 |
 |
|
| | Sunday, May 14 UT president backs complete review | |||||
| ESPN.com news services KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The chairman of a University of Tennessee Faculty Senate committee promises a complete look into continuing allegations of academic improprieties intended to keep athletes eligible. "There has to be some closure to this," professor Burton English said of allegations first raised by ESPN.com that were dismissed and raised again about improper help to football players from tutors, easy courses and other rule-bending. "The facts have to get out there, and policies have to be made that will create an atmosphere of academic integrity at this university," English told The (Nashville) Tennessean in comments published Wednesday. "You can see right now what's happening in this tug-of-war between the administration and faculty." An internal investigation by the university, English's committee and the NCAA earlier cleared the university of wrongdoing. But English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers, who oversees some tutors, recently revealed in a report on 39 student-athletes that grades were changed, players were steered into easy courses and some players failed to declare an academic major to retain their athletic eligibility. The Faculty Senate directed its athletics committee, chaired by English, to examine Bensel-Meyers' report. She turned it over to them Tuesday. "We're going to look into everything that she's got," university president J. Wade Gilley told The Knoxville News-Sentinel. That is somewhat of a change in Gilley's recent approach. "I can't look at her data and draw the conclusions that she drew," Gilley said in an interview on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" broadcast Sunday. But now he said he hopes to be well into the review before an NCAA investigator returns to the Knoxville campus May 23 to follow up on Bensel-Meyers' allegations. Bensel-Meyers, after meeting with Gilley on Monday, said the UT president was more open to her arguments. "He sounded like he was very receptive and finally seemed to recognize that there were problems," she told The (Nashville) Tennessean. "He said they needed to be on top of this, and I think they're at last going to look at it." Bensel-Meyers, who oversees some of the tutors who work with athletes, said she hoped "we can handle this internally before the NCAA comes in," adding that she was unsure if any NCAA rules were broken. The Faculty Senate athletics committee earlier reviewed how the athletic tutoring program was administered -- Bensel-Meyers wants it entirely under academic oversight. But the Senate now wants the committee to look at Bensel-Meyers' specific allegations. "We didn't look at individuals the first time," English said. "We looked at systems, programs and policies. But as we went through the different parts of the university and how things were done, we didn't find any instances of system problems. "But if there are problems this time as we go through the specific cases, we will find them," English said. Associated Press material was used in this report. | ALSO SEE OTL: Academic sleight of hand at UT UT professor who alleged fraud reports threats against her Tennessee official defends athletes' tutoring program Tennessee faculty orders academic fraud probe  | |||||