Thursday night, The Spectrum staff discovered a Facebook marketplace post by junior guard Andy Robinson, of the men's basketball team, in which Robinson offered to pay money for someone to write a paper for a class.
"I am paying anybody who have read the book 'there are no children here' by Alex Kotlowitz $30-40 which in some classes you have to read at UB (even more money if you have to read the book a little more!!) to write a 3-4 page paper, on a couple questions which was assigned," Robinson wrote.
UB's Academic Integrity Policy states that students, "should assume that no assistance or aid is allowable on exams or homework, unless explicitly outlined by the instructor."
According to Paul Vecchio, assistant athletic director/communications, the athletics department has no specific rules in regards to academic fraud because such issues fall under jurisdiction of the University.
"We [UB Athletics] have no policy on academic fraud, we simply follow the same policies that the university sets in place in terms of academic fraud. Obviously all our student athletes are students first. They follow the same codes that every student at the University at Buffalo follows for academic expectations," Vecchio said. "When there's a situation of academic fraud with a student-athlete, it moves up the chain of command through UB before it even comes to athletics."
Athletic Communications did not make Robinson available for comment. Vecchio said that the department was not yet ready to make an official statement in regards to the situation.
While academic fraud has occurred in the past within the department, Vecchio said that this is the first instance involving Facebook.
"I don't recall anything in regards to using Facebook or something like that. We've had issues of student athletes in my time at UB that have committed academic fraud, plagiarism or different things like that," Vecchio said. "It's certainly something that has happened but I'm not aware of it happening per say in this manner [through Facebook]."
Robinson finished the 2007-08 season as the Bulls scoring leader, averaging 13.1 points in 30 games. He also led the team with 53 steals.
