Students enrolled in any course at Brown can ask their instructor for a narrative evaluation of their performance — known as a course performance report.
But starting this fall, this option will no longer be available.
At a meeting on Tuesday, faculty members passed a motion to eliminate the procedures for CPRs starting this fall.
CPRs provide “valuable information to students about their strengths and weaknesses,” according to Brown’s Advising Sidekick. They are not included in a student’s academic record or transcript, but up to two reports can be sent out to external institutions and organizations if the student requests.
Instructors teaching mandatory Satisfactory/No Credit courses are required to honor the report request. Other faculty members may decline to submit the CPR if “they believe they have inadequate information to do so,” according to The College’s website.
Rashid Zia ’01, dean of the College, said students no longer utilize the reports as they were intended to be used when they were created over 50 years ago with the establishment of the Open Curriculum.
In the past, reports could be used to provide students with an assessment of what they had learned in the course, Zia said. But now, he argued these reports are rarely used for assessment purposes.
CPRs are frequently used by students in the Program in Liberal Medical Education. According to the PLME 2024-25 handbook, PLME students are required to request a report if they elect to take a class using the S/NC grading system.
“PLME advisors communicated (the CPRs) are no longer needed,” according to the motion.
Assistant Professor of Medicine Judy Jang ’03 MD’07, the program’s associate dean, did not respond to a request for comment.
Zia said students also often request the report to document their grades in classes they may choose to take S/NC, defeating the report’s purpose and overwhelming professors.
“We have a number of faculty colleagues who receive dozens of course performance reports every semester, and we have a real challenge navigating this,” he said.
Eliminating the reports, Zia added, “is meant to be a generosity, to give back time” to faculty members.
At Tuesday’s meeting, faculty also passed a motion to allow students who take fewer than four summer and winter courses to earn enrollment units toward the 32 units required for graduation.
According to Brown’s website, these summer and winter courses do not currently count toward enrollment unless students successfully complete four of them — upon which they would receive a “waiver of one semester of enrollment credit.”
But “very few students” were reaching this number, according to Zia.
By allowing individual courses to count for credit, students will be better able to meet degree requirements, he added.
The approved motion also includes updating University financial aid formulas to provide “proportionate aid” to students who register for summer and winter courses, Zia explained. Previously, students on partial financial aid did not receive the same level of financial support from the University for these courses.
With the new motion, students’ net cost for each summer and winter course will “match” the net cost of courses taken during the year, Zia said.
“We really believe that these changes will make summer and winter courses more accessible and will help simplify the process of enrollment units and standings for graduation,” he added.
Cate Latimer is a university news editor covering faculty, University Hall and higher education. She is from Portland, OR, and studies English and Urban Studies. In her free time, you can find her playing ultimate frisbee or rewatching episodes of Parks and Rec.
