After the academic-athletic scandal showed a need for more academic accountability, the College of Arts and Sciences implemented new guidelines for undergraduate independent study courses.
Independent studies were an issue in the Wainstein report, which described a decades-long paper class scheme in which Julius Nyang’oro, then chairperson of the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies, was listed as the instructor for hundreds of independent studies every year.
Although all courses must follow the guidelines, which were introduced in 2012, UNC Summer School in particular adopted reforms.
“Because summer school provides the infrastructure for academic affairs units to offer courses in summer, we have reinforced these guidelines to the departments so that faculty know that the guidelines are also in effect in summer,” said Jan Yopp, summer school dean.
According to the registrar’s office, students interested in a topic can take independent studies with faculty with expertise in the topic.
“Let’s suppose you took the media law class in journalism and you really thought public records were really interesting and you wanted to look into it more,” Yopp said. “You would go to a professor in the journalism school and ask if that professor would be willing to do an independent study with you on this topic.”
The independent study reform limits faculty members supervising independent study courses to two students per semester or summer session and allows administrators to view faculty teaching loads.
“The other (reform) is really monitoring teaching loads. Not just the courses we pay for, which had been our previous way we had looked at courses, but to actually going back now and looking at these registration summaries from the registrar’s office and seeing exactly what faculty in the college are teaching,” Yopp said.
