Four Grinnellians Win ACM Grants

Congratulations to the four Grinnell faculty and staff who recently received Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) awards from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM): Susan Ferrari, assistant vice president of corporate, foundation, and government relations; Shonda Kuiper, professor of statistics; Peter-Michael Osera, associate professor of computer science; and Andrea Tracy, associate dean for student academic life and associate professor of psychology.

FaCE grants enable faculty and staff to collaborate with peers on projects that explore ways to strengthen liberal arts education. The award winners then share the results widely with colleagues across the ACM and beyond.

FaCE awards support new ideas in learning, including new curricula, advances in teaching, and the use of new technology in coursework.

Grinnell’s 2024 FaCE award projects are:

• NSF ADVANCE Grant Preparation to Address Challenges Facing Women in STEM (Susan Ferrari and Andrea Tracy). This grant will support preparatory work to submit a collaborative, ACM-wide proposal to the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program, which supports the retention and advancement of women in STEM. Ferrari and Tracy, along with collaborators from six other ACM institutions, will gather data to understand the challenges facing women faculty members in STEM and the best approaches to address these issues. “We are excited about the potential of this FaCE project to help our institutions better hire, retain, and support women in the sciences,” Ferrari says.
   

• Developing Inquiry-Based, Narrative Modules for Data-Driven Courses (Shonda Kuiper). In a collaboration with three other ACM institutions, this project leverages Grinnell College’s Dataspace website to provide open-access educational resources focused on data-driven decision-making. Through this platform, students will interactively create visualizations that illustrate real-world models, such as simulating rollercoaster designs or predicting the spread of diseases. “By combining the proven benefits of activity-based learning with the capabilities of modern technological tools, this project will facilitate the development of quantitative reasoning skills for students across disciplines who rely on data-informed decision-making,” explains Kuiper.
   

• Leveling Up Grading in the Liberal Arts (Peter-Michael Osera). Collaborating with two other ACM institutions, this project promotes the development of alternative grading techniques at ACM institutions, including mastery-based grading, specifications-based grading, and “ungrading.” Faculty participants will craft grading systems and assessments based on alternative grading techniques tailored to their specific courses. “We will also make publicly available the alternative systems and assessments developed throughout this project to further encourage ACM members to adopt these practices,” Osera says.
   
• Sustainable Strategies for Supporting Well-Being and Academic Engagement for Faculty and Students (Andrea Tracy). This grant, conducted in collaboration with two other ACM institutions, builds on a previous FaCE grant–supported workshop that addressed faculty influence on student well-being. New one-day workshops will engage faculty and instructional staff at ACM institutions to consider topics such as strategies for supporting faculty/staff well-being; exploration of what current survey data tell us about who our students are and what they may be navigating; development of low-effort approaches to support student well-being and academic success through syllabi, course design, and the intentional creation of dynamic classroom spaces; and encouragement to think collectively about creating institutional structures for sustainable work. “We look forward to continuing this work with ACM  faculty as they navigate what it means to support student well-being and academic engagement at residential liberal arts colleges in ways that are role-appropriate, sustainable, and effective,” Tracy says. “These concerns shape the retention and well-being of both faculty and students. Our work reimagines the shape of campus living and learning environments for everyone.”

A $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation supports the FaCE grant program.