I'm now reconsidering two items that I had believed were true, but now I'm not so sure.
- Contrary to what both Bradley Bethel and I have both stated, so-called "committee cases" DID NOT include some whose academic preparedness was too low to succeed at UNC.
- The number of "committee case" from 2004 to present that we all (including @NinjaTarHeel) have been citing might be wrong.
Academic Preparedness "Too Low for UNC"
For quite some time, I've felt the antagonists Bradley Bethel and Mary Willingham, despite their bitter and public differences, were essentially saying the same thing about a particular segment of the UNC student-athlete population having been admitted with academic preparedness too low for UNC. Both considered this to be a contributing factor to the academic misdeeds of the AFAM scandal. Whatever agreement they might have on that point, Bethel has disputed Willingham over (1) how that academic unpreparedness was articulated; (2) the degree to which those student-athletes were academically unprepared; and, (3) that pressure to help "committee case" student-athletes remain eligible for athletics drove the scandal.
I posted a case for this argument a couple of weeks ago; but that argument hinges on both Bethel and me having a common understanding of student-athlete "committee cases" as it pertains to UNC-CH.
Special Talent Faculty Review
Almost every college or university with an athletics program offers special consideration on admissions to some students with athletic talents. This includes those with academic prestige like Ivy League schools, Stanford and even the service academies. Northwestern has been one of the rare, and controversial, exceptions (though even they may have relaxed admissions for "special talent" since I last checked).
This practice doesn't mean schools are admitting "jocks" who don't meet minimum academic requirements or are completely discounting academic ability. It only means these students with special talent are considered via a separate process from the competitive selection with all other student applicants.
Competition for a limited number of seats in an incoming class is generally what drives academic averages up at the most competitive and selective schools. A student with less competitive academic credentials can still be perfectly equipped to tackle the academic challenges of a selective school.
And if a school wants to have a competitive athletics program (or mount a notable fine arts program), it can't expect to do so pulling talent only from the resulting pool of incoming students admitted via competitive academic considerations.
I'm not an academic elitist. I've always supported this Special Talent admissions philosophy. It not only is a benefit to the school, but it also gives a handful of students with a particular talent an opportunity to leverage that talent to gain access to a college education.
The process can be abused though, and has allowed some schools to admit students under special talent rules with little regard to academic ability. This can result in those student struggling in the classroom, accompanied by the resultant pressure to cut academic corners to keep the student eligible. It can also enable or foster an attitude in the special talent student that athletics is the priority. Some students may even consider college to be a vocational training ground for sports, with academic requirements little more than a nuisance or necessary evil.
UNC is a prestigious public school with a strong academic culture. And even though it, like practically every other schools, offers admissions to a number of students with special talents in athletics outside of the normal competitive selection process, a mindset and culture of "The Carolina Way" has meant that its student-athletes -- even if Special Policy admits -- are nonetheless -- students first and athletes second. This is unfortunately not the case at many universities with competitive athletics programs. UNC has long been revered for being one of the rare schools to be able to compete at a high level athletically while also see most of its athletes place priority on academics and succeed in the classroom
"Special Talent" is not limited to athletics either. Music and Drama departments are given a number of "Special Talent" admits as well. UNC allots the Athletics Department 160 admission slots each year to recommend to the Advisory Committee on Undergraduate Admissions (Music and Drama are given 20).
"Committee case" is informal short-hand terminology for a subset of student-athletes falling under Special Talent Policy guidelines who must further be reviewed by a faculty-led committee before an admissions recommendation can be achieved. At UNC-CH, the Special Talent Committee (formerly the Committee on Special Talent) is tasked with reviewing select candidates presented by the Athletics Department and recommending to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions whether or not to offer admission.
Most special talent policy admissions candidates do not require review by the faculty committee on Special Talents. The Athletics Department is granted an allotment of a certain number of student-athletes each year for which it can request admittance based on athletic special talent without their having to be otherwise academically competitive with other student applicants. The University has set thresholds and guidelines, and should an applicant fall below those thresholds, he or she must be reviewed by the Committee on Special Talent before an admission decision. This is but a minority of the department's limit of special talent admits, and ultimately, the final decision belongs to Admissions; though rarely, if ever, is the Special Talent Committee's recommendation overruled.
One should be aware that each institution has its own policies, guidelines and rules. Even within the same public school system, different schools govern their admissions process differently. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) "committee case" would be different from North Carolina State University (NCSU) "committee case." Less surprisingly, a non-UNC system school -- especially a private one like Duke University -- will have its own practices. This article and this blog is concerned only with UNC-CH, since there is an alleged (and now challenged) relationship of "committee cases" to UNC-CH's academic scandal involving student-athletes.
Also, it should also be noted that UNC-CH's "committee cases" aren't limited to athletics. Under special talent policy provisions given by the UNC system Board of Governors, the University also conducts faculty reviews for some students seeking admission with special talents for Drama and Music.
It is an error to equate a student requiring review by the Special Talent Committee as being one who does not meet the minimum academic or course requirements for admission to a North Carolina system school. Such students would be deemed "exceptions," and are rare, at least at UNC-CH. Student-athletes who are admissions exceptions would be "committee cases," but the majority of "committee cases" are not exceptions to minimum admissions standards. And as for NCAA eligibility, all student-athlete committee cases granted admission do meet NCAA eligibility thresholds.
With that explained, my supposition (which @NinjaHeel has challenged) has been that these faculty-review "committee cases" included some who may have had "academic preparedness levels to low to succeed at UNC." I publish this blog as counterpoint to Bradley Bethel but he has stated his belief in this same supposition as well. Though we disagree on much, on this point we do agree.
In 2013, while serving as a learning specialist for the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes (ASPSA), Bethel communicated his concern to new Chancellor Carol Folt, in which he drew the correlation between "specially admitted student-athletes" and student-athletes with "academic preparedness is so low they cannot succeed here."
To explain how that 2013 perspective was distinct from Mary Willingham's, he published an article in February 2014 in which he included an explanation of how improved admissions processes and guidelines had been implemented at UNC, and how, with the cooperation of the athletics department, the number of specially-admitted student-athletes had been reduced. This, he indicated, satisfied his concern going forward.
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| Table 1 |
Given these examples of UNC citing the admissions improvements in the faculty-review process for special talent (athletics) as "reforms" specifically in response to the academic scandal, I thought it was a reasonable presumption on my part that UNC had accepted that its prior, liberal "committee case" admissions had, in some way, contributed to the scandal, but which had been rectified.
And since I hadn't seen UNC explicitly refute Bradley Bethel communicating the same presumption in 2013 -- nor have I seen Bethel comment as if he believes the University has disputed that presumption -- I (perhaps incorrectly) concluded that the University had agreed that it had admitted some student-athletes whose academic preparedness was too low to succeed at UNC. I haven't seen anywhere Bethel saying he'd been corrected; only that UNC had addressed the issue and was moving on.
And I had agreed with him. It made sense to me that the excesses of faculty-review cases for athletics special talent had been a contributor to academic erosion that resulted in scandal.
Now, however, I'm alerted to the possibility that I, and Bradley Bethel (and, by extension, Mary Willingham too), have all been wrong. Or, to be more accurate, the University would dispute the premise that it ever had admitted any student-athlete that is not capable of succeeding at UNC.
It was @NinjaHeel who countered, saying that Vice Provost for Admissions, Stephen Farmer, had "flatly disagreed" with Bethel's (and my) premise, and that events of 2013 were a "natural alignment of ideals" and that the fall off in faculty review cases was just a "natural drop" due the regular and constant refinements and improvements, including better recruiting choices by football coach Larry Fedora. Problems needing fixing, he wrote, were administrative and academic problems; not problems with admissions. "UNC could choose to have 50 if they wanted."
I don't know if I can goad Bradley Bethel into responding to these contradictions to his views on how past "committee case" admission decisions had contributed to the scandal, or his view on how the changes UNC made address those concerns. Probably not.
But I did run across a statement made in 2014 from Senior Assistant Director of Admissions Ashley Memory saying just what @NinjaTarHeel was saying:
This has led me to re-examine the committee case connecton to the academic scandal premise and try to square why UNC would include these "admissions improvements" among it's Admissions & Preparedness reforms, claiming "enhancement and transparency of special talent admissions process, improved assessment and focus on preparedness for UNC academics" as part of "correcting the wrongs that occurred at Carolina."
I'm also taking a fresh look at the annual reports on admissions (also listed among the initiatives "correcting the wrongs") since I now have questions about how the University has explained the committee case reduction (see Table 1 above) as an indicator of success.
