Columbia University is committed to fostering intellectual inquiry in a climate of academic freedom and integrity. Its members, students and faculty alike, are expected to uphold these principles and exhibit tolerance and respect for others.
Our undergraduate students are members of a University community committed to fostering intellectual inquiry within a climate of academic freedom and integrity. Students and faculty alike are expected to promote these goals in the context of inclusiveness, mutual respect, and tolerance for others, as ideas are explored, facts gathered, opinions weighed, and conclusions drawn. We work together with the understanding that we are, first and foremost, an educational community with teaching and learning at the heart of our enterprise and many educational opportunities beyond the walls of the classroom.
Central to all of our procedures is our educational mission, and it is this educational mission which also informs our process for dealing with academic concerns, complaints, and grievances. From time to time a student may have concerns about a particular classroom experience, a specific curricular matter, or a faculty member’s actions that seem not to be consistent with the highest ideals of our community. Different kinds of academic concerns and complaints will require different approaches to resolve them satisfactorily.
When a student believes that a faculty member has failed to meet his or her obligations in an instructional setting, the student has two principal sources of immediate assistance: the University's Ombuds Office and the admistrative staff of the school in which the student is enrolled.
Due to the size and diverse nature of our scholarly community, each school maintains its own processes for addressing a variety of student life issues, including students' concerns about experiences in the classroom or with faculty at their school.
Columbia College guidance for students who have concerns, complaints, or grievances that are academic in nature can be found here on the College's Academic Affairs website.