Do Brown Professors Know Their Students’ Names?

Richard Heck lectures to a classroom of undergraduates. Introductory philosophy courses are highly regarded and popular across concentrations: however, enrollment can tend upwards of 90 students.

By Eric Xia

Over the past two decades, Brown University has moved away from its reputation as a liberal arts university, emphasizing both research and graduate programs. However, Brown has also reiterated their commitment to undergraduate education. The average class size remains small at 23 students, and the Open Curriculum has become a defining feature of the school. In future years, the University will continue to face the challenge of balancing two distinct responsibilities: ensuring a holistic education for its undergraduate population, while continuing its growth as a top research institution.

In the latest Brown Opinion Project poll, we examined one core indicator of education quality: how familiar students believed their professors to be with them. Overall, we found that Brown students believe that professors at Brown know their names, however, striking disparities exist between students and concentration areas. Out of the classes taken this fall, students felt around two course instructors at Brown would remember their name.

Seniors and H&A majors are far more likely to be on a first name basis with their professors.

Concentrations were reported as belonging to one of four categories, which comprise Humanities and Arts, the Life Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Physical Sciences. Of the four categories, Humanities and Arts concentrators (n=46) were by far the highest outlier, with an average of 2.83 professors knowing them by name. Life Sciences was the lowest, with an average of 1.53 professors familiar with students’ names, while the Physical Sciences were nearly as low, with an average of 1.61. The Social Sciences were slightly higher, with 1.98 professors believed to know students' names. The lack of familiarity in the Life Sciences may stem from the higher proportion of large, lecture-based courses and from the fact that more of the teaching workload is handled by TAs, textbooks, and other materials rather than by professors themselves.

Race and gender also shape how familiar students are with their professors. Asian and Hispanic/Latino students tend to have fewer professors who know their names than students in other racial groups. On average, Asian students have 1.68 professors and Hispanic/Latino students have 1.80 professors who know them by name, compared to 2.06 for Black students and 2.19 for White students (n=109, 32, 113). Middle Eastern/North African students have the highest averages, and mixed-race students also have relatively high levels of familiarity. Women (n=135) have more professors who know their names than men (n=150), at 2.09 versus 1.80, while non-binary students (n=16) have the highest averages overall.

Overall, examining survey responses in depth reveal that aggregate statistics such as average class size can misrepresent the individual Brown undergraduate experience. Arts and Humanities concentrators, who comprise 29% of the sampled population, are nearly twice as likely to have professors recognize them by name as the Social, Physical, and Life Sciences. These statistics support student–faculty relationships being most prevalent in the social sciences, humanities, and arts.

The Brown Opinion Project (BOP) conducted its October 2025 poll on October 7, October 8, and October 9. BOP solicited responses from Brown undergraduate students near Faunce Hall and Sciences Park. BOP representatives asked every person who passed their location if they were interested in taking a quick anonymous poll. Responses were anonymously collected using Google Forms. Over the course of the polling process, BOP collected 349 total responses from Brown undergraduate students.

To estimate the statistics used above, the response "4 or more" was converted to 4. The total response body was 349 students.