Conflict Surfaces in Tutor Program

Recent revelations involving USC’s Student Athlete Academic Services during a continuing internal investigation suggest deeper issues within the program than have come to light.

Ethical objections and allegations of impropriety have been made for the second time in less than two years against Janice E. Henry, the assistant director of SAAS, a program marked by instability and infighting.

In 1996, two athletes said that Henry had enrolled them in a class that required no course work and told them they would earn “an easy A.”

Henry, then an academic counselor for football, went on personal leave to relieve stress brought on by simultaneous investigations by USC and the Pacific 10 Conference, school officials said. She later was found to have done no wrong. But USC Vice Provost Richard Ide said he told Henry and the athletic department that “serious mistakes” were made.

When Henry returned to work, she was promoted to assistant director of SAAS. She had been hired as an academic advisor in 1993 by Fred Stroock, then the director of SAAS and now a special assistant to the athletic director for academic affairs.

More recently, Henry has become the focal point in the events surrounding the two-game suspension of wide receiver Mike Bastianelli and the investigation of SAAS counselors’ practices. Charges of improper help were made by Christopher Cairney in early September. Four USC tutors have supported elements of Cairney’s allegations.

In addition, Cairney, who was coordinator of learning-support programs in SAAS for two years before recently being put on paid administrative leave, now says former basketball player Rodrick Rhodes refused to do his work inside the academic resource center, a violation of policy, and asked his tutor to do the work.

Rhodes is now with the Houston Rockets and was not available for comment.

The former tutor, Chris Hill, said she worked with Rhodes in the fall semester of 1996.

“It was difficult to get him to do the writing,” Hill said. “I tried to get him to bring the paper in because I was having misgivings whether he was doing the entire paper. When I asked him about it, he didn’t know what he had written.

“There were a couple of times where I said, ‘What do you think? Can you elaborate on that?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t know what he had written.”

Hill expressed her concerns to Cairney and questioned whether other athletes were doing their own work, but could never prove otherwise. Hill said Rhodes never did work in the center.

“I know that never happened,” she said. “We ended up not meeting much after that. He never came in and did the work in front [of me].”

Another tutor, who requested anonymity, said another former basketball player, Avondre Jones, received improper assistance. Jones is now at Fresno State and could not be reached for comment.

“One thing I did hear [a supervisor] mention was, ‘We’ve got to help him.’ There was definitely some teamwork involved there,” the tutor said.

Another tutor, Noel M. Looney, in a memo to Cairney acquired by the Los Angeles Times, wrote, “I suspect that this unethical conduct has been going on with others as well as under Janice Henry’s supervision for quite some time, but has been interpreted as a very fine line and was passed over, except for now.”

Looney said Thursday he was questioned by the investigating committee for the third time, this time for 2 1/2 hours.

“They want me to provide names of other people I know who will come forward,” he said. “They’re putting pressure on me, but besides Kit [Cairney], the other people I know, frankly, are intimidated.

“This stuff about what happened last year kind of exposed that [Henry is] willing to go to great lengths for whatever her agenda is.”

University counsel Todd Dickey said reports about Henry’s conduct remain only allegations that are under investigation.

“If anyone has direct evidence of wrongdoing by Janice Henry [they should describe it in detail],” Dickey said. “It’s impacting her life and her professional career.”

Henry, when contacted by The Times last week, said her office had received phone calls about newspaper reports of the investigation but declined comment, referring questions to the provost’s office.

Bastianelli, who missed games against Notre Dame and Oregon, was cleared Tuesday by the NCAA to play Saturday against Washington. He was suspended for receiving improper assistance from Cairney on a paper in 1995.

During the investigation, other athletes have been interviewed, among them star receiver R. Jay Soward, who was questioned by an ad hoc committee of the Academic Oversight Committee.

Cairney and Looney said tutor Raven Viltz composed and typed a paper for Soward this past spring.

“I was eyeballing the situation,” Cairney said in an interview. “I saw it. This was all under the direction of Janice Henry. They are in and out of Janice’s office.”

Soward denied receiving improper assistance, and Viltz did not return phone calls.

Dickey, a member of the investigating committee, said there has been no decision on whether there is cause to hold out any athletes other than Bastianelli.

“The NCAA requires us to withhold a student-athlete from competition if we have knowledge of violations or reason to believe a violation has been committed,” he said Thursday.

Dickey also said the committee is examining the credibility of the employees who made the allegations.

Cairney said within days of making allegations against Henry and others in SAAS in a memo dated Sept. 2, he was put on paid administrative leave for making racist remarks. He denied making racist remarks.

Dickey said he cannot comment on the reasons for Cairney’s suspension, calling it “a private employment issue,” but said, “based on my knowledge, he was placed on leave prior to those memos being received.”

Cairney contends that individuals at USC are out to discredit him, pointing out that Bastianelli’s suspension was the result of a two-year-old incident. Bastianelli said recently that Cairney had provided improper assistance on a paper. Cairney said the player composed and typed the paper himself.

Bastianelli’s mother, Nancy West, said her son was not totally innocent, but said she believed departmental personnel matters led to scrutiny.

“I just think Mike got caught up in something else,” she said.

Two other former tutors contacted by The Times said they saw no evidence of wrongdoing within SAAS.

“I was there about a year,” said Jason Blatt, once Bastianelli’s mentor. “I was used to the tutoring program [having been a football] player at Colorado. And I didn’t see any wrongdoing.

“There’s dissension between Kit and the people who have been there for a while. I could never quite put a finger on it.”

Looney said Thursday there was a wall between Cairney and Henry.

“[Cairney] felt pressured by her to hire people he felt weren’t competent,” Looney said. “He felt pressured or manipulated to match certain tutors and certain athletes. It probably got to the point she just said get rid of him.”

Cairney’s memo also detailed SAAS practices of class-loading--steering athletes into so-called easy classes. He called USC “a graduation-rate mill.”

“SAAS is not a real academic resource center anymore,” Cairney wrote. “It is just a new way to cheat.”

Questions as to whether SAAS indeed serves as a support agency or simply an eligibility mill have been raised for at least the last two years.

In 1995, Cairney’s predecessor, Cynthia Cardosi, resigned to take a job with the University of Virginia. Later, Cardosi said that among the reasons she left were “ethical concerns” involving several SAAS staff members.

Cardosi declined comment Thursday.

Stroock, a former president of the National Assn. of Academic Advisors for Athletes, took his new position in June 1997, saying he wanted more control over his work hours.

Associate Athletic Director Daryl Gross has assumed some of Stroock’s former duties, at least temporarily.

At least one parent has expressed concern that Stroock is no longer working as closely with athletes and that Gross is in charge.

“That’s a joke. As a parent I’m concerned,” said the parent of a football player, upset that someone from the athletic department is controlling an academic program.

At one time, SAAS was overseen by the Student Affairs Department but it was moved in 1992, at the request of then-athletic director Mike McGee. He is now athletic director at the University of South Carolina.

“It was more of a physical shift,” McGee said Thursday. “Part of the responsibilities [including oversight] had already been under the purview of the athletic advisory board, which advised and reported to the president.”

Now, the university is examining almost every aspect of the beleaguered SAAS program. Among the issues under scrutiny are the hiring, training and oversight of the tutorial staff.

“I think SAAS is in a fishbowl,” Dickey said. “They’re closely watched by the press and everyone and every act is criticized. What we’ve been doing is gathering as much information about SAAS and how they operate as we can and we’ll make some recommendations.”