UNC system president orders all class syllabuses to be published as public records

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wmheel1287 said:
Because it isn't aimed at transparency at all. It is aimed at making those who instruct courses the target of online warriors who will never step foot on campus at UNC.
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Gotta make sure there's enough Jesus in those syllabi!
 
heelinhell said:
No big deal...

All the profs need to do is not print words like DEI, LGBTQ, anti-racism, democracy, voting rights, slavery, Jim Crow, or other words the Heritage Foundation finds offensive in their syllabus , and they probably won't have to be overly worried about death threats to them or their family.
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Major loophole. This is why the transparency films from the overhead projector also need to be public records.
 
I swear in my day if you asked for a syllabus the loud white male professor might just bellow out...
I lecture, you take notes , there is your custom made syllabus young fella
 
1moretimeagain said:
Major loophole. This is why the transparency films from the overhead projector also need to be public records.
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That could be a positive. If every lecture is filmed and made available to the public, then people could get a free UNC education without enrolling or attending classes.

Yale has had open courses on line where you feel like you are actually sitting in the classroom in real time . I have enjoyed several Yale courses over the years. And the best thing there was no homework or exams to worry about and I could day drink. I could even pause the prof when I needed to go take a piss.

WINNING !

Courses | Open Yale Courses

oyc.yale.edu oyc.yale.edu
 
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heelinhell said:
That could be a positive. If every lecture is filmed and made available to the public, then people could get a free UNC education without enrolling or attending classes.

Yale has had open courses on line where you feel like you are actually sitting in the classroom in real time . I have enjoyed several Yale courses over the years. And the best thing there was no homework or exams to worry about and I could day drink. I could even pause the prof when I needed to to take a piss.

WINNING !

Courses | Open Yale Courses

oyc.yale.edu oyc.yale.edu
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I need to get back into those.
 
donbosco said:
pen.org

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship

Banned words list 2025: The federal government is banning a growing number of words to comply with executive orders from President Trump.
pen.org pen.org
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"Our list is most assuredly incomplete. The New York Times published a list of words flagged by federal agencies to ban, limit, or avoid. Additional terms were reported by Politico, Reuters, The Washington Post, Propublica, Science, Gizmodo, 404 Media, Popular Information, Politico’s E&E News and the nonprofit news outlet More Perfect Union. These have been aggregated into a single list, below, which also reflects guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, NASA, the National Cancer Institute, the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the White House itself."
 

The Coalition for Carolina <contact@coalitionforcarolina.org>
​
Recently, we’ve seen too many instances of University leaders and governance bypassing faculty input and undermining standard decision-making protocol – from Trustees meddling in the Bill Belichick hiring process to fast-tracking the creation of the School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) without faculty input.

The latest example came from the UNC System that governs North Carolina’s 16 public universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill.

On Wednesday, December 10, The Assembly reported that the UNC System was “seeking feedback” on a proposal which would “treat course syllabi across the System’s 16 universities as public records.”

The move to require syllabi to be public record was controversial among faculty and many in the academic community, with some seeing course crafting as intellectual property, among other concerns and objections to the potential policy.

Also on Wednesday, The Daily Tar Heel reported that faculty had until Friday, December 12 to provide feedback on the proposed syllabus policy. With only a few days to review the proposed policy and provide feedback, it was an unreasonably short timeline to allow for proper faculty input – especially in the wake of end-of-semester mayhem with exams, final grades and all that the end of the year entails.

Then, before the assumed end-of-week deadline and prior to the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) being able to deliver their petition with more than 2,000 signatures, UNC System President Peter Hans penned a letter in the News & Observer stating that the decision had already been made, and that the new policy will be that all 16 UNC campuses will be required to make course syllabi public.

At the Coalition for Carolina, we were concerned enough when we caught wind of the compressed timeline for faculty feedback. With this premature announcement of a final decision, it seems faculty input wasn’t welcome at all.

This is not the way the UNC System should be operating. Regardless of how any individual might feel about the policy, faculty deserved to be heard and involved in the decision-making process. The haste at which this decision was made is unacceptable. Yet again, our faculty deserved better.
 
donbosco said:
At UNC, Professors Must Soon Post Syllabi Publicly

If you can’t get through to this article let me know.
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From the Inside Higher Ed article linked just above:

"Starting as early as next fall, faculty members at UNC institutions will be required to upload their syllabi to a searchable public database, according to a draft of the policy provided to Inside Higher Ed by student journalists at The Daily Tar Heel. These public syllabi must include the course name, prefix, description, course objectives and student learning outcomes, as well as “a breakdown of how student performance will be assessed, including the grading scale, percentage breakdown of major assignments, and how attendance or participation will affect a student’s final grade.” Faculty must also include any course materials that students are required to purchase."

What is NOT listed there are the specifics of the daily/weekly assignments nor are readings posted on a Learning Management Systems (LMSs), i.e., essentially a firewall protected course website. Those LMSs are where professors post scanned or otherwise linked reading material. Many professors have turned to providing nearly all reading materials for classes either linked in those LMSs or as ebooks that students do not purchase but rather read by way of their school's library website (so too with digitized scholarly journals for that matter). Many texts are also now rented by students from their campus bookstore. From the quoted material above it is pretty easy to imagine a public syllabus that list no reading material whatsoever. [Surely these substantial loopholes will be closed, right?]
 
LeoBloom said:
The words black and racism are of course banned.
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Given these instructions: "These public syllabi must include the course name, prefix, description, course objectives and student learning outcomes, as well as “a breakdown of how student performance will be assessed, including the grading scale, percentage breakdown of major assignments, and how attendance or participation will affect a student’s final grade.” Faculty must also include any course materials that students are required to purchase."

What I have to imagine is some creative boiler plate, in the fewest words possible.

I wonder if requiring that LMSs be public would violate FERPA regulations in some way? I use something like a message board to gather student reflections...surely those sorts of things cannot be made public...the students are not employees after all.

But no Orwellian proposals and mandates surprise me at present.
 
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