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UNC Student Athlete writes daft 10-sentence final paper, gets an A- (Paper Inside)
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Jason's Ultimatum
Member
So what's the problem here?
GoldenEye 007
Member
Academic fraud committed by what is supposed to be one of the best schools in the US.
UNC is saying it's old news, but no doubt this is still happening in some degree.
Elfforkusu
Member
I don't know. I do remember the story got swept under the rug pretty quick when it broke, and UNC suffered no consequences.
GoldenEye 007
Member
I think they got a slap on the wrist one season postseason ban by the NCAA. Nobody actually looked at the academic integrity of the school, as far as I know.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
I don't understand how athletes who read and write at a second or third grade level are expected to even gain anything from education at a college even if they are being "jipped"
They aren't there to write papers. They are there to play sports. They wouldn't even BE there otherwise.
They need to take elementary school again. College wouldn't help them even if they were forced to go through like a normal student. Then you're left with students who can't play ball but can write essays playing on your basketball team and then you lose.
They aren't there to write papers. They are there to play sports. They wouldn't even BE there otherwise.
They need to take elementary school again. College wouldn't help them even if they were forced to go through like a normal student. Then you're left with students who can't play ball but can write essays playing on your basketball team and then you lose.
Elfforkusu
Member
Good call, I forgot they actually did get a postseason ban out of it.
"slap on the wrist" is the right analogy.
Incandenza
Banned
This jumped out at me too.
Delicious Waffles
Member
Saw this on REAL Sports. It's pretty obvious what they're there for. Don't know why it's so surprising.
Nydius
Member
Hence the entire problem.
Athletics are supposed to be an extracurricular aspect of higher education. As such, student-athletes are supposed to be students first, as the title implies. However, because sports have become big business with hundreds of millions of dollars flying around in booster money, public funding, and TV/media rights, the "student" part takes a backseat to maintaining the status quo.
They SHOULD be there to write papers. Sports should be secondary. That we, as a society, are allowing college sports programs perpetuate an underclass of functionally illiterate young adults just so one out of a thousand can go pro is appalling.
Personally, I'd like to see a return of focus on the academics across the board. The mentality of college sports being greater than academics is pervasive and affects even non-athletic students. In the book Academically Adrift, authors Richard Arum and Jospia Roska open by evaluating why students chose their particular colleges. Overwhelmingly, students surveyed admitted that the "college experience" (social environment, sports teams, location, school reputation) was their determining factor, not the level of academic quality or long term academic prospects. Basically, it was more important for them to say they were a Wildcat or, in this case, a Tar Heel, than consider the academic rigors of the school. [Aside: This isn't limited to students, a similar investigation is done regarding professors, especially at research universities.]
Yoda
Member
To be frank its time to just decouple sports which have massive financial ties to educational institutions. I'm not advocating for getting rid of all sports from college, but college football is a very lucrative business and always will be. The incentive for this type of crap will never go away as long as that is true.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Well the higher education system is among the best in the world. K-12 needs the reset button or something.
Mistake
Member
Seriously. Between High School and College I went from doing 2-3 page papers, to 4-7 and 10 for finals. My High School classes were supposed to be "college prep" , but the work load is nowhere near the same. Those in the standard classes, well, I can't even imagine.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
Why is it a problem?
You'd be picking a very strange demography to declare your battlefield with. These athletes are far from being completely disadvantaged since they do have an advantage of excelling at a sport enough to get a scholarship to a college. Same couldn't be said of those that drop out of high school and don't get that opportunity at all.
I think it would be more important and worthy of everyone's time to improve education at the ground level not at the college level where the education they get matters much less. If you define the purpose of college as securing the future of a young adult which would be the purpose of higher education in our modern society, then college has bigger problems than illiterate athletes. Namely engineers who end up being waiters out of school, etc.
Colleges do not exist for the sole purpose of remedial studies of everyone who is illiterate, or even the chosen thousands that end up playing sports. There is no way they have the infrastructure to deal with that issue that is larger than the college system can handle alone.
Also, why do sports "have to be" an "extracurricular activity" according to you? Just because of some antiquated idea that colleges are meant only for education? That stopped being the case in a couple hundred years ago I imagine.
DocTarHeel
Member
This paper has to be at least 8 years old, since its using the old course numbering system that changed in 2006. Also, to be clear, the paper itself didn't get an A-, the student allegedly got an A- for the entire course. It's not clear what grade this paper received (if it even received a grade at all).
Happens all the time. Athletes also get extra time for papers, their own special tutors, places to study. It's why graduate school matters now, and no longer undergrad as much. It's why so many athletes struggle after their career is over. They've never been able to learn much, find another career path they might like etc.
Please tell me this is sarcasm? Of course he's only there for sports. So why even hand feed him A's and give him a degree? Oh that's right, because they are a college and can't just have someone only play sports. Colleges don't care about learning, or teaching/educating these people, just about the money they'll bring from games and prestige. The worst is having these guys in your classes and being paired with them.
Please tell me this is sarcasm? Of course he's only there for sports. So why even hand feed him A's and give him a degree? Oh that's right, because they are a college and can't just have someone only play sports. Colleges don't care about learning, or teaching/educating these people, just about the money they'll bring from games and prestige. The worst is having these guys in your classes and being paired with them.
It was entertaining reading the paper thinking that the context was his paper was so brilliant that he said everything that could be said in 10 lines and his professor was so spellbound by his terse, laconic wit that he gave him an A but chucked on a minus because well it's a final paper and 10 lines is just too short. I was trying to convince myself that there was some simple genius in the writing. Context is king, boys.
Is this bait?
When you remove a decent education from their compensation and expect the reward for the athletic efforts to only be derived from the professional lottery and ~4 years of life paid for then two groups are effected:
1: The vast majority of student athletes are absolutely ripped the fuck off, with no abaility derived from their time in college.
2: The more idiots a school pumps out with a degree, generally devalues the degree for the entire existing and future alumni population. Although student athletes are hardly the only cause of that particular issue.
BrokenEchelon
Banned
Fire that fuckwad professor and expel that fuckwad student.
immortal-joe
Member
Ok, so I thought the OP's quoted text was the essay itself, and I thought that was meta as fuck.
Supermanisdead
Member
wow fck outta here they only ever gave me b+ for these papers
Doesn't she have her own TV show and channel?
CornBurrito
Member
English major? Are you implying that the paper is fine quality for non English majors? The writer of that "essay" likely needs to repeat elementary school. That paper would have earned me an F in first or second grade. Our education system failed him. What will he have after sports?
DocTarHeel
Member
We don't know what grade that paper received. Actually, we don't even know the assignment it was written for in the first place. Final paper =! term paper.
Yes, there are definitely shady things occurring the world of student athletes, but "exposing" an 8 year old writing assignment from a freshman course, and misrepresenting it in the process isn't the way to go about making changes.
GoldenEye 007
Member
This paper is just one piece of evidence. It is well known UNC committed straight up academic fraud. Created bogus classes, etc.
A joke that SACS hasn't said a word about it.
Most likely. But I mean when you start your argument off by saying that your opposing side is "stupid" your argument is invalid anyway.
BrokenEchelon
Banned
All I'm saying is that there should be a zero tolerance policy for the blatant athlete favoritism that goes on on college campuses across the country. It is offensive to every one of us who slaved away for 4 or more years to earn a diploma with honest and hard work.
Excuse the typos, I'm on the phone.
DocTarHeel
Member
I can agree with this. This whole ordeal is frustrating because it does make me feel like my hard earned degree from one of the nation's best public universities has been devalued.
However, distorting the facts, like Mary Willingham has done with this paper, only impedes progress. Her opposition will only become more entrenched and work harder to discredit her.
This paper was written before well before all the investigations and changes took place. What point is there in releasing it now, and misrepresenting it at that?
criesofthepast
Member
Pathetic. College sports are as corrupt as FIFA.
User 100115
Banned
Awesome, now I am depressed because guys like this will be considered more capable and intelligent than I am because they have a shiny degree and I never will.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Eh pretty sure college sports at least doesn't endorse slave labor essentially. I wonder how many will die building for the joke of the Qatar world cup.
Nydius
Member
Really? They have an advantage because they've been passed along the dysfunctional system due to their athletic skill and not given a basic education? This very article dispels this myth that they're given any advantage because they're not being taught anything. They're not being prepared for anything beyond being exploited in the moment for the school's sports program. They're being pushed along and when they aren't in the less than 1% who go pro they end up dropping out or with a worthless degree and a worthless education, unable to formulate proper sentences.
Still waiting to see the "advantage" to this system.
I agree that education needs reforms from the ground up but how can you sit there and honestly argue that college education is less meaningful than K-12? College is when you're supposed to pick a specialization and focus on it. Higher education is designed to challenge you beyond the foundations provided by K-12 education. No matter how much you improve K-12, it's still just a foundation education.
Yes, there needs to be more choices including vocational options for K-12 students, but that topic has little bearing on the fact that colleges in the United States are exploiting athletes knowing they are leaving those athletes wholly unprepared for any future when they don't make it as a pro.
Colleges are failures because of declining job markets and macroeconomic factors beyond the scope of the college (and student)? Pushing through "students" with a third grade reading level is less of an issue because they're athletes? I need to find my hip waders because the bullshit is getting deep.
Hooray for strawman arguments. Nowhere did I say college existed for the sole purpose of remedial studies. Meanwhile, you still have yet to answer why allowing this practice is good beyond making money for the school and the NCAA. It certainly isn't doing the student-athletes any good.
Nice hyperbole but it isn't hasn't been like this for a couple hundred years. Only in the United States is sports so intrinsically tied to the "college experience" and sports didn't become such a priority focus until the mid-20th century. Higher education in Europe and Asia still focus on academics with sport as an extracurricular supplement. Of course, Europe and Asia still go out of their way to try to give interested students easy access to higher education, unlike here where students are expected to shoulder high five digit debts.
If you think that I'm the only one who shares the belief that the reliance on sports is detrimental to the end goal of education, you need to start researching the topic.
I've had the complete absolute experience, though I'm only in my freshman year of college. I barely do any work at all compared to what I did in high school.
See, shit like this actually makes me feel bad for the athletes.
They aren't getting a quality college education. Hell, they aren't being given any sort of valuable life skills so they can make something of themselves when these universities are done milking them for their athleticism.
They're being treated no better than a bunch of prized pigs would be.Just get 'em nice and fat...
They aren't getting a quality college education. Hell, they aren't being given any sort of valuable life skills so they can make something of themselves when these universities are done milking them for their athleticism.
They're being treated no better than a bunch of prized pigs would be.Just get 'em nice and fat...
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Yeah, maybe it's because of extensive use of Primary sources!
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