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.