Big trouble in little Chapel Hill

The revelations are coming out of Chapel Hill at such a rapid-fire pace that you tend to lose track of them.

Thanks to some fantastic reporting by the folks at the papers in Raleigh and Charlotte, the wine and cheese are hitting the fan at this esteemed institution that tends to think its sleaze doesn't stink.

So Sunday it comes to light that the alleged academic fraud included football players literally cutting and pasting book excerpts onto paper so tutors could paraphrase them and turn them into finished products.

And the following passage is laugh-out-loud funny, given the highbrow way North Carolina views itself:

Reports that Read wrote about some study sessions showed how little some football players cared about their classwork.

“People were just rude,” Read wrote about a SWAH 112 study session. That class was held in the first summer session of 2010, and was not a no-show class. “...people farting, watching videos on their computers, talking back, complaining, rapping, not paying attention.”

And now what most of us viewed as inevitable ... the inclusion of precious Tar Heel basketball into this muck.

UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Naval Science exists to produce “highly qualified” officers who serve on ships, aircraft and submarines, or in the Marine Corps.

For the spring semester in 2007, it also taught a half-dozen men’s basketball players.

Enrollment records requested by The (Raleigh) News & Observer show that the department had become a popular place for athletes. One class particularly stands out: Naval Weapons Systems, or NAVS 302, which met in the spring of 2007. Of 38 students in the class, 30 were athletes.

Six of those were members of the men’s basketball team.

And then:

But this class, which did meet, included a substantial portion of the basketball team. Frasor said that Wayne Walden, a former assistant director for academic support who handled the basketball team, had recommended the class.

Walden, who no longer works at UNC, could not be reached. He was brought to UNC from the University of Kansas shortly after men’s basketball coach Roy Williams was hired from there. Williams had described Walden as being an integral part of the basketball program.

Williams could not be reached for comment.

And then:

The professor for the class, Lt. Brian Lubitz, taught it only once, UNC records show. A former captain for the Naval Academy soccer team, he also was earning his MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School at the time. He now works in Philadelphia for the investment firm Goldman Sachs.

The current head of the Naval Science Department at UNC, Capt. Doug Wright, said the course work requirements in that particular class had troubled his predecessor, Capt. Stephen Matts, so much that Matts told subsequent instructors he wanted them changed. Later course outlines show quizzes, tests and papers or presentations. Matts could not be reached.

And now you add to the mix Mark Emmert's new position that NCAA sanctions could be coming in Chapel Hill:

Emmert's comments represent the first public confirmation from the NCAA that North Carolina remains susceptible to further sanctions because of previously undiscovered but now documented classes that featured little or no instruction and appear designed to do nothing more than keep student-athletes eligible. In light of the developments, UNC chancellor Holden Thorp announced last month that he will step down at the end of this academic calendar.

"[North Carolina is] working very diligently to get to the bottom of it," Emmert said. "We'll just have to see what the facts are as they become clearer."

This feels like something big. Really big.

LW