Professor loses job after lectures ‘secretly recorded’

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will not renew the contract of a professor whose classes the institution recorded without his permission, university media relations director Beth Lutz confirmed.

Larry Chavis has taught economics at the university’s Kenan-Flagler Business School on a yearly contract since 2006. In April, he was notified that his classes had been secretly recorded by a camera in his lecture hall, and that footage of those lessons had been used in a professional review. The review had been prompted by “reports concerning class content and conduct…over the past few months”, associate dean Christian Lundblad wrote in a letter to Professor Chavis.

“Notice is not required to record classes, and we do record classes without notice in response to concerns raised by students,” Dr Lundblad’s letter says.

Ms Lutz declined to comment on the university’s reasons for letting Professor Chavis’ contract lapse, including whether the recordings played any role in the decision. Professor Chavis told Inside Higher Ed that the letter he received informing him of his termination had offered no rationale.

When Professor Chavis asked university officials to explain in more detail the reasons he was under review and why he had been secretly recorded, Dr Lundblad told him they would meet to discuss it. That meeting was never scheduled.

Professor Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, has been an outspoken advocate for Indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights in ways that have sometimes pitted him against university officials, he told Inside Higher Ed in April.

Professor Chavis said that whatever the reason for his contract lapse, he worried that the “concerning class content” that Dr Lundblad said had prompted the classroom recordings was related to his “strong support of LGBTQ rights”. Professor Chavis said the office of Equal Opportunity Compliance has launched an investigation into the recordings, and that he has talked to investigators.

Ms Lutz said she “could not confirm the existence of an EOC investigation.”

The news of clandestine classroom recordings raised concerns among many faculty members at UNC Chapel Hill, Inside Higher Ed reported last month. A university spokesperson wrote that officials “do not have a formal policy” on classroom recordings, but their use in a professional conduct review appeared to go against multiple informal policies at the university.

The Office of the Provost’s list of best practices, for example, states that “a recorded classroom lecture should not be used for any purpose except to meet the educational objectives of that particular class”. And the Kenan-Flagler school’s IT department policy web page states that “classes are only recorded with the expressed permission of faculty”, which Professor Chavis denies having granted.

“For the first time in my career, I’m pretty shaken,” Professor Chavis posted to LinkedIn after receiving Dr Lundblad’s letter in April. “I pray I’ll still have a job at the end of this process.”

That process has now ended, and with it Professor Chavis’ 18-year run at the university. He posted on LinkedIn last Tuesday that he was “still sorting through a new reality”.

Professor Chavis declined to go into detail about his experience with the university since he learned of the recording. But he said that as a lifelong North Carolinian, teaching at Chapel Hill was a dream that he is disappointed to see end in conflict.

“It's definitely hard after investing so much in one place,” he said.

He added that the academic job market was not exactly flush with opportunities in early summer, especially for teaching-oriented professors like himself with little in the way of highly prized published research.

“The market for teaching skills is not the same as the market for research skills,” he said.

This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Inside Higher Ed.