Faculty have questions about UNC syllabus policy. Here are the answers.
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- Syllabi are public record; searchable repositories are being developed systemwide.
- Syllabi must be posted one week before semester; past syllabi stay public.
- Instructor names (not grad students) are public; location and contact info excluded.
Under a newly minted policy, every course syllabus from universities across the UNC System is now public record. Now, schools are working on building searchable repositories of thousands of course outlines for the convenience of students and members of the public alike.
At a recent UNC-Chapel Hill faculty council meeting, faculty members raised concerns about the new policy and its implementation. Here are their questions, and here’s how the system is responding.
Is the university going to dox professors?
No, according to UNC-Chapel Hill’s director of public records, Gavin Young.
A major concern among faculty is that politically motivated groups will seek out syllabi that don’t match their viewpoints. These groups could attempt to get professors punished for “teaching students how to think rather than what to think,” said UNC history professor Erik Gellman. Professors want to know how much of the personal information typically included in a syllabus — like email, cell phone number and classroom location — will be made public record.
Class location and instructor contact information will not be included in the public versions of syllabi, Young clarified. The names of instructors will be public, however, unless the instructor is a graduate student. Young pointed out that professors’ names and the courses they teach are already publicly available on the registrar’s webpage.
Will past syllabi now also be public record?
Yes, according to the UNC System. As long as the syllabus still exists, it is public record, no matter what year it was created.
“At the same time, the regulation recognizes that some syllabi include copyrightable materials,” spokesperson Andy Wallace told The News & Observer. “In those cases, an instructor can raise an objection and submit a written position to the institution’s provost for review within a reasonable time period set by the campus before the syllabus is produced in response to a records request.”
Gellman said he anticipates this policy will have a cooling effect on professors’ willingness to be creative and include their cutting-edge research in a course curriculum.
The syllabus should be considered the intellectual property of the instructor as well as a contract between student and professor, not an interchangeable work product, he said.
How will the policy help students finish degrees more quickly?
For UNC System President Peter Hans, timely degree completion is a priority. He wants more students to graduate from the system’s universities more quickly. This policy is part of that initiative, Wallace told The N&O.
One week before the semester begins, all course syllabi must be available on the school’s public online platform, the new policy dictates.
“Giving students access to syllabi ahead of time helps them better understand course content before enrolling, which should cut down on course changes and help students stay on track,” Wallace said.
If syllabi aren’t public during course selection, how will they help students choose?
The first day of the current spring semester was Jan. 7. But the first wave of undergraduate registration for those classes began on Oct. 30. That’s nine weeks before syllabi for that semester would become public record.
“If they’re looking at a previous semester’s slate of syllabi, those aren’t necessarily going to be applicable,” said Kevin Stewart, a professor of environmental science at UNC. “So how will the late addition of a syllabus to this repository help students with class selection?”
In the eyes of the UNC System, past syllabi will help students get a sense of course content and expectations and make more informed decisions, Wallace said.
What must a syllabus include?
Under the new policy, a syllabus must include the following five elements, according to a presentation to the council by Jim Dean, UNC’s interim executive vice chancellor and provost:
- Course name and description.
- Goals, objectives, student learning outcomes and expectations.
- An explanation of how the professor will approach grading, including a scale, a percentage breakdown of major assignments, and attendance and participation expectations.
- All course materials that students will have to purchase.
- A statement indicating that the inclusion of diverse scholarly perspectives does not imply endorsement of those perspectives, but rather is an attempt to develop critical thinking.
UNC-Chapel Hill faculty are not alone in their questions about the new policy, faculty council chair Beth Moracco assured attendees at the council meeting.
“I’ve talked to my counterparts at the other 16 campuses, and there are similar frustrations and similar questions,” said Moracco. “We are comparing notes and working as a group.”
UNC System schools are embarking on the project of assembling all the syllabi into a searchable repository. Giselle Corbie, a professor of social medicine and vice provost for faculty affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill, is assembling a campus-wide working group to figure out how best to approach that task.
This story was originally published February 9, 2026 at 12:52 PM with the headline "Faculty have questions about UNC syllabus policy. Here are the answers.."
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the purview of a working group.
