Raspberries to former Gov. Jim Martin, after a key but contested finding in his report on the UNC athletic and academic fraud scandal had to be removed last month because the facts didn’t support it.

Martin and consulting firm Baker Tilly had reported that athletic officials twice raised concerns with a faculty committee about “students taking nominally lecture courses that did not meet and only required a 20-page term paper, and other forms of questionable independent study."

The report said the committee dismissed those concerns, arguing that professors had freedom to teach as they saw fit. The finding was significant, the N&O’s Dan Kane reported, because it suggested athletics officials had tried to alert others to the scandal.

Martin stuck to the report’s finding, despite multiple faculty members telling Kane they remembered no such concerns being raised.

The former governor has also called this an academic scandal and not an athletic scandal. But as Kane and the N&O’s Andy Curliss reported athletes are now known to have made up nearly half of the enrollments in 172 bogus classes within the African studies department. This despite athletes comprising less than 5 percent of the total undergraduate student population.

It may have been overly optimistic to expect accurate information from an investigative panel that worked only a few months on a problem we now know stretches back almost two decades. But Martin’s panel made it worse by not talking to the faculty involved and labeling it before all the facts were in.

Or, in this case, the non-facts taken out.

Roses to FRANK Gallery for sponsoring an art supply collection during December and for continuing to foster a connection between the university and greater arts communities.

Led by Luna Lee Ray, curator and member artist, and Torey Mishoe, gallery director, new and gently used art supplies were collected for UNC’s Comprehensive Cancer Support Program’s Expressive Arts Initiative. FRANK member artists joined community friends and loaded a trunk full of art supplies for healing arts projects at the N.C. Cancer Hospital.

ArtHeels, a UNC student volunteer artist organization, Cecilia Minden and Pat’s Art Cart, and HeART Heels, the Patient and Family Resource Center specialty art programs, will use this generous donation to support art programs such as the weekly Friday Family Coffee and Craft or one-one sessions with cancer patients and caregivers. The N.C. Cancer Hospital extends a special thank you to Stephanie Nussbaum, CCSP massage therapist, for coordinating this event.

This winter, FRANK Gallery has developed an exhibit entitled “Blues.” The gallery has teamed up with the UNC ARTery to host weekly musical salons that will feature an array of talents from local community artists and showcase performances by UNC students and ensembles.

UNC ARTery, the arts and cultural center for the UNC Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, actively works to promote and connect UNC’s undergraduate artistic community, while identifying and addressing arts-related issues on campus. FRANK’s collaborative work with UNC ARTery highlights the diversity of talent at UNC and further bridges the gap between the vibrant arts scene at the university and the arts in the local Chapel Hill community!

All blues salons are free and open to the public. The next artist’s talk event features Sudie Rakusin at 6 p.m. Thursday, and more events will be held each Thursday this month. If you haven’t been to FRANK at 109 E. Franklin St. a few doors down from Starbucks, it’s time to get there!