CHAPEL HILL -- A group of University of North Carolina faculty members has urged the school to pursue athletic excellence "on a foundation of academic integrity" while remaining consistent to the university's overall mission.
The faculty members released a statement on Friday calling for UNC's athletics department to better align itself with the rest of the university community. Jay Smith, a UNC history professor, led several faculty meetings during the past several months about the future of athletics at UNC.
The university, meanwhile, is still waiting for the NCAA to rule on its 2010 investigation of impermissible benefits and academic fraud within the UNC football program. The scandal eventually led to the firing of football coach Butch Davis.
The statement released Friday by Smith and his group called for the UNC athletics department to reflect three primary principles: Institutional openness, educational responsibility and mission consistency.
"We hope that this statement can provide a point of departure for public discussion and a foundation that the athletic program and the University as a whole can build on in the months and years ahead," Smith said in a statement.
The statement of principles that Smith and other faculty members wrote has been endorsed by 112 members of the UNC faculty. Smith and other faculty members acknowledged UNC's mostly clean record of athletic success.
But the faculty members wrote, "in light of recent developments, however, we insist that the pursuit of athletic excellence at UNC-Chapel Hill must rest on a foundation of academic integrity and should always reflect" the three principles of openness, responsibility and consistency to the UNC's mission.
The statement also called for the UNC athletics department to "commit itself to honest, open, regular conversation" about the conflicts that exist between academic and athletic success. Faculty members demanded that "all data needed to understand the athletics department" be made readily available.
Further, faculty members insisted that "the university should commit itself to providing a rigorous and meaningful education to every student." They called for athletes to be fully integrated in the campus community, and for athletics "to be integrated into the common enterprise of the university."
The faculty members demanded that UNC create faculty-led oversight committees "to oversee athletics and ensure that it supports and remains in alignment with the University's core missions."
