VIDEO: Math teacher at WSU helped football players cheat
OGDEN — A 25-year math teacher at Weber State University resigned in 2013 after she helped five football players cheat by taking exams, quizzes and other coursework for them, according to an NCAA Committee on Infractions 14-page report outlining academic dishonesty.
“As soon as the investigation began, she quit because she knew if she had not quit, she would have been fired from the institution,” said Allison Hess, Weber State’s Director of Public Relations. “The students went through the regular academic disciplinary process. They were reviewed, they failed the course, they were dismissed from the team, they were suspended from the team and have remained suspended and have not played since that point.”
Christine Marx, a part-time adjunct professor since 1987, was the teacher involved, according to the university.
In addition to public reprimand and censure, the NCAA placed the WSU football program on three years of probation, from Nov. 19, 2014, through Nov. 18, 2017. The football program received a one-time financial penalty of $5,000 plus 2 percent of the program’s operating budget, which Hess estimated at $20,000. The program will also have its football financial aid awards reduced by 14.23 percent over the course of three years. That will result in the football program being limited to 60 scholarship equivalencies annually for 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. The decision also placed the former developmental math instructor on a five-year NCAA “show-cause order,” which limits the instructor’s ability to work with an athletics department at an NCAA institution.
The penalties do not impose any restrictions on competition, leaving the football team eligible for postseason play.
“We take full responsibility for the incident,” said WSU President Charles A. Wight. “While we regret that it occurred, it is reassuring to know the systems we have in place quickly detected these unethical activities. We must remain vigilant going forward.”
At a press conference held in Indianapolis Wednesday, the NCAA Committee on Infractions issued its WSU investigation report. The committee found that the math instructor provided impermissible assistance to the five student-athletes, including taking some exams on their behalf.
“An adjunct faculty member was looking through grades and realized that a student-athlete, who had not made satisfactory performance throughout most of the semester, all of a sudden had passed a number of tests and quizzes with high scores,” said Hess. “That faculty member reported it to a course lead, who took a look at thousands of records, and realized that there were five students who had anomalies in their records.”
Weber State self-reported the potential infraction to the NCAA within three weeks of identifying a potential problem and cooperated fully with the subsequent NCAA investigation, WSU said.
“The NCAA has commended WSU for having a compliance system, for its swift reporting, and for its decisive, meaningful corrective action,” said Hess. “Within 21 days of us initiating an investigation, we had self-reported to the NCAA.”
Due to the university’s transparency regarding the issue, sanctions imposed by the NCAA were significantly lighter.
“The school was credited with properly detecting and coming forward with the information as required by the membership,” said Rodney Uphoff, the NCAA chief hearing officer on the case. “That is a factor that worked in Weber State’s favor.”
Hess said the university has implemented new policies to ensure such incidents don’t happen again.
“Previously faculty members in developmental math were able to take tests remotely, and proctor them for students who may have needed special accommodation,” Hess explained. “Now all of those tests will be turned over to the testing center, and students must take the tests through an IP address in a testing center.”
The university will also have to notify potential student-athletes about the three-year probation prior to official visits or signing National Letters of Intent, but Hess hopes that the scale of the issue doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I hope that the campus community recognizes that this was the result of one part-time adjunct former faculty member who went rogue; that the NCAA report was very firm in saying that no other faculty members, no athletic coaches, no athletic staff, were involved in this in any way,” sad Hess. “This was one person at a very large institution that teaches thousands of classes to 26,000 students. It was abhorrent behavior, but it was very limited in its scope.”
WSU’s head football coach said the announcement won’t affect his program moving forward.
“When I took the job I was not aware of it. It’s an issue that we will deal with. Will it affect us going forward? Absolutely not.” coach Jay Hill said at a news conference on Wednesday. “The sanctions they put on us are something that you have to deal with, but that’s not why you win or lose, you win or lose because you do a good job in recruiting, and you get your players to execute the x’s and o’s. That will not affect us going forward.”
Hill took the head coaching position in early 2014.
Contact sports reporter Brandon Garside at bgarside@standard.net, on Twitter @BGarsideSE, and on Facebook.com/BrandonGarsideSE.