Since the release of the Report on Grading in Fall 2023, a Grading Implementation Committee has worked with groups across the FAS to begin to reduce external pressures on grading and support transparency in giving feedback to students:
- Redesigned teaching prizes for graduate students and non-ladder faculty are no longer based on scores on teaching evaluations.
- Teaching awards that rely solely on Q scores (the Certificates of Distinction in Teaching for TFs, TAs, and CAs and the Certificates of Teaching Excellence for non-ladder faculty) have been discontinued; we hope that this will reduce the pressure on TFs and other instructors to give higher grades and will allow instructors to engage more productively with student feedback.
- OUE and the Bok Center have developed a new teaching award for non-ladder faculty that is based on a range of criteria, and Harvard Griffin GSAS is considering the possibility of expanding the Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching to recognize and celebrate a larger number of GSAS students each year.
- Additionally, the Bok Center launched a thank-a-teacher program, which enables students to share a note of appreciation with a professor, TF, or other instructor.
- The Bok Center has held focus groups and developed materials to guide faculty in creating grading rubrics that are aligned with course learning objectives. They have also developed guidance for decreasing student anxiety about grades and for developing effective exams.
- The Program in General Education has issued program-wide grading guidelines for faculty and students.
- Beginning in fall 2024, the OUE will provide data to departments about median grades for their courses in their departments and across divisions to guide departmental conversations.
- Institutional Research, in collaboration with the OUE and the Registrar’s Office, will launch a grading dashboard in fall 2024 that will allow faculty to readily access grading data across the FAS.