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The Division of Arts & Humanities is committed to inclusive excellence in teaching and learning, and we encourage our faculty to make full use of the campus resources available to them.
New Faculty
A recommended starting point is the comprehensive New Faculty Guide created by the Center for Teaching and Learning
bCourses and Supported Digital Tools
bCourses (Canvas) is our official learning management system. You can learn about its features on our Getting Started guide.
Using Supported Learning Tools that are vetted and approved by campus helps to ensure accessibility, equity, privacy, and support. The Digital Learning Services (DLS) team provides assistance with course design, effective content transformation for hybrid and online formats, engaging synchronous learning experiences, and expert digital media design, production, and editing. Schedule a consultation to discuss tools and services supported by the DLS team.
Accommodations
The Academic Accommodations Hub is the student and instructor portal for support resources and academic policies, including key information regarding academic accommodations as well as links to mental health resources, resources for survivors of sexual violence and sexual harassment, and more.
The Disabled Students Program (DSP) is dedicated to fostering an inclusive learning environment for students with disabilities and equips them with the appropriate accommodations in the classroom. DSP determines what accommodations should be provided to students with disabilities, and academic departments and faculty members are primarily responsible for providing testing accommodations to students with disabilities. DSP’s existing proctoring center prioritizes proctoring students who require accommodations like 200%+ extended time, room alone, scribe, and use of a computer or assistive technology. The Instructor Guide to DSP Accommodations explains how DSP works and what is expected of faculty.
In Spring 2025, the Division of Arts & Humanities also launched the A&H Testing Center, a pop-up pilot project to provide additional capacity for proctoring final exams to support faculty and students. This project is sponsored by the A&H and the Division of Undergraduate Education (VPUE) in partnership with DSP and the Berkeley Language Center (BLC). This pilot is supplementary to the existing proctoring program at DSP, and is primarily intended to support departments in administering paper-based exams for students with 150% extended time and reduced distraction are accommodated within departments. Faculty can consult the website or write to ahtesting@berkeley.edu to learn more.
Courses of Instruction (COCI)
The Courses of Instruction (COCI) committee, housed within the Academic Senate, approves new courses and modifications to existing courses. Their handbook provides guidelines for the course approval process.
Workshops
Research, Teaching, and Learning (RTL) has curated a diverse range of workshops to equip you with the essential teaching tools and best practices to help you excel in your teaching endeavors. Check out the RTL events calendar for upcoming events.
Collaboration and Extradepartmental Teaching Opportunities
Compass Courses
As the flagship courses of the Division of Arts & Humanities, Compass Courses offer new undergraduate students the opportunity to learn from a team of arts and humanities faculty members in a dynamic format that explores a shared theme or topic using the various methods and materials of their respective disciplines. Compass Course awards support instructors who teach a Compass Course with generous research funds, course enrichment funds, and GSI support. Questions about the Compass Course and the HUM curriculum may be directed to Emily Rabiner (emily.rabiner@berkeley.edu).
L&S Curricular Connections
Courses sponsored by L&S Curricular Connections encourage undergraduates to expand their academic horizons beyond their fields of study. Freshman and Sophomore Seminars counterbalance the large lecture courses in which lower-division students often enroll. Big Ideas courses fulfill breadth requirements, are designed with non-majors in mind, and are co-taught by two or more faculty from different L&S divisions. The L&S First-Year Pathways program draws upon the College's existing curriculum to create thematic clusters of 3-4 classes that a small cohort of new first-year students enroll in together.
Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program
The Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) pairs faculty who need research assistance with undergraduates eager to engage in advanced research. For faculty who take on this serious mentoring role, small grants (up to $700 per academic year) are available to pay for expenses incurred in bringing the undergraduate into the project. Limited summer funds for student summer stipends are also available. For more information see the Faculty Handbook
Berkeley Language Center
The Berkeley Language Center supports teaching and research in language instruction. View their available resources on their website
Instructional Disruption
In the event of disruptive events like power outages, air quality events, earthquakes, public health emergencies, there are a number of resources to help faculty and graduate students ensure continuity of instruction. The Center for Teaching and Learning provides a list of steps you can take to ensure you can continue teaching in case a short- or long-term disruption emerges. The center also describes best practices for delivering remote instruction.
Remote Examinations
As with any good exam, exams delivered remotely should challenge learners to combine the skills, abilities, and knowledge gained through the course to perform a specific task. Students should be assessed on the quality of their answers and the process they used to arrive at their answer. This approach is aligned with the Council on Education for Public Health’s model for competency-based assessments.
Please note that campus policy currently does not allow for external vendors (ProctorU, Examity, Honorlock, etc.) to be contracted for proctoring online exams, but instructional teams do have the option of proctoring students using Zoom.
The Center of Teaching and Learning offers these strategies for Zoom proctoring.
The Berkeley Academic Senate has very helpful tips for remote non-proctored exams.
In the absence of remote proctoring options, concerns about cheating and exam validity can be reduced through the design of the exam. Some strategies to mitigate the absence of proctoring are suggested below:
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Include an integrity pledge that students must digitally sign with their names and student ID numbers.
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Offer more frequent lower-stakes assessments instead of infrequent high-stakes exams.
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Connect exam questions to course activities and other assessments (student paper, class project, previous discussion, lab) that the student has completed.