A time for change
Some big exciting changes, and what will be different and what won't
Here at Grading for Growth, we are committed to publishing new content every Monday morning without fail. Sometimes there are five Mondays in a month instead of four. Today is one of those. Over a 400-year calendar cycle, this happens 1671 times out of 4800 months — about 35% of the time1.
In other words, fifth Mondays are special around here and we often do something a little out of the ordinary for them. Today is no different, but it’s a little more special than usual, because today we have two major announcements about the future direction of this blog that you’ll be excited to learn about.
New directions for Robert
The first announcement is a significant change in my (Robert’s) career trajectory: After 30 years as a classroom instructor at the college level in mathematics and computer science, the last 15 of which I’ve spent at Grand Valley State University, on August 1 I will be starting a new chapter in my career as I become Executive Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Texas A&M University. (Here is the official press release.)
I’m very excited to be starting this new position. The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at Texas A&M (TAMU) is a 20+ person team committed to advancing teaching excellence in all its forms, across the entire university — which at 77,000 students has the largest single-campus undergraduate enrollment of any university in the United States. The CTE already does groundbreaking work with faculty development, including faculty scholarship certificate programs, curriculum redesigns, intensive training on engaged and active learning, and a lot more in addition to faculty consultations and other programming. It is a center that already has a transformative presence on TAMU’s campus and is poised to become a world leader in innovative teaching and learning practices (like alternative grading).
In addition to being the executive director of the CTE, I will also hold a position as Instructional Professor in the Department of Mathematics. However, I won’t have any teaching responsibilities, as this position is there as a landing spot if I should ever decide to step down, or if I should ever want to add a class to my portfolio to stay current. It will be difficult for me to step out of the classroom after being overwhelmingly identified as a frontline instructor for 30 years. I’ve always been focused on helping students learn, but as I enter into the back 9 of my career, lately I’ve been thinking that I can best help them by helping their professors become great teachers. When I teach three classes, I’m helping 90 to 100 students at a time. If I’m directing a large-scale center for teaching, I’m helping thousands of faculty at a time, which helps tens of thousands of students. That mindset motivated me to look for leadership positions in teaching and learning, and I found a great fit with Texas A&M.
Texas A&M’s scale as a flagship R1 university makes it an intriguing platform for particular innovations like alternative grading. I don’t have any particular agendas for my first year laid out just yet — I’m focusing on the first 90 days to start with, and learning all I can about what’s operationally true about the university and the CTE, and building relationships. But I have made it very clear that my vision for the CTE is founded on a fundamental focus on active learning in everything that we do. And I continue to believe that there is an important triangle of ideas formed by active learning, deliberate practice, and alternative grading that would be a very interesting thing to explore, at scale, at one of the largest universities in the country.
What will change at Grading For Growth: To make sure I have the time and space to learn the job properly, I will continue to contribute one article a month to this blog, but I will no longer be centrally involved in the guest article process. We’ve been truly blessed by the level of interest from guest authors, and working with guest articles to develop their articles has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in recent years. But it does take a lot of time, and as I make my transition I’m very aware of how much time and energy it will take to pivot from classroom instructor to senior administrator. So I’ll be helping out with guest articles occasionally, but will not be involved in selection or editing from this point forward.
What will also change here at the blog is that I will be able to contribute articles each month about alternative grading, from the standpoint of administration and someone who is not a faculty member but works with lots of faculty on a regular basis. That viewpoint is one that people have often asked me about as I’ve worked with our president’s office and as a department chair at Grand Valley State. As someone who is now at the head of a teaching and learning unit at a large university, and fairly high up the organizational chart in the provost’s office, I’ll be contributing thoughts and insights from an angle that I think many of you will find interesting.
Kate Owens joins the team
When David and I first discussed my stepping back from guest articles, we discussed who would step in to replace me. It’s too much work for one person. We both immediately settled on one person who we have known and worked with over the years and who we trust implicitly to do good work and have great ideas: Kate Owens of the College of Charleston.
We approached Kate about joining our editorial team to handle my end of guest posts and also to contribute occasional articles. And we are very grateful that she has said yes. Kate is no stranger to this blog and to alternative grading, having contributed guest articles of her own in the past (here and here). She has also been on the central planning team for The Grading Conference ever since its inception and serves with David and myself on the board of directors of the Center for Grading Reform.
What will change: Like I said, Kate will be taking over my half of work on guest posts. This means that if you give us your guest post idea, which you can do on this form, David and Kate will be reviewing the ideas. And of the ones that are accepted for publication, Kate will be handling half of the duties of communicating with the authors and developing drafts into finished blog posts. Kate will be bringing her own keen insights and editorial skills, not to mention her unflagging positive attitude, towards these guest posts. I am excited to see her impact on that work.
Kate will also be contributing occasional full articles, especially, for example, on Fifth Mondays, like today. Her first one, which will give her origin story as an alternative grader, is currently in development, and you should be seeing that soon.
David and I hope that you give Kate a nice Grading for Growth welcome.
What doesn’t change
This blog will continue to publish high quality insights on alternative grading and grading reform every Monday without fail. The only thing that’s changing is some of the personnel. We all believe that alternative grading is an idea whose time has come, and this blog will continue to be a voice and a platform, not only for our ideas, but for yours as well, as alt-grading makes its way into the mainstream.
As always, thank you for your continued reading, and we encourage you to continue to spread the word about alternative grading and about this substack for those who might want to learn and who are looking for a positive, strong community of practitioners.
Because I’m an arch-nerd and I’m writing to audience of nerds, here is the math: A fifth Monday never happens in February unless it’s a leap year, And over 400 years, that happens 97 times, and roughly 1/7 of those will give a fifth Monday. Over the same 400-year period, there are 1600 30-day months with a fifth Monday 2/7 of the time (because the extra week will be either a Sunday or a Monday) and 2800 31-day months with a fifth Monday 3/7 of the time (because the extra partial week will be three days long — Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday). So the total number of fifth Mondays is 1/7(97) + 2/7(1600) + 3/7(2800) = 1671.
I was happy to see your announcement on LinkedIn and very happy that one Texas university is committed to teaching development and excellence (after the tremendously disappointing news from UTAustin). It was interesting to read your thoughts regarding admin v teaching. At my institution they divide those roles very strictly and I had thought to apply for a small admin role with a faculty development focus. But when I was told I could not teach, not even one class, I felt I would stop growing in the way that teaching nurtures and that I’d lose that laboratory space—I’m not ready to do that yet if I’m going to lead others (you are further along in your career than I am, but I’m not sure I’ll feel differently five or ten years from now—we shall see!) I’m very happy to hear you will still be contributing here and I am excited to see what insights you share with your new role! Congratulations to you!
Congratulations on the career shift, the blog shift, and the ‘winter’ shift (MI to TX will be some climate interesting-ness!). Thanks to everyone who makes this blog such a helpful, welcoming place to think more about grading reform.