NYT Article 7-18

[DKW 86 7,431]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/sports/1...ete&oref=slogin

Please note nothing derogatory in this one.

July 18, 2006

N.C.A.A. and SEC Await Auburn’s Inquiry on Suspect Courses

By PETE THAMEL

The National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Southeastern Conference are awaiting the findings of Auburn University’s investigation into allegations of academic fraud before determining what action, if any, to take.

The New York Times reported last week that Auburn athletes took advantage of so-called directed-readings courses to help boost their grades and remain eligible for their sports, according to a professor who disclosed the matter. In some cases, the courses in sociology and criminology involved no class time and little work.

“If there was abuse in the case, and I’m not sure that there is, if there was abuse, we would be sure to act,” Myles Brand, the N.C.A.A. president, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Brand commended James Gundlach, the whistleblower and the director of Auburn’s sociology department, for risking damage to his career by publicly revealing what he had learned. Gundlach told The Times that one of his superiors, Thomas Petee, a criminology professor and the sociology department’s chairman, had provided an inordinate number of directed-reading classes for easy grades to athletes and nonathletes.

Brand, a former president of Indiana University, said he was dumbfounded that Petee had been allowed to teach so many directed-reading courses; Petee led 152 such courses in one semester before Gundlach reported him.

“That’s an institutional problem of some magnitude,” Brand said. “It’s not an athletics problem. It needs to be addressed on an institutional level.”

Mike Slive, who has been the commissioner of the SEC for about four years, said that he and his staff work hard in making sure athletes receive quality educations. He declined to comment specifically on the Auburn case until the investigation was complete.

“We can see the other side of the shore of this body of water,” Slive said. “A boat blows here or there, but we never lose sight of where we’re going. To the extent that anything is out there, our goal is to be on course at all times.”

Gordon Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt, which is also in the SEC, did not share Slive’s optimism. Gee said the issues raised at Auburn were “very serious” and showed why there needed to be more academic oversight in athletics.

“What is shown is that when there’s an athletic culture that allows athletes to migrate toward that kind of approach, that it undermines the academic and athletic integrity of the program,” he said.

Since going public, Gundlach has been flooded with telephone calls and e-mail messages expressing support and condemnation. He said he had received 69 positive messages and 66 negative ones. As he walked into the main academic building on campus yesterday morning, he said, 10 to 12 faculty members applauded him.

“It was a very pleasant experience,” he said.

He did, however, say he was no longer cooperating with a three-member committee investigating the matter because of an inaccurate leak to the local news media about his motivation for going public. The report said that Gundlach had come forward because he was passed over for the job that Petee landed as department chairman. Gundlach said that suggestion was untrue because he never sought the position.

Gundlach met once with two members of the investigating committee weeks ago — Sharon Gaber, an associate provost, and Constance Relihan, an associate dean. The third member, Marcia Boosinger, Auburn’s faculty athletics representative, was not at the meeting. (Gundlach said that he tried twice to talk to Boosinger about the issue last year and that she did not respond to his e-mail messages. Boosinger is one of a number of Auburn officials who have declined to comment until the investigation is complete.)

David Cicci, the chairman-elect of the faculty senate at Auburn, said the investigation had to determine whether athletes had been steered to Petee.

“I guess the thing to find out in this is: has this guy been recommended?” Cicci said. “Who did and how often? Were all the athletes who took these courses guided to this guy?”