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Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, March 5, 2014; News Roundup
Topic Started: Mar 5 2014, 05:04 AM (112 Views)
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http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/03/memorial-dedicated-to-eve-carsons-life-still-stands-6-years-later

Memorial dedicated to Eve Carson’s life still stands 6 years later
By Rachel Herzog | The Daily Tar Heel

When the tragedy of Eve Carson’s death shook Chapel Hill and the surrounding community in 2008, people were moved to action, including one Durham business owner.

Six years ago today, UNC Student Body President Eve Carson was kidnapped and killed in Chapel Hill.

In the days following, news of the murder was inescapable. Francis Vega — who owned Vega Metals, a metalwork studio and gallery in downtown Durham — was heartbroken but inspired to act.

Cindy Vega, Francis’ wife who took ownership of the company after Francis died from cancer in April, and Neal Carlton, Vega Metals’ co-founder and longtime friend, recalled how affected Francis was by the tragedy.

“I remember him saying, ‘We have to do something,”’ Carlton said.

“He said, ‘Let’s just take a bench, a butterfly bench, and take it over to the campus,’” Vega said.

The butterfly bench, which was produced by Vega Metals’ sub-company, Cricket Forge, is Francis’ original design.

Cindy Vega said the bench has become the memorial piece that seems to resonate most with people, and that the butterfly has always symbolized renewal, rebirth and freedom.

Francis insisted they drop off the bench on UNC’s campus anonymously, saying he didn’t want to get caught up in University red tape.

The bench was given a Carolina blue finish and a brass plaque dedicating it to Carson.

Around 9 a.m. the morning after it was completed, Carlton and Willie McDonald, Vega Metals’ main delivery worker, drove the bench to campus.

“I said, let’s see how quickly we can do this,” Carlton said.

As Carlton and McDonald unloaded the 4-foot tall, 4-foot wide, 200-pound bench at an existing memorial site behind the Campus Y, a passerby commented on its beauty.

“It was exciting, adrenaline was flowing,” Carlton said. “It was heartbreaking in a way, too, to drop the piece off there.”

Such items are not usually allowed to remain, but then-Chancellor James Moeser said the bench would stay.

“People are always real paranoid about benches being out and people vandalizing them, but we just felt like this was a bench that was going to be really protected just out of sheer respect for Eve,” Vega said. “No one’s come after us and tried to arrest us.”

In the days following Eve Carson’s murder, Vega remembers Francis kept talking about good versus evil. To him, Eve represented everything good — someone who gave so much of herself to others.

Marine sciences professor Marc Alperin, a friend of Francis’, watched as the bench became a focal point for grieving students and faculty.

“It became a spontaneous memorial,” he said.

Carlton said the donation of the bench was not something he and Francis told many people about, but he brought it up in a eulogy at Francis’ memorial service.

“I think he would be proud of it, but he didn’t do it for that,” he said.
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http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9454418

No criminal charges against key staffer in UNC academic scandal
Tuesday, March 04, 2014


CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- No criminal charges will be filed against Deborah Crowder as a result of the SBI investigation into academic improprieties that occurred in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Crowder, the former African and Afro-American Studies Department Manager, has cooperated with the criminal investigation and has agreed to continue cooperating with the district attorney's office.

Crowder has also agreed to cooperate fully and completely with the independent investigation being conducted by Kenneth Wainstein into athletic and academic issues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Debby looks forward to providing Mr. Wainstein her full and complete cooperation and will answer any and all questions that he may have for her," said Crowder's attorney Brian Vick. "She believes that it is important for the full and unvarnished truth to come out and intends to provide Mr. Wainstein with as much knowledge as she has about the independent study classes that were offered during her tenure with the Department of African and Afro-Studies at UNC."

Crowder had been accused of creating some of the no-show classes, and even helping athletes sign-up for them and submitting grades on behalf of students.

The criminal probe is now solely focused on Crowder's former boss Julius Nyang'oro, who has denied any wrongdoing.
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http://chapelboro.com/news/unc/frmr-unc-dept-manager-wont-face-criminal-charges-academic-investigation/

Fmr UNC Dept Manager Won’t Face Criminal Charges In Academic Investigation
By Rachel Nash

Posted March 4, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Photo by Erik AndersenPhoto by Erik Andersen

Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said Tuesday that former UNC employee, Deborah Crowder, who was connected to the University’s athletic and academic scandal, will not face criminal charges.

Woodall said Crowder, who was Department Manager of African and Afro-American Studies during the time academic improprieties were found to have occurred, has been working with prosecutors in the criminal investigation of the case.

“She has cooperated during the investigation. She has continued to cooperate. She has indicated her willingness to cooperate with the independent investigation that has been started,” he said.

The University recently hired former U.S. Justice Department attorney Kenneth Wainstein to conduct an independent inquiry, based on information revealed during the State Bureau of Investigation’s probe of the department.

This probe led to the indictment of Julius Nyang’oro, the Former Chair of the AFAM Department.

“One thing that I have tried to point out since this started almost two years ago was that a criminal investigation was never going to delve into the academic improprieties that took place. This was designed to try to determine if crimes were committed, and if so, who committed them,” Woodall said.

In December, an Orange County grand jury indicted Nyang’oro on the charge of obtaining property by false pretenses. Orange and Chatham County District Attorney Jim Woodall alleges that Nyang’oro accepted $12,000 for a UNC summer class he did not teach. Woodall told WCHL News that if he were to be convicted, that charge would likely not result in time in prison.

Nyang’oro is expected to make his second court appearance in April.

Woodall said he does not anticipate that any one else will be charged.

“I cannot say absolutely that there will be no other charges because new information could surface, but based on the information that I know now, I don’t anticipate there will be any other charges,” he said.

Five people were recently indicted by Secretary of State Elaine Marshal for breaking the Unified Athlete Agent Act. Former UNC tutor Jennifer Wiley Thompson was among those charged with athlete-agent inducement in connection with Georgia-based sports agent, Terry Watson. Watson was also indicted as he is accused of enticing athletes to employ him as an agent once they decided to go pro.
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Former UNC African studies manager won't be charged, but will cooperate with probe

By Dan Kane
dkane@newsobserver.comMarch 4, 2014 Updated 6 hours ago

Late last year, Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall was eying possible misdemeanor charges against a retired department manager deeply involved in bogus classes frequented by athletes at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Previous noncriminal investigations had found Deborah Crowder was at the center of the creation of lecture-style classes that never met and that typically provided high grades for those who turned a term paper in at the end. The probes cited her access to grade rolls that could be altered. They also noted she had been given wide latitude in running the affairs of the African and Afro-American Studies department.

But on Tuesday, Woodall said that Crowder, 60, who retired in 2009, would not be charged with any crime. She is expected to cooperate with a new investigation into the academic fraud, one that UNC leaders say will seek to find out how it happened and why.

“Deborah Crowder was certainly someone we were investigating and looking at to potentially charge in the case,” Woodall said, “but when I looked at all the circumstances and her cooperating and continued cooperating I was not going to bring charges against her.”

Woodall’s decision creates the potential that Crowder will be called upon to testify against the other central figure in the case: former longtime African studies department Chairman Julius Nyang’oro, 59, of Durham.

Three months ago, Nyang’oro was charged with a low-level felony of obtaining property by false pretenses. His attorney, Bill Thomas of Durham, has said his client is innocent and will fight the charge in court.

But perhaps more important, Crowder’s cooperation gives Kenneth Wainstein, a well-known former U.S. Justice Department official, a big break as he begins the new inquiry announced last month. Despite several previous probes and reviews, how the bogus classes started remains a mystery.

“That’s the critical piece that is currently missing, and in any inquiry, to the extent that you have an insider explaining the why, it makes all the paper facts come to life,” said Stephen Miller, a Philadelphia lawyer with expertise in criminal and NCAA matters.

The previous university investigations have found that Nyang’oro and Crowder engineered more than 200 confirmed or suspected lecture-style classes that never met, dating as far back as the mid-1990s.

Woodall said he could not discuss what Crowder has told investigators. But he said the criminal investigation was not intended to get at the cause of the academic fraud, which involved disproportionately high numbers of enrolled athletes. The new inquiry will dig into that.

‘Best opportunity’

“I really feel like this is the best opportunity for the university to learn what happened, and a criminal investigation was never the vehicle to do that,” Woodall said.

Wainstein and three others in his Washington, D.C., firm will conduct the probe. He said in a statement that he is “grateful to District Attorney Jim Woodall and Ms. Crowder’s counsel, Brian Vick, for arranging this important development in our investigation.”

Crowder lives north of Pittsboro in Chatham County in a condo next to one owned by Warren Martin, a former UNC basketball player who later became a schoolteacher. She and Martin have been in a long-standing relationship, the university has confirmed.

Vick said in a statement that Crowder was referring all interview requests to him.

“Debby looks forward to providing Mr. Wainstein her full and complete cooperation and will answer any and all questions that he may have for her,” Vick said. “She believes that it is important for the full and unvarnished truth to come out and intends to provide Mr. Wainstein with as much knowledge as she has about the independent study classes that were offered during her tenure with the Department of African and Afro-Studies at UNC.”

Crowder retired after working 30 years for the university, state records show. Her highest pay as a department manager was just under $40,000 in her final year.

University officials say she and Nyang’oro were the only two people responsible for the scandal. Other records obtained by The News & Observer show that staff with the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes knew the classes didn’t meet and weren’t challenging. They steered academically challenged athletes, including freshmen, to them.

Other correspondence shows that a tutor sent Crowder topics for the papers in two classes, seeking Crowder’s approval even though she was not a professor.

A UNC-backed investigation led by former Gov. Jim Martin theorized that Crowder was involved in creating the classes out of a desire to help any student in need. That would include students who were struggling to find a class so they maintained their full-time status or who needed a class to graduate on time.

But nearly half of the enrollments in the classes came from athletes. Mary Willingham, a learning specialist who blew the whistle on the classes to The N&O in 2011, said tutoring staffers were steering the athletes to them to help them stay eligible to play sports. A former football player, Michael McAdoo, said staff recommended them to him as a way to boost his GPA.

Independent studies grow

The African studies department was also making available hundreds of independent studies during the first half of the last decade, many more than it had faculty to manage. Those independent studies, intended from the start not to include lectures, were also popular with football and men’s basketball players.

The independent studies were cut back in the latter half of the decade, at the same time as a similar independent study scandal became public at Auburn University. Despite inquiries from UNC faculty in late 2006 about whether a similar scandal could be happening here, the news of the high numbers of independent studies did not become known until 2011, when the no-show classes were discovered.

In 2005, academic counselors who served the rest of the student body said Crowder was concerned that the “frat circuit” might have discovered the independent studies, and was seeking to curb enrollments.

Crowder has close ties to athletics, and her Facebook page listed many star athletes and athletic department staff. She has never publicly explained her role in the scandal.

Nyang’oro was charged with fraud for accepting $12,000 for a summer class that UNC officials say was never taught. That 2011 class was filled with football players.

Kane: 919-829-4861; Twitter: @dankanenando


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/04/3673229/former-unc-african-studies-manager.html#storylink=cpy
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
“He said, ‘Let’s just take a bench, a butterfly bench, and take it over to the campus,’” Vega said.



Maybe someone should do something like this on another campus...




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Edited by Quasimodo, Mar 5 2014, 08:02 AM.
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