Submitting a Complaint or Concern
The mission of UW-River Falls is to "help prepare students to be productive, creative, ethical, engaged citizens and leaders with an informed global perspective." Consistent with that mission, the university welcomes your comments and concerns about our policies, programs and services to ensure that we possess the information necessary to make changes that contribute to student success.
- Complaints regarding sex discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault should be reported to the Title IX coordinator or the appropriate deputy.
- Complaints related to bias incidents can be submitted on our ‘Report It’ website.
Whenever possible, UW-River Falls encourages employees and students to pursue resolution of their issues informally. This includes student complaints against faculty or instructors that are not a grade appeal.
Steps for making an informal complaint include:
- Discuss your concern, in person or in writing, with the individual involved. This should be the first step in almost every case and if you skip this step, you will probably be asked to return to it. If a satisfactory outcome does not occur, you may choose to proceed to step 2. Note: If an issue involves someone in a leadership role, such as a department chair who is also teaching a course related to the concern, the student should still initiate the process with that person first.
- Discuss the issue with the individual’s supervisor. You may be asked to put your complaint in writing. The supervisor may involve the faculty member and another administrator. If a satisfactory outcome does not occur, you may choose to proceed to step 3.
- Discuss the issue with the supervisor’s supervisor.
Should you believe that your informal complaint was not resolved, you are welcome to complete the General Student Complaint form. This form will provide additional information about the nature of your complaint so the Dean of Students staff can better work with you by having your complaint addressed by the appropriate university office. Please note that there are inherent challenges in resolving complaints that are anonymous, which is why all students are asked to provide their name and contact information for the complaint process to move forward.
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