Brown University is committed to offering a high-quality education to all students. Students are afforded the opportunity to submit anonymous feedback on their courses at the end of each term. This is an important mechanism to help instructors adjust or improve their teaching and reinforce effective practices. To evaluate the effectiveness of our feedback process, we are convening a committee to review our current course feedback system, suggest short- and longer-term changes and implement the short-term revisions in time for the Spring 2026 feedback cycle.

Course feedback is reviewed at the department or program level. It is an effective tool that allows chairs and directors to recognize, reward and support their department colleagues, as well as to identify areas for improvement. Scrutiny of student comments can help chairs or their designees contextualize feedback, recognize exemplary teaching approaches and identify instructors in need of additional support. Student feedback is also a component of the assessment of teaching in tenure and personnel reviews and provides insights into the curriculum.

The review by the committee is timely for several reasons.

First, we want to ensure that our system provides secure, accessible and meaningful information to instructors, as well as department chairs.

Second, the last review of our course feedback instrument took place in the 2017–18 academic year, by a committee of faculty, students and administrative deans. The 2017–18 review committee recommended that our instrument be reviewed after five years of use. Our current instrument was rolled out to the Brown community six years ago in 2019, placing us on time for a review that recognizes developments in the scholarship of teaching, learning and assessment. 

Third, Brown’s next accreditation review will take place in the spring of academic year 2027–28, with the self-study to be prepared in academic year 2026–27. Our accrediting body, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), requires that the “effectiveness of instruction is regularly and systematically assessed using valid procedures; the results are used to improve instruction.” Turning our attention to the course feedback instrument at this stage will help us prepare our self-study next year.

Finally, the committee will be able to propose any changes to facilitate ongoing compliance with the University's obligations under the July 30, 2025, resolution agreement between Brown and the United States Justice Department, the United States Department of Education and the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The resolution agreement provides as follows:

“Student course evaluations that are collected on an anonymous basis at the end of each semester will be regularly reviewed to identify any reports of antisemitism, which will be promptly referred to OECR [the Office of Equity and Compliance Reporting] for appropriate action.”

Moreover, the University calls for all reports of discrimination or harassment—including but not limited to antisemitism—to be promptly reported to OECR for appropriate action.

Given that the committee will need to have at least short-term changes to the instrument ready for implementation at the end of the spring semester, the committee’s charge is focused on the following three areas:

Review the format and content of the current course feedback instrument.

• Does the instrument have the right number of questions? Is the length manageable for students completing the feedback form and for department chairs reviewing feedback? Should there be a limit on the number of text boxes and/or the maximum number of characters in the response within any text box?
• Do the questions elicit the most important information to improve teaching and learning?
• How does the instrument enable compliance with the resolution agreement, and are revisions appropriate to enhance compliance?
• What evidence-based strategies are currently used to minimize bias, and are there new approaches in the literature that should be adopted?
• Does the instrument have the correct balance of qualitative and quantitative questions?
• How can we make adjustments while still maintaining the longitudinal value of the instrument?
• What is the role of custom questions in the course feedback process?

Identify best practices for review of course feedback.

• How might department chairs efficiently and effectively review course feedback?
• Informed by the scholarship of teaching and learning, how should course feedback be reviewed (by chairs, TPAC, etc.)?

Identify longer-term areas for consideration and future study.

• What areas were raised in our discussion that could not be addressed by the spring deadline, but are still worthy of study and discussion?

The committee is expected to solicit input from a wide range of stakeholders as it develops its recommendations. A report containing short-term recommendations to be enacted for the spring semester course feedback cycle will be delivered to the provost by March 1, 2026. Longer term recommendations should be delivered to the provost by May 1, 2026.

Members of the Committee

• Nicholas Monk, co-chair of the committee; Executive Director, Sheridan Center Center for Teaching and Learning
• Katie Rieser, co-chair of the committee; Director of Teacher Education, Associate Teaching Professor of Education
• M.J. Ahmadi, Ph.D. student, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
• Janet Blume, Deputy Provost; Interim Dean of the Graduate School; Associate Professor, School of Engineering
• Rachel El Grably '28, Chair of Academic Affairs, Undergraduate Council of Students
• Scott Frickel, Department Chair and Professor, Sociology
• Kim Gallon, Associate Professor of Africana Studies
• Jeff Huang, Associate Professor of Computer Science
• Monica Linden, Teaching Professor of Neuroscience
• Jennifer Nuzzo, Director of the Pandemic Center, School of Public Health; Professor of Epidemiology
• Ethan Pollock, Dean of the College; Abbott Gleason University Professor of History
• Stephanie A. Ravillon, Associate Teaching Professor of French and Francophone Studies
• Melvin Rogers, Associate Director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics; Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Political Science
• Eric Kaldor, staffing the committee; Director, Assessment and Transformational Programs, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning
• Sara Misgen, staffing the committee; Assistant Director, Interdisciplinary Teaching Communities, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning