Plainfield, Vt. – Goddard College’s chief academic officer, Steven James, PhD, will join academics from Yale, Princeton, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a conversation about college grading during the Yale Teaching Center’s 16th Annual Spring Teaching Forum on March 28, 2014, in New Haven, Conn.
The forum, which will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, will bring together faculty, administrators, graduate and undergraduate students from Yale with thought leaders at Princeton, MIT, and Goddard to explore assumptions about grading, and to take a critical look at the Ivy League institution’s current practices.
“Goddard’s systems of holistic evaluation,” James said, “are rightly of interest to other institutions still struggling to resolve the tension between limitations of grades and the increasing need in the global economy for more robust and well-rounded evaluations of people’s skills and interests. A narrative evaluation describes the strengths, weaknesses, and potentials of a student, not just their performance relative to a group of unknown classmates ranked according to invisible rubrics.”
James was appointed to Goddard’s interim academic dean and chief academic officer in January. He previously served as Chair of the Master of Arts in Psychology and Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program.
A former Trustee of the American Psychological Foundation (APF), James is President Emeritus of American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues and President Emeritus of the APA’s Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. He has taught at Goddard College since 1993.
James has a doctorate in clinical psychology from the Union Institute & University and bachelor’s degrees in psychology and philosophy from Dartmouth College.
The Yale Teaching Center partners with faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate teaching fellows to advance teaching excellence at Yale, and provide teaching- and learning-related programming, services and events.
The invited speakers to the 16th Annual Forum are:
· Elizabeth Colagiuri, Associate Dean of the College and Secretary to the Committee on Grading, Princeton University
· Stuart Paul Duncan, GRD ’16, Music, Yale
· Steven E. James, Interim Dean & Chief Academic Officer, Goddard College
· Penelope Laurans, Special Assistant to the President, Master of Jonathan Edwards College, and Lecturer in English, Yale
· Douglas McKee, Associate Chair and Lecturer, Department of Economics, Yale
· Julie B. Norman, Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
· Ramamurti Shankar, John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics & Applied Physics, Yale
· Risa Sodi, Interim Director, Yale Teaching Center, and Director of Academic Advising, Yale College Dean’s Office
· Scott Strobel, Vice President of Yale West Campus Planning and Programming, and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
· Emily Ullmann, YC ’14 (Timothy Dwight), American Studies, Yale
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About Goddard College
Initially founded in 1863 as the Goddard Seminary in Barre, VT, Goddard College moved to its current Plainfield campus and was chartered in 1938 by founding President Royce “Tim” Pitkin. In 1963, Goddard became the first U.S. college to offer low-residency adult degree programs. Now offering accredited MA, MFA, BA and BFA degree programs from the main campus in Plainfield, Vermont and sites in Seattle and Port Townsend, Washington, Goddard’s low-residency education model offers the best of on-campus and distance education, with experienced faculty advisors, rigorous on-campus residencies, and the freedom to study from anywhere.
Contact
Steve James
978-815-2480
steven.james@goddard.edu
