Another class coming under question at North Carolina:Strong turnout of basketball players in NAVS 302

The Academic Scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill is starting to run much deeper now and the News and Observer of Raleigh is hitting this with great guns, but here is what we have today and it has hit the Tar Heel basketball team now as they come under heavy scrutiny, along with the Tar Heel football team and their academic policies…You need to read this and hit the link for the entire read…Long, but very informative….

from the News and Observer in Raleigh:

The syllabus for the NAVS 302 class(Spring semester 2007) shows that it was a different type of course than in other years. It had no required exams or quizzes and no major research paper.

Students received much of their grade from a two- to three-page double-spaced midterm paper and a group project that required a 20-minute oral presentation split among five students.

*****A two-three double-spaced midterm paper, that is a bit slight….You are double-spacing and doing say, 2 or 3 pages of written work total for the semester???*****

Current UNCG basketball coach Wes Miller was on the team that year, but his overall numbers stand out, as he was the only player on the Tar Heel basketball team that year(2007) with a GPA(Grade Point Average) of 3.0 or better….Tyler Hansbrough was in that class(NAVS 302) and Bobby Frasor too…Hansbrough also took the Swahili course at UNC…

This is one of those must-reads and you can read all when you CLICK HERE from the News and Observer in Raleigh….

18 thoughts on “Another class coming under question at North Carolina:Strong turnout of basketball players in NAVS 302

  1. Please let this end! There are courses like this one at every school. I mean every school!!! I went to a school that is higher rated than Carolina and we had some easy classes. Everybody knows about the easy classes! Are you shocked that the athletes will take the easy classes?

  2. I think the point that raises the eyebrows the most is the clustering of the athletes to these certain classes and the classes appear to be designed with the athletes in mind…Some of these classes exsist for awhile and then they disappear, at least in the way they were set up for a limited period of time with a certain professor in charge of that class….

    The class will remain among the core offerings, but the for some reason the course structure and the class requirements will change…Student-Athletes will be flocking to a certain class with that certain professor in mind and then he is gone and they must now find a new sure class that they can pass…

    It is one thing for students to steer others to these classes, but when you have university-paid academic advisors directing the student-atheltes into these classes, that is another thing, that really raises the eyebrows….

    Kudos to Wes Miller who seems to have done his work and he had the GPA(3.0 or better) to prove it…

  3. Andy since Wes Miller is close by maybe you can find out if he speaks fluent Swahili, most other UNC athletes can.

  4. Speak it, I’m not sure he can even spell it without looking….I know I can’t and I do wonder if Wes Miller was in the NAVS 302 class in the Spring of 2007….This was not spelled out in the most recent report, but they did say there were a lot of basketball players in that class, that Spring…

    Again, it is not unusal for athletes to be headed to a class that might get them a sure pass, but to be directed/steered there by their academic advisors and for the class to changed within it’s curriculum to meet the needs of the student-athletes in that class, that is a bit much….

    Then later on the class is redesigned to be tougher with quizzes, tests and exams added in…I would hate to have one of our Naval officers commanding a submarine with no prior commissioned testing or verifications…..

    This may be taking this a bit far, but No Quiz, No Test and No Exam, there should be No Grade tendered for this class other than an ‘InComplete’……..

  5. I believe this a common problem for most colleges D1, 2 or 3. There is an easy fix to this problem and would put an end to all the academic investigations.
    If you want to be a doctor you go to school and take classes that lead you in that profession. Same goes for a lawyer,business or any other profession except for sports.
    How about creating a degree Titled ” Sports Administration ”
    Classes would consists of everything you need to perform at that level.
    Proper practice methods
    Training
    Stretching
    Teamwork
    Diet
    Leadership
    Sportsmanship
    How to pick your agent
    Violations, Do’s and don’t of your profession
    Money management
    And the list goes on, how times do we hear about an athelete getting in trouble? Create a class that educates today’s young atheletes and prepares them to be the best they can be at the chosen profession.

    Classess would be open to all students althelete or not. You graduate, recieve a degree and go get a job. Not much oppurtunity in the job market for a Sports Administration degree unless you are preparing to go pro.
    A dentist or doctor would not take these classes to be successfull just as an athelete would not take the same classes they would.

  6. I was a math major in college and I had a lot of very tough classes. I also played basketball and golf. For most of my elective classes, I was trying to find the easiest classes. I had one class where the grade consisted of class participation and a 5 page paper. I had an independent study class where I helped a professor with his research and I had a 5 page final paper. Were these classes easier than my others? Yes!!! I was glad to have them. 99% of the students at every university know which classes are easy and they try to take them whenever they can fit them in. No show classes are a BIG problem. Easy classes are a non issue.

  7. Problems, problems, problems and more problems at Chapel Hill College. This is gettting thick.

  8. All I want to say is Thank You Nick Saban for making your players attend class and study hall everyday, yes you can win championships and have kids do the the right thing in the classroom just look at Alabama Football, and no Carolina fans it’s not “well everybody else does it” I haven’t heard anything like this coming out of Tuscaloosa, maybe Roy should take lessons from Saban on how to do things the right way and not the carolina way.

  9. Hopefully you are being sarcastic. I would love to see the transcripts of the players on the best football teams in the country. Why don’t we start by looking at the graduation rates and the majors they have chosen? If we dig down like we did at Carolina, I would be surprised if 20% of the schools are doing things the “RIGHT” way.

  10. @bama fan:

    I don’t have a dog in the UNC fight, but Nick Saban? Surely you jest. I was a student at West Virginia when he was an assistant at WVU and I know how he got players then. And I’ve heard Julio Jones, Donta Hightower and some of your other fine recent alumni in the NFL interviewed. Some of those kids are barely literate, yet they managed to stay eligible until they could drop out of school to prepare for the NFL draft..

    The only difference between UNC and the SEC schools is the SEC schools have had years (and numerous probations and major NCAA infractions in Bama’s case) to master the art of cheating.

    And it’s funny that you should mention Saban, since Bama fans kept claiming he was cheating in recruiting when he was at LSU.

  11. This is the undisputed link to Roy and basketball.
    The “its a football issue crowd” needs to note this.
    BTW–This is not going away anytime soon.
    All of you UNC apologists need to understand this.

  12. I am serious about Saban he has been a winner at Michigan State, LSU, and Alabama and never been in trouble with the NCAA at these schools, read up on Saban he requires study hall every week for his players and the bottom line is his athletes have never been in trouble for not going to class, he is not running a program like Roy Williams.

  13. You are delusional. Keep drinking the kool aid. Never being in trouble with the NCAA and doing the RIGHT thing are two totally different things. These coaches have figured out the easiest way for their players to stay eligible. They aren’t taking physics, chemistry, calculus, etc… They are taking the easiest majors these schools have to offer. That is the sad truth.

  14. Alabama football was second in the conference last year in academics for the most academic all-conference players right behind Vanderbilt, Saban makes sure these guys are producing on the field and in the classroom this is not drinking the kool-aid these are facts, sorry Roy is just not looking after his players future like Saban, to Roy it’s all about him and let’s just move these kids through the basketball factory and get the next ones in here, so sad but it seem;s that is The Carolina Way..

  15. I did some research on Saban and Alabama. You are correct that he puts an emphasis on academics. He should be given kudos for that. I will still like to see the majors of all the football players. You will see a definite trend to the easiest majors. All that being said, he should commended for graduating his players.

  16. Tom, thank you for looking into that and you are right Saban has always put an emphasis on academics and tries to make his players perform in the classroom also.

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