"I assume that it's intended to provide ammunition to go after disfavored faculty and/or to instill such a chill on campus that nobody would dare to say anything provocative in the first place. Whether those motivations are locally held or are meant to keep the university below the radar of certain culture warriors, I don't know. The effects are the same either way, and they're devastating to the mission of a university."
"The campus may have hundreds or thousands of cameras and classes, but very few provosts. Leaving aside the moral and legal issues, there's an effort issue. Playing Big Brother would get tiring quickly. Any provost with enough time to review the videos of hundreds of classes isn't doing their job. Lacking the capacity-whether technical or legal-to monitor everything gets you off the hook for monitoring everything."
UNC-Chapel Hill administrators can record any professor's class with provost and general counsel approval. The policy enables targeting disfavored faculty and creates a chilling effect that discourages provocative or challenging teaching. Professors may self-censor to avoid scrutiny, undermining the university's mission. Administrators become responsible for every classroom utterance yet lack the bandwidth to review recordings of hundreds of classes. Attempting comprehensive monitoring diverts leadership from structural priorities and invites micromanagement. Absence of practical monitoring capacity can paradoxically relieve administrators of oversight, but the policy damages trust, encourages malicious compliance, and harms institutional performance.
Read at Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
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