonna have to do something less openly fraudulent.”

     Imagine if, instead, as President Rosenberg advises, SACS removed accreditation from UNC as a result of UNC’s systemic, long running, fraud. That would send a real message to higher education that it would be time to put some integrity back into the system.

     I really should point out that President Rosenberg is most extraordinary in having such integrity:

UNC-CH Chancellor Carol Folt said she had talked with about two dozen presidents of major universities, none of whom suggested such an outcome.

“I actually think that was a pretty outrageous assertion from a president,” Folt said.

     The gentle reader should take note here: the Poo-Bah of UNC admits only 1 out of 26 Poo-Bahs in higher education has even a shred of integrity, and is shameless about it. Seriously, it’s “outrageous” to think there should be a severe penalty for this level of fraud? I again come back to President Rosenberg’s point: if widespread, open, fraud, over the course of 18 years doesn’t even risk the loss of accreditation, what would? 

     Again, why bother with accreditation if it’s completely meaningless?

      Yes, this question has been asked before of other fraudulent institutions. It will keep getting asked as fraud after fraud is revealed in higher education. I promise you, many institutions have systems very comparable to UNC.

     Next time, I’ll look at the current cover-up by UNC, and more accreditation practices.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com