Report on Grading
The report on grading at Harvard College presents recent grade data and possible approaches to Faculty concerns about grade compression.
In May 2022, in response to growing concerns among the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) about grade compression, Dean Rakesh Khurana commissioned the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) to compile a report on grading at Harvard College to present recent grade data and possible approaches to addressing Faculty concerns.
Harvard College should be able to articulate and stand behind its approach to grading to ensure that we are measuring and rewarding what we value. The information in the report provides the FAS Faculty with the tools to act and to affirm an approach to grading that will reflect our shared commitments to academic freedom and transparent grading standards.
Recommendations
The Report on Grading was released in Fall 2023 and presented the following recommendations:
- Each year, the OUE will provide data to departments about median grades for courses in their department and across their division to guide departmental conversations.
- Faculty should engage in annual discussions of grading criteria and norms in their discipline and department. Each department should publish their approach to grading on a departmental website.
- Instructors should define their grading criteria for assignments based on learning objectives for their course and share the criteria with students.
- Harvard University Information Technology, Institutional Research, and the Registrar’s Office should collaborate on a grading dashboard in the Student Information System to allow faculty to readily access grading data across the FAS.
- The OUE and FAS will work with prize offices to expand prize criteria to include additional criteria beyond the GPA.
- The Mignone Center for Career Success and Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships should offer clear guidance and tutor training so as not to perpetuate myths about the role of grades in hiring and graduate school applications.
- The FAS should review the Q course evaluation questions and the role that quantitative scores play in high-stakes processes at the University, including reappointment, promotion, and tenure. There is a direct correlation between expected grades and Q ratings that may be contributing to trends towards higher grades.
- The OUE and Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning will retire teaching awards based solely on Q ratings for Teaching Fellows (TFs) and non-ladder faculty in favor of more substantive awards of teaching based on multiple measures.
- The Bok Center will offer workshops on assessing student work and training for teaching teams on effective grading.
- Finally, the faculty may wish to request further research to determine why grade compression is occurring, such as a survey of faculty and a review of assignments and grading in individual classes across the FAS.
Implementation
Since the Report’s release, 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.
2024-2025
- Beginning in spring 2025, 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 spring 2025 that will allow faculty to readily access grading data across the FAS.
2023-2024
- 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, Teaching Assistants (TAs), and undergraduate Course Assistants (CAs) and the Certificates of Teaching Excellence for non-ladder faculty) have been discontinued. We hope that this change will reduce the pressure on TFs and other instructors to give higher grades and allow instructors to engage more productively with student feedback.
- The OUE and the Bok Center have developed a new teaching award for non-ladder faculty that is based on a range of criteria. 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 developing effective exams.
- The Program in General Education has issued program-wide grading guidelines for faculty and students.
Bok Center
Over the next several years, the Bok Center will be supporting OUE in implementing the grading report’s eight recommendations. Please visit the Bok Center’s Canvas site to learn more about programming specifically focused on learning more about grading culture across the College, and sharing best practices when creating rubrics and delivering meaningful feedback to students on their learning.
Report on Grading at Harvard College
To view the full report and its findings, please visit the OUE Document Library.