Ex-University of North Carolina professor charged over no-show class

Fox News ^ | 12/02/13

[Libloather]

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – A former professor at the center of an academic scandal involving athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been charged with a felony, accused of receiving $12,000 in payment for a lecture course in which he held no classes.

**SNIP**

Nyang'Oro, who retired in 2012, could face up to 10 months in prison if convicted. The university said it recouped the $12,000 from his final paycheck.

[Libloather]

But he said Nyang'oro instead ran an independent study class that required students to write papers but not show up. The school found that the course, a late addition to the schedule, had an enrollment of 18 football players and one former football player.

Bet they graduated.

[Darteaus94025]

Another of Obama’s sons!

[GeronL]

don’t have to crack a book if you are entitled

[deport]

This would appear to be something that could include penalties from the NCAA...

[staytrue]

the most important part of the article:

“Nyang’Oro was chairman of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. He resigned from that post in 2011 during a campus investigation that found certain classes in the department that instructors did not teach, undocumented grade changes and faked faculty signatures on some grade reports.

The scandal contributed to the departure of football coach Butch Davis and the resignation of a former chancellor, Holden Thorp.”

[Ouchthatonehurt]

I worry about the future of the knock out game with these young men missing their classes.

[Husker24]

That must have been one hell of a last paycheck.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Holy smokes! Who would have thought something like this could happen at our institutions of higher learning?

[Dartman]

Chapel Hill. The epitome of left leaning schools, a hot bed of socialism. I know, I have a nephew who attended there, and that’s where he met his wife (now ex-wife). He wasn’t lefty enough for her and he’s really lefty.

[dfwgator]

Sounds like a new “Fat Albert” Joke.

“Man, you’re just like a North Carolina Professor: No Class”

[Nervous Tick]

Yet another monkey screwing up the system.

[Michael.SF.]

SCAPEGOAT

Someone has to take the fall. I would be very surprised if the Admins did not know this.

[relictele]

You beat me to it. Verbatim.

[Black Agnes]

How much was he making if there was $12K in his final paycheck to ‘recoup’?

[JoeDetweiler]

It’s great that they got this guy....but I don’t believe for a minute that higher-ups didn’t know what was going on. Let’s face it, special classes for football players are a running joke at every major university in the country.

[GeronL]

bump

This guy? They don’t really think this was the only fake class these guys were attending do they?

[kcvl]

[USNBandit]

I wonder how the University is able to go after the $12k. He did what he was paid for. He kept players on the field. The University is a co-conspirator.

[kcvl]

Last summer, UNC-Chapel Hill professor Julius Nyang’oro received $12,000 to teach AFAM 280 – Blacks in North Carolina. The 19 students enrolled in the course were to learn about the state’s legacy of slavery and racism, and how blacks fought to overcome it.

It is a course that typically involved classroom lectures, research papers and exams, according to syllabi from other UNC-CH professors who taught it. Nyang’oro, the department’s chairman, was expected to teach it that way as well, university officials said.

But Nyang’oro did not hold classes or require any exams. His one-page syllabus said that because of the “compact nature” of the summer schedule, the students would spend that time largely on their own to find one or two black leaders in North Carolina to be the subject of a research paper due at the end of the session.

UPDATE: The secretary:

Crowder had close ties to the basketball team. She has been in a longtime relationship with a former basketball player, and Martin’s investigation found that in 2008, she had received $100,000 and some Hummel figurines from the estate of the father of a close friend who was the former academic adviser to basketball players until shortly before her death in 2004.

http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?s=AFAM+Julius

[kcvl]

Julius E Nyang Oro
African African-amer Studies - Professor

Julius E Nyang Oro is a North Carolina African African-amer Studies employee working as a Professor.

Salary: $200,000

Julius Nyang’oro took football tickets, sideline passes and other favors from counselors in exchange for help with independent studies scheduling, according to emails.

Members of the academic support staff offered Nyang’oro football tickets and the chance to watch a game from the sidelines. One counselor offered to discuss athletes’ coursework over drinks, and another negotiated with Nyang’oro to schedule a no-show class.

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp and other officials have said the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes did not collaborate with Nyang’oro or his department manager, Debbie Crowder, to create the classes to help keep athletes eligible to play sports.

The university, in its own investigation and in a probe helmed by former Gov. Jim Martin, had concluded the fraud was not intended to benefit athletes because nonathletes were also enrolled and received the same high grades. They have pinned the blame solely on Nyang’oro and Crowder.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/6/9/4411548/north-carolina-academics-scandal-professor-received-favors