UNC academic fraud investigation have found on Wednesday that more than 3,100 students, most of them athletes, were involved in a "shadow curriculum" practiced over nearly two decades.
An independent investigation discovered that students of University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill were enrolled in fake or "shadow curriculum".
For years, student athletes and others have been undergoing non-existent classes in the African studies department. These are courses particularly under the African and Afro-American Studies which were tagged as "paper classes" where students are not required to come to class. The only requirement is submission of a research paper that was often given a grade of A's and B's even if it is plagiarized or not.
These were the latest updates to the long-standing UNC academic fraud investigation that began three years ago. But the administrator involved in setting up and running the fake classes retired in 2012 after the news of the scheme surfaced.
Deborah Crowder, a non-academic worker at UNC, was the sole person to grade the students in the fake classes. Some of the classes were independent if form where students need not meet with their professors and some were lecture classes in which students have to sit in the class but never happened.
Crowder was later joined in this scheme by Julius Nyang'oro , Department Chair, who later on became the professor of record for most of the fake classes.
In the report, Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes counselors would directly tell Nyang'oro and Crowder the specific grades the students needed to maintain in order to be academically or athletically eligible.
The issue was initially treated as purely academic in nature but with this development, the The university officials told that the "paper classes" scheme does not longer exist. In fall of 2009, the first semester without the "paper classes", the football team recorded its lowest grade point average in a decade , 2.121.
UNC academic fraud investigation reopened in June when new information was available. The new investigation was done with the help of NCAA.
