The Curriculum Committee has three principal responsibilities:

1. Administer and prepare feedback evaluations for all required medical school courses.

Preparing course evaluations constitutes the Students Curriculum Committee's most important obligation, because the Undergraduate Medical Education Committee relies on the student course evaluations to identify the strengths and weaknesses of specific courses, and to identify possible areas of improvement.

Preparing balanced, thorough course evaluations is a time-consuming task that requires many hours of secretarial work and exquisite attention to detail. In addition, most of this work must be done during Christmas break or at the beginning of the summer. Although preparing evaluations constitutes 90% of students' work on the Curriculum Committee, composing good questionnaires and crafting insightful evaluation summaries are the most effective means by which students can improve medical school courses. For more details on how courses are evaluated, see the Course Evaluation Procedure. Once completed, edited course evaluations are public domain within VUMC and are available to all medical students. If you wish to read the evaluation for a particular course, contact the Chair of the Student Curriculum Committee.

2. Provide faculty with input on academic and curricular matters relevant to medical students.

Members of the Student Curriculum Committee have a duty to convey student opinion accurately to the faculty regarding academic and curricular matters. When the faculty are considering changes to the medical curriculum, they rely largely on the student curriculum committee to provide a students' perspective on the proposal.

In addition, the Curriculum Committee Chair and one representative from each medical school class are voting members of the Undergraduate Medical Education Committee. These students have a duty to represent the student body during committee meetings and be active participants in committee discussions. These students must also keep the Curriculum Committee and the student body informed on important issues discussed at Undergraduate Medical Education Committee meetings.

3. Recognize excellence in teaching by professors, clinicians, and house staff.

The Student Curriculum Committee administers the voting on several annual teaching awards. These awards are the Brittingham Clinical Teaching Award, the Davies Award given to a basic science teacher, the J. William Hillman House Staff Clinical Teaching Award and the new Candle Award.

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