Teaching guidance for the Fall 2025 semester (September 2, 2025)
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back—I hope your summer was restorative and productive. As we begin Fall 2025: thank you for teaching and supporting our students. This message offers reminders of best practices, key policies, and teaching resources. Our practices and policies aim to blend excellence and empathy, setting rigorous academic standards and providing support for students in meeting them. Clarity about our expectations may not be glamorous, but it serves both those aims. Please welcome all of our students and support them in doing their best.
Rules of the road:
If you are teaching Fall subjects, please bear in mind the following reminders of our policies on grading, assignments and exams; most can be found at more length inRules and Regulations of the Faculty, Sections 2.50 and 2.60. A few minutes checking your syllabus against faculty policies helps limit student complaints about potential violations and ensures productive learning for everyone. (Some common issues are flagged below.) If you have questions or foresee the need for an exception, please contact me as soon as possible.
Grading Guidelines (an important reminder): At MIT the grade for each student is determined independently of other students – not on a curve. Familiarize yourself with our grading policy and use clear language on syllabi (which should include grading criteria and procedures: see Sections 2.53 and 2.54) and in communications with students.
Assignment and Exam Restrictions: Over the years, the faculty have developed rules manage the complex interactions between scheduled work for our various subjects and between academic work and protected time for students. Please see information on: Undergraduate subjects; Graduate subjects; Requests for clarification or exceptions.
Scheduling Exams, Quizzes, and Review Sessions: Please ask students to flag potential scheduling conflicts early in the semester to allow for timely planning of any appropriate accommodations.
Use of Generative AI: Please review the Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL)’s resources on generative AI and teaching. There is no Institute-wide policy on acceptable AI use, but I encourage you to follow TLL’s recommendation to consider the implications of AI for your teaching and to communicate to your students clear expectations about acceptable use. This IS&T webpage lists generative AI tools licensed for use by the MIT community and provides instructions for obtaining access as well as usage guidance.
Contingency planning:
Make sure that multiple staff, including the instructor of record, have access throughout the semester to grade sheets, student records, and class communication channels. Instructors should have backup plans for instruction and assessments in the event of substantial or extended illness, absence of instructors and/or teaching staff, or other unexpected disruptions. See also the Teaching and Learning Lab’s advice for ensuring academic continuity.
Other resources:
Finally, the Division of Student Life provides resources for faculty to support student wellbeing, including a faculty guide on how to respond if a student in distress or having difficulty coping. There is also a network of support in student residences and other organizations on campus. If you see students who are struggling, please reach out to the nearest point of contact with any of those networks so that we can, collectively, help them.
Please reach out to me directly if you have questions or concerns about these policies, resources, and student accommodations either in general or for a specific issue. Your teaching is at the heart of MIT’s purpose, and my colleagues and I will do our best to support you in thinking through any questions that arise.
Best wishes for the fall semester,
Roger Levy
Chair of the Faculty