UNC System Weighs Requiring Course Syllabi to be Public

The UNC System is considering requiring syllabi for all courses at state-funded universities be made available to the public, according to a draft proposal obtained by The Assembly. 

UNC System spokesperson Andy Wallace confirmed in a statement to The Assembly that the system is “seeking feedback” on the proposal, which would “treat course syllabi across the System’s 16 universities as public records.” 

The proposal has been circulating among faculty leaders for feedback since last Friday, said UNC Charlotte professor Karen Flint, who is a member of the UNC System Faculty Assembly. Wallace said feedback from faculty representatives would be considered before a new regulation is formally adopted.

Per the UNC System policy manual, regulations are handed down from the system president—currently Peter Hans—for campuses to follow and do not require approval from the Board of Governors.

As written, the proposal would go into effect next academic year, and each campus would be  required to create an online platform to house syllabi that is searchable and available to the public. 

The draft frames it as a benefit to students, helping them plan their academic workloads, weigh the cost of class materials, and understand an instructor’s grading scale. All syllabi would need to contain the course’s name and description, goals and learning objectives, grading scale, major assignments, attendance policy, and materials they are required to purchase. 

“Access to course syllabi furthers the university’s overall goal to improve student progression and timely degree completion,” the draft reads. The Daily Tar Heel first reported on the draft regulation on Wednesday.

But the move comes amid a heated debate over syllabi and their availability to the public. Several states, including Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Indiana, moved to make syllabi public this year, either through new laws or changes in university policy. In Texas, where state law has required schools to make syllabi public since 2009, a Texas A&M University professor was fired in September over a lesson on gender identity—a topic the university president said was not reflected in the course description, per Inside Higher Ed.

Supporters of making syllabi public generally say the practice fosters transparency. Critics say it could put professors at risk, both personally and professionally, if they teach courses on issues that might be considered controversial. The concern has come into focus more as faculty around the country have been subject to doxxing after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and protests over the war in Gaza. (The UNC System draft proposal states that syllabi would not have to list the location or time of day that courses meet.)

“As educational policy, publishing faculty syllabi for public consumption appears to be a politically motivated outlier. There is no evidence of any accrued benefits for students, nor of goodwill being generated between the university and the public,” reads an online petition against the proposal circulated by the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Instead, providing public access to syllabi during a period of heightened partisanship and rising political violence looks like partisan pandering with a cost to faculty and no benefit.”

Other critics say that the proposal could violate faculty’s intellectual property rights and is unnecessary because class descriptions are already available through public resources like course catalogs.

“If this is really about making things better for students, there are other options,” Flint said.

The differing opinions became evident in the UNC System this fall.

UNC-Chapel Hill denied the Oversight Project’s request for syllabi, writing that “course materials, including but not limited to exams, lectures, assignments and syllabi, are the intellectual property of the preparer.” UNC-CH spokesperson Kevin Best said in a statement Wednesday that the university “adopted what we believed to be the most protective stance for faculty’s work, declining to release syllabi without the instructor’s permission.”

But when UNC Greensboro received a similar request, officials there determined syllabi were public records under state law and released them, per reports by WUNC and Inside Higher Ed.

“Institutions within the System have previously put forth different legal interpretations, which created confusion and inconsistency,” Wallace said. “Most other university documents are public records; it is hard to make the argument that syllabi are not public records.”

Best said UNC-CH will comply with the system’s regulation.

“This decision does not alter our commitment to academic freedom, which remains a foundational principle of Carolina’s academic pursuits,” he said.

The draft regulation makes clear that the UNC System’s position is that the universities, not professors, own the copyright to syllabi under federal law. The U.S. Copyright Act, as cited in the proposed regulation, states that works created by employees as part of their “regular duties” are considered “made for hire”—and thus “the party that hired the individual is considered both the author and the copyright owner of the work.” (The regulation would allow professors to petition provosts for certain parts of their syllabi to be considered copyrightable, if they believe “specific language” in the documents would qualify.)

Wallace said “a common standard would clarify that syllabi are part of faculty’s teaching duties as public employees and should be available for tuition-paying students and taxpayers to see.”

“The UNC System is a public institution, responsible to the people of North Carolina. Providing the public with transparency about the educational process should inspire confidence at a time when higher education faces increasing scrutiny,” Wallace said. “We are proud of our work, and we should be willing to share it openly.”