CHAPEL HILL - Gene Nichol, the former UNC-Chapel Hill law dean who stepped down abruptly last month as president of The College of William & Mary, has accepted an offer to rejoin the law faculty at UNC-CH.

Nichol and his wife, Glenn George, were both tenured faculty members while Nichol ran the law school from 1999 to 2005. Pending the same review process other prospective faculty members undergo, the duo would receive tenured faculty posts again starting July 1, said Jack Boger, the law school's current dean.

An unabashed liberal college president in a conservative state, Nichol resigned from William & Mary after a string of campus controversies, including his moving of a cross in a historic chapel used for secular campus events.

After learning that his contract would not be renewed, Nichol said in a letter to the community that he had refused an offer of "substantial economic incentives" by William & Mary leaders to remain quiet about what he described as ideological disputes behind his departure.

None of this matters at UNC-CH, Boger said Wednesday.

"We're bringing him in as a distinguished professor, not as a chancellor or a dean," Boger said. "In that role, his credentials are outstanding."

Nichol was a finalist in 2000 for the UNC-CH chancellorship for which James Moeser was chosen. At the law school, Nichol will teach constitutional law, federal jurisdiction and election law, while George will teach civil procedure and employment and labor law, Boger said. The posts were not created for the couple, the dean said. The law school is expanding its faculty ranks, and both Nichol and George bring needed expertise, he said.

The couple visited the school last week and made presentations to the faculty, which subsequently signed off on the hirings. Their credentials must still be approved by outside peer reviewers and the provost's office, Boger said. Their salaries have not been determined but will be in line with those of other tenured professors, he said.

George, a Charlotte native, served as UNC-CH's interim general counsel for a time while Nichol was the university's law dean. She taught law at William & Mary during Nichol's tenure there.

The couple could not be reached Wednesday.

In his letter in February to the William & Mary community, Nichol said he would return to the college's law school faculty. But soon after his departure, friends at UNC-CH called to gauge his interest in returning to Chapel Hill, Boger said.

Though his political leanings bothered some in Virginia, Nichol was popular on campus, where students and faculty alike protested his departure.

In Chapel Hill, word of Nichol's return is just trickling out, but some students have heard about Nichol's struggles in Virginia. The incident with the cross at the chapel was particularly alarming, said Jared Hammett, president of the Law School Republicans, a student organization.

"To walk into a school and try to destroy the tradition of the school, that's the sort of thing you worry about," Hammett said. "But I don't think that's a worry in Chapel Hill because he's not being hired as dean."