Chapter
Twenty
Jan
Boxill and athletic-minded edits to a faculty report
As discussed in Chapter Eighteen, wording in a UNC
internal academic report released in late July of 2012 had been changed at the
last minute prior to its release. The
changes were initiated by Jan Boxill, chairwoman of the school’s Faculty
Executive Committee. When the News and Observer first reported on the
changes in mid-May of 2013, some details were lacking as to why the edits were
requested. However, newly released
correspondence led to a new N&O
article on July 20, 2013. The apparent
motivation behind Boxill’s requests seemed to fall in line with the
university’s perceived “athletics first” mantra that had become apparent over
the years of scandals.
The July 20 article, penned by Dan Kane, focused on
emails between faculty leaders at the school.
The specific requested change by Boxill was in reference to Deborah
Crowder, the long-time administrative assistant in the scandalous AFAM
department who also had very close ties to the men’s basketball program. With regards to why Crowder’s name and
specific connections to basketball were being eliminated from the report, a
past email from Boxill to the faculty authors of the special internal probe
stated: “The worry is that this could
further raise NCAA issues and that is not the intention.” Essentially, it appeared as
if the school (and its leaders) were specifically trying to avoid more
attention from the NCAA, and they felt that if too many specifics were included
in the report, then the Athletic Association might return and open a new
investigation.
John Thelin, an education professor at the University of
Kentucky and author of “Games Colleges Play,” indicated that rewriting a
sentence that carried the suggestion of an athletic motive behind the scandal
should not have been the mission of a member of the faculty. “The faculty committee should not anticipate
the audience or implications,” Thelin told the newspaper, “but rather fulfill
the charge they undertook.” Jay Smith,
the UNC history professor who had long been one of the athletic/academic
scandal’s most vocal critics, said of Boxill’s meddling: “It seems consistent with what I have taken
to be the university’s strategy all along, which is they wanted to come up with
findings that seemed frank and candid, but which also carefully exclude any
further NCAA investigation.” That would be an important strategy
indeed, as the article noted that the NCAA typically did not involve itself in
academic fraud cases unless there was an intent to assist athletes above other
students.
Oddly, the change in the faculty report was made after
Boxill and several committee members had praised previous drafts, Kane
wrote. Boxill said in an earlier email
to the N&O that some faculty
committee members objected to describing Crowder as “extremely close” to
athletic personnel. Boxill called it “vague
without definite boundaries.” Seven of
the faculty members on the committee in a position to review the report said
they did not make the suggestion; the other five who were not authors of the
report could not be reached. Boxill
claimed others on the committee had suggested the change, but who those people
were remained unknown. Boxill did not
respond to interview requests from the N&O
for the July 20 article.
Along with Crowder having many earlier-documented ties to
athletics, Boxill herself was in a similar position. She was a former women’s basketball coach at
another university, and had worked in broadcasting with UNC’s women’s
basketball team. She also had extensive
academic ties to UNC athletics. For over
20 years – starting in 1988 – Boxill had been an Academic Counselor in the
Student Athlete Development Center.
Other positions she had held in that Athlete Development Center in the
past included the Learning Skills Coordinator, the Freshmen Academic Success
Program Coordinator, the Tutor Coordinator/Supervisor, and the Intern
Supervisor. This begged a clear and
obvious question: had Boxill used her position as chairwoman of the school’s
Faculty Executive Committee to influence the 2012 internal report in an attempt
to protect athletics? Boxill was the
first non-tenured faculty member elected to the chairman/woman’s post. Ironically, the subject of one of her philosophy
courses at UNC was ethics in sports.
*
* *
The authors of the 2012 faculty report were Laurie
Maffly-Kipp, Steven Bachenheimer, and Michael Gerhardt. According to the N&O’s article, correspondence among the three showed that they
were worried that Boxill would try and dilute the findings of the report prior
to its release. They sent drafts to her
in Portable Document Formats (PDFs) so she could not easily alter them. After a draft of the report had been
discussed in a Faculty Executive Council meeting, Gerhardt wrote in an email: “It
seems to me that we might need to tell Jan that there is a line we hope she
does not cross.” Maffly-Kipp also
questioned the need for the late changes.
“Why is it a good thing to remove Deborah Crowder’s name from the
report?” she asked. “The fact is, she
was close to people in athletics.”
Gerhardt, a law professor, wrote:
“(Boxill) is free to disagree with the report as anyone is, but i (sic)
cannot believe she has the authority to change what it says. Indeed, apart from her lack of authority to
do this, it strikes me as very poor political judgment. Just imagine what the papers will do with
that.”
*
* *
An editorial was released in the News and Observer on July 24, 2013, by staff writer Luke
DeCock. Following the story of Boxill’s
role in the final faculty report, the editorial was largely directed at the
faculty in general. DeCock said that one
of the most surprising developments in the three years since the school had
admitted academic fraud was the role the faculty had played. Specifically, “the faculty has been almost
entirely absent. Complicit, by
collective silence. Complicit, in the
case of Jan Boxill, by action.”
When referencing past half-hearted attempts at reform by
the university, the editorial mentioned Thorp and his commission of the Martin
report. “Jim Martin, an honorable,
respected, dignified man of distinguished service to the state of North
Carolina, ended up the figurehead of a report that posed few legitimate
questions and answered fewer, a whitewash.” At the same time, however, DeCock said
the faculty’s silence along the way may have been somewhat understandable – if
not justifiable. “It’s not hard to
understand why some faculty may not have thought it worth speaking out. Many had confidence in Thorp, a longtime
colleague, and taking a more aggressive public stance would have meant crossing
him.” A year earlier while speaking at a
forum on the future of intercollegiate athletics in Chapel Hill, Professor
Hodding Carter III made reference to faculty inaction. “As far as I can see, on one campus after
another, the silence of the faculty is very much the silence of the lambs,”
Carter had said, “allowing the slaughter of the integrity of the institutions
they serve to go forward.” As was widely known at the time of
DeCock’s editorial, essentially the only two UNC faculty members who had shown
any sort of displeasure in the university’s handling of the scandal were Jay
Smith and Mary Willingham.
The piece ended by referencing the late Bill Friday, a
long-time academic leader in the state who was associated with UNC. Also included was a pointed condemnation of
the school’s storied reputation: “Perhaps
the disclosure of Boxill’s role will serve as a catalyst for more decisive
action on the part of her colleagues, because North Carolina is making a
mockery of Friday’s dream. That’s no way
to honor the legacy of a man who deserves better, or a school that once stood
for something more.”
*
* *
In an interview almost 10 days later, Boxill finally
spoke about the changes she had made to the 2012 faculty report. In a July 30, 2013, article in the News and Observer, Boxill said her
suggestion for a revision came from other committee members who, during a
session to review the draft, did not like the phrase “athletic supporter” (when
referencing Deborah Crowder), partly because of its alternative meaning as a
“jock strap”. Boxill said she did not
remember which members had uttered the concerns in the committee meeting. As noted in Kane’s article from a week and a
half earlier, all of the members he had spoken to had denied making the
suggested changes. Not surprisingly,
also left unaddressed in the new article was why Crowder’s name had been
completely removed from the report.
*
* *
The essential (and unanswered)
questions:
-- Did Jan Boxill
change the wording of a 2012 academic report with the specific intent of trying
to keep the NCAA from returning to campus?
-- Given Boxill’s close
ties to UNC athletics for over 20 years, had she used her then-current position
of leadership to purposely try and shield the school’s athletic programs from
additional scrutiny?
