Professors required to provide syllabi by first day of class

Professors will now be required to be painstakingly clear about course expectations from the start — something many of them were doing anyway.

The Faculty Council passed a revised syllabus policy Friday that requires all professors to provide a detailed course syllabus on or before the first day of class.

Before Friday, the policy strongly encouraged professors to provide syllabi, but it was not explicitly required.

Chancellor Holden Thorp strongly supported the policy change at the meeting.

“We’re under a lot of scrutiny,” he said at the meeting. “We need to pass this as a favor to the institution, to me, to yourselves.”

Theresa Raphael-Grimm, chairwoman of the educational policy committee, said the committee created the policy to improve communication between students and faculty.

“Our goal was to be sure that as we expected students to be accountable to complete the work of a course, we wanted faculty to be accountable to explain and identify what those expectations are,” she said.

She said the policy was not created in response to any specific case, but to prevent possible difficulties between students and faculty.

“For most of the University, none of this will be new or different,” Raphael-Grimm said. “Some people were not using syllabi or not using them effectively, and that’s what we were addressing.”

Raphael-Grimm said the committee had been planning to enforce the new syllabus policy prior to the scandal in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies.

“The work of this group existed long before the events of last summer,” she said.

When the revision was originally proposed at the Sept. 10 faculty executive committee meeting, it met some minor resistance from faculty.

“Initial resistance was around the sense of being micromanaged,” Raphael-Grimm said. “It was never the intention of the (educational policy committee) to rigidly dictate the elements of a syllabus.”

Diane Pozefsky, a computer science professor, said she doesn’t think the policy is necessary.

“It’s redundant,” Pozefsky said. “I understand they’re trying to get things consistent, but I think they’re overspecifying.”

She said the computer science department has submitted six syllabi for approval, and three have been rejected for minor errors.

Stephanie Watkins, a sophomore, said she supported the revised policy.

“I don’t think there could be any negatives for students,” Watkins said. “Most teachers do it already anyway.”

Contact the desk editor at

university@dailytarheel.com.