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Saturday, June 09, 2007

Invisible Man

There's an existential creepiness to the convoluted tale in yesterday's Boston Globe of a man who wakes up twenty years later determined to complete his college education, only to be told that he already did.

The man has no memory of this. But Boston College assures him that in the mid-1980's he graduated from the school.

"I think I would know if I graduated. And I was quite sure I hadn't," says Burnett Adams, who played basketball for BC back then.

Right after he left BC and started a professional career in Portugal, someone enrolled Adams in two courses -- Media Workshop I and R & R in Communications -- at BC. He was in Portugal, so he could not have attended. Nor did he register for them.

Looking more closely at his BC transcripts for that time, Adams discovered all sorts of other courses he took but didn't take.

Adams is pissed.

"I've been used by Boston College enough," Adams said. "I'm old enough and secure enough to acknowledge the mistakes I've made. I should have kept up my grades. But I'm not letting them use me again, just to make themselves look better by saying their black students were in school."


Professor-enablers were rampant:

[T]here were overzealous professors on campus who would occasionally give players special treatment.

"Some professors were big fans," [an insider] said. "They loved getting close to it. I'm sure there was some [impropriety] at times."

Adams said he and an unnamed teammate agreed to help a professor move his furniture in exchange for changing a failing grade to a C. Another professor, he said, complimented him on the previous weekend's game and upped his score on a test.

[P]rofessors clamored to travel with the team during the NCAA Tournament.

"They'd come up to me and say, 'Get me on one of those trips. It will help your grade,' " [a player] recalled. "They wanted me to tell the coaches I needed them there."




To make its graduation rate look slightly better than pathetic, Boston College did what some schools still do: It created imaginary courses and imaginary graduates. A disgusting practice. Boston College should stop denying it happened. It should apologize. Repentance is good for the soul.



---thanks to van and superdestroyer for the link---