On May 8th, 2014, WCHL broadcast an interview with UNC Learning Specialist Bradley Bethel, who has been a noted critic of Mary Willingham, Dr. Jay Smith and the media coverage of the academic scandal at UNC, mainly through his essays published at Coaching the Mind, on Twitter and in other outlets like the recent interview with Jeff Greenberg on Sports-Glutton.com.
There were several claims Mr. Bethel made in the interview, but probably the one most likely to garner reaction was his affirmation of the Martin Report's position that the scandal was an academic but not an athletic scandal, which Bethel re-asserted by attributing culpability to various dean offices in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences during at least the last decade of Dr. Julius Nyang'Oro's teaching of the so-called "paper classes" in his African and African-American (AFAM) studies department.
While refuting that any evidence exists to attribute collusion or malfeasance on the part of the athletic department or the academic support staff for student-athletes contributing to the scandal, he took considerable time to detail how the academic faculty responsible for oversight of Nyang'Oro failed in its duties, particular noting by name two who have recently been out-spoken critics of the determination that the scandal was limited to academics only.
WCHL's Ran Northam conducted the interview and Bethel's commentary can be heard here, an excerpted transcript of which I am posting below:
Ran Northam (recording time 18:09 - 18:27)
Bradley, we're talking about the UNC academic scandal, and it's been deemed that now as far as UNC academic scandal; first of all, would you say that's the proper way of characterizing what's going on at UNC right now?
Bradley Bethel (recording time 18:28 -26:35)
Well, unfortunately "yes" I think it is an academic scandal and I agree with former Governor Martin's comment that an academic scandal is even worse than an athletic scandal, and that's why I say "unfortunately" I think that that's accurate.
There are people who want to paint this scandal as the largest academic/athletics in NCAA history. I think Jay Smith has said that. His buddy at Ohio University, David Ridpath, has suggested that. Other people in the media have suggested that, but when you look at the actual evidence that we have so far, that accusation -- that allegation that this is such a huge athletic scandal -- is based on nothing but conjecture and insinuation.
Now, that's based on the evidence we have so far. The Wainstein Report is going on right now. Wainstein has talked to Debbie Crowder and has her testimony, and it is possible that Debbie Crowder reveals something that indicates collusion and malfeasance on the part of the athletics department. However, at this point, any suggestion of collusion and malfeasance is based on nothing but conjecture and insinuation.
And so, where the media - in particular Dan Kane -- has dropped the ball on assessing this scandal is looking at the extent to which -- really, again unfortuntately -- the academic side of campus is culpable. I've said a few times on Twitter recently that this is a case of the deans in the College of Arts & Sciences neglecting to provide the oversight that was necessary. In particular -- well, ironically, you have Jay Smith who, for five years, was the Dean of Curricula; 5 years the Dean of Curricula, yet for over a decade nobody had any idea what curriculum Julius Nyang'Oro was teaching in his classes. So I don't really understand what the Dean of Curricula was doing if he was so unaware of Julius Nyang'Oro's curricula for over a decade.
So, the Office of Curricula neglected to monitor the curriculum, as they should have. You have the...there's a senior associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at UNC, responsible for ensuring that all undergraduates receive a quality education; well obviously nobody was monitoring the teaching quality of Julius Nyang'Oro for over a decade. Somebody should have had...well, not just somebody, but in particular the deans who held that position: senior associate Dean of Undergraduate Education -- should have known; should have been monitoring the teaching quality in Nyang'Oro's classes, but for over a decade wasn't.
And then you have the deans of the college, who seem to be completely oblivious to Nyang'Oro's overall performance, curriculum, teaching quality; and I'll tell you what is really interesting about this, Ran; one of the outspoken critics who's one of the retired faculty members: Madeline Levine. She wrote a letter -- one of these now what seems to be the popular thing to do among the detractors is write a letter of complaint; a whiny letter of complaint -- a couple months ago she wrote one of these letters making unfounded accusations against the academic support program, and she was very explicit in saying that this was NOT a failure of academics oversight. Well, it's interesting that she says that because I recently did some digging and found out that Julius Nyang'Oro's last performance review and reappointment -- 5 year reappointment -- was at the end of the 2006/2007 school year. Do you know who was the dean during the 2006/2007 school year? It was Madeline Levine. Madeline Levine approved his performance review and his reappointment. Madeline Levine had the power, had the position, to know -- she should have known -- what was going on when she decided to give her stamp of approval to Julius Nyang'Oro for reappointment; but, it's really bizarre, Ran, most of us when we get a performance review our supervisor actually reviews our performance. I mean, that only makes sense, but for some reason, Madeline Levine and the deans who reviewed Nyang'Oro's performance seemed not to actually care about his performance.
So, when Madeline Levine comes out and says this isn't a failure of academic oversight, what she's doing is trying to hide the fact that it's specifically her failure of academic oversight, as well as the other deans who had no idea what was going on in his classrooms for over a decade.
You know, Ran, when I tell people back home in Ohio who have no idea about this scandal; when I tell my friends and family about this scandal, I say "So there's this professor who for over a decade was teaching these classes where he didn't show up," and the first response is always "how the heck did he get away with that?" How did nobody know what this professor was doing? I come from a K-12 background. I was a high school/middle school teacher before I came here. If I didn't show up to one of my classes for a day, that would be IT. But this professor didn't show up for over a decade, and his supervisors had no idea.
So, the reality of this scandal is that it is gross negligence on the academic side, unfortunately; and -- but you know what? That's not sexy. That's not going to give you three years of scandalous headlines. You know, I mean, how interesting is this headline: Research University Chooses to Favor Research Over Teaching in One Department. You're not going to get a lot of hits with that headline. But you do get a lot of hits with something like: Academic Support Program for Athletes Tolerates Cheating. Athletes Steered to Suspected Classes. Pick whatever headline that N&O's thrown out lately, that's given them 3 years of scandal.
Again, right now, we have no evidence that demonstrates collusion and malfeasance on the part of the academic support program or the part of the athletic department. That is all conjecture and insinuation. The evidence we have -- the definitive evidence we have -- points to neglect on the part of the deans for over a decade. That's what this scandal is all about.
Note; the open letter to the University written by Dr. Levine to which Bethel refers, can be found here: (MSWord doc)
http://media2.newsobserver.com/smedia/2014/01/30/19/51/1bzds4.So.156.doc
And UNC Chancellor Folt's response:
media2.newsobserver.com/smedia/2014/01/30/19/54/BHDgy.So.156.pdf
I considered this to be a rather stunning accusation by Bradley, and can't help but wonder what the reaction must be among current and former leadership within the College of Arts & Sciences, or other faculty across the "academic side" of the campus. It's quite the shot across the bow.
I tried to research who were the deans of the college, senior associate deans for undergraduate education and associate deans for undergraduate curricula during the last decade of Dr. Nyang'Oro's teaching of the aberrant classes. WCHL's article said they'd requested a list of deans from the university, but from various University archives, I've assembled this tentative list:
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Curricula
Dr. Erika Lindemann (2009 - present)
Dr. Jay Smith (2004 - 2009)
Dr. Thomas Tweed (? - 2004)
Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education
Dr. Bobbi Owen (2004 - present)
Dr. Karen M. Gil ( ? - 2004)
Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Karen M. Gil (2009 - present)
Dr. Bruce Carney (then-provost, interim)
Dr. Holden Thorp (2007-2008)
Dr. Madeline Levine (2006-2007, interim)
Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little (2004-2006)
Dr. Richard Soloway (2003-2004, interim)
Dr. Risa Palm (1997 - 2003)
WCHL indicates Mr. Bethel will return next week for more discussion.
