Coe receives four ACM grants for innovative projects
Coe College is the recipient of four grants through the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) initiative. The grants are in conjunction with other ACM member colleges, and are meant to create original and valuable educational knowledge for faculty, staff and leaders across higher education.
For over a decade, FaCE funding has given faculty members at small colleges the opportunity to pilot outside-the-box approaches to education. Since 2014, a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation enabled ACM to support collaborative solutions to shared challenges related to teaching, learning and scholarly inquiry.
Staff and faculty from Coe are participating in four projects funded by the grants:
• Exploration of alternative grading strategies beyond the traditional letter grade. This project will identify and develop grading techniques to reduce classroom inequities, foster positive risk-taking by students and lighten instructors’ workloads. Professor of Music and Associate Dean for Faculty Development Marc Falk is a contributor to this project.
• Development of open-access websites guiding students through relatable scenarios to help them visualize data-based decision making processes and improve their quantitative reasoning skills. Associate Professor of Mathematics and Learning Commons Director Brittney Miller is a contributor to this project.
• Designing a new introductory programming course that embraces disruptive technologies like Generative AI. Associate Professor of Computer Science Stephen Hughes is a contributor to this project.
• Gathering data on challenges women in STEM encounter to draft an ACM-wide proposal to the National Science Foundation to advance equitable excellence in STEM. Fran Allison and Francis Halpin Professor of Physics Mario Affatigato is a contributor to this project.
All FaCE-funded projects are to be completed by December 2025.