UNC-Chapel Hill’s provost told the Faculty Executive Committee on Monday that the university had no policy governing whether or when administrators could secretly record professors’ lectures.
But J. Christopher Clemens “expressed support for developing a filming policy and indicated he would initiate the process,” a UNC-Chapel Hill spokesperson told The Assembly.
Clemens sought to assuage faculty concerns about classroom eavesdropping, which were sparked by news that the Kenan-Flagler Business School had recorded lectures of economics professor Larry Chavis on four days this spring without his knowledge.
On April 22, Kenan-Flagler senior associate dean Christian Lundblad informed Chavis that the school was reviewing his “class content and conduct” following unspecified student complaints.
“Notice is not required to record classes, and we do record classes without notice in response to concerns raised by students,” Lundblad said in an email, which Chavis posted to his LinkedIn page. “We wanted to let you know we will continue recording your class as part of your formal review process.”
As The Assembly reported, however, Kenan-Flagler’s IT guidelines prohibited business school officials from recording lectures without the professor’s permission. Some faculty wondered whether administrators routinely recorded lectures and questioned whether, in a politically charged atmosphere, they had targeted Chavis, an outspoken proponent of diversity initiatives and critic of the business school’s leaders.
The university has said that it followed “applicable laws.” But during Monday night’s Faculty Executive Committee meeting, two attendees said, one committee member pointed out that North Carolina is a one-party consent state—meaning at least one party in a conversation must consent to a recording to avoid violating wiretapping laws.
The faculty committee meeting was not recorded, and Clemens didn’t comment on it. The university spokesperson said Clemens did not address “specific instances of past filming” at the committee meeting, referring to Chavis.
According to two people who attended the meeting, which was held online, Clemens said he’d advised university deans not to record lectures until administrators had figured things out. (After this article was published, a UNC-Chapel Hill spokesperson said Clemens had asked deans to contact him before recording professors.)
Hours before the meeting, Chavis learned that Kenan-Flagler wouldn’t use its recordings to evaluate him.
On Monday afternoon, Lundblad sent Chavis an unsigned evaluation, which Chavis shared with The Assembly. The evaluation said that “earlier class recordings that were made were not considered or viewed as part of this teaching evaluation.” (That appears to contradict Lundblad’s April 22 email telling Chavis that “we recorded and reviewed several of your class sessions.”)
Lundblad told Chavis that he deferred to the professor’s preference for in-person classroom reviews—an option Lundblad offered Chavis on April 29, after The Assembly and Chavis separately pointed out the discrepancy between Kenan-Flagler’s actions and its IT guidelines, emails show.
Lundblad did not respond to a request for comment.
The evaluation shed light on what sparked the business school’s inquiry. In March, it said, the campus’ Office of the Undergraduate Business Program received complaints from Chavis’ students—the evaluation didn’t say how many—that the content of his International Development course didn’t align with the course catalog description.
The students said Chavis focused too much on Indigenous issues and spent too much time discussing his upbringing as a member of the Lumbee tribe. They also said he complained frequently about what he views as racial discrimination among business school leaders.
The evaluation also cited a handful of comments students made in end-of-semester course reviews in 2023 and 2024. Those reviews are shared with professors each semester.
“This class was a dei [diversity, equity, and inclusion] class which is not at all what I signed up for,” one student wrote in 2023. A student—it’s not clear if it’s the same one, as the responses are anonymous—called Chavis the “worst” professor he or she had ever had. The student noted that Chavis had forbidden students from wearing clothing with sports logos he deemed offensive to Indigenous people and “told us how he was going to take down a sign (which is a crime).”
The evaluation also said the students whose March 2024 complaints prompted the inquiry “expressed safety concerns and fears of retaliation,” and reported “feeling physically unsafe in the class as Prof. Chavis stated that he was going to ‘burn this b*tch down’ [sic] with regard to the business school building.”
Chavis immediately pushed back, telling Lundblad in an email that the business school had long ago approved including Indigenous issues in the International Development course—an assertion supported by emails Chavis shared with The Assembly.
In 2019, for example, Chavis asked the business school’s then-director of academics if he could “align some of my teaching with American Indian topics” in the course. “That sounds ok by us,” she replied.
Three years later, he sent another business school official an updated description of his International Development course. “Understanding Indigenous communities” was a “critical theme,” and the course had “an extended focus on marginalized groups in the United States and the economic impact of bias,” he wrote. That wording is not reflected in the current course catalog, however. Chavis told The Assembly he’s not sure why.
But the course’s syllabus is titled “International Development: Focus on Indigenous Issues,” and warns that “the professor is somewhat unconventional and relies on music videos, humor, and pop culture (among other things) to stimulate discussion on poverty, politics, and a range of current events.”
In his email to Lundblad, Chavis said the complaints about his classroom comments came from a student with “an ax to grind. Now, you have taken that student’s misdirection and put it into my official record.”
He said the sign he wanted to steal was a Sons of Confederate Veterans highway marker, and the “burn this bitch down” comment alluded to a statement an activist made following George Floyd’s murder. Chavis said he made the comment in 2023; a student included it in an end-of-semester complaint, which Chavis showed to students at the beginning of this spring’s course. He said he wanted them to know what they were getting into.
Most students enjoyed his class, though some found him disorganized, based on a review of course evaluations from 2023 and 2024 that Chavis shared with The Assembly. In the spring of 2023, only two of 12 students who filled out an end-of-semester evaluation said they didn’t think the course provided a “valuable learning experience,” and only one disagreed with the statement that Chavis was an excellent teacher.
The 2024 evaluations produced similar results: Several students pointed out Chavis’ tendency to ramble, but most rated him excellent and thought his course a useful addition to Kenan-Flagler’s roster.
But the minority that disliked Chavis featured prominently in his teaching evaluation.
How the evaluation will affect Chavis’ future at UNC-CH remains to be seen. His contract expires on June 30. In February, Lundblad told Chavis in an email, “Your contract will be renewed,” but Chavis says that hasn’t happened yet.
This article has been updated to include additional information from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Jeffrey Billman reports on politics and the law forThe Assembly. Email him atjeffrey@theassemblync.com.
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