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| Dr. Grady with Emily Wirtz (Creative Writing major) and Kiara Woods (English major and Writing Assistant in the Writing Center) |
HD: First of all, congratulations! What is the full title of the degree (the focus of the M.Ed.)?
MKG: The degree is Master's of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on "Teaching in the 21st Century"
HD: You already have a Ph.D. in English. How did the M.Ed. enhance your knowledge base or open you up to new ideas and perspectives?
MKG: The degree is Master's of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on "Teaching in the 21st Century"
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| Dr. Grady with Carli Diturno (Dietetics major and Writing Assistant in the Writing Center) |
MKG: In 2015, I knew that I might be changing from my former position of an assistant professor with a focus on Film Studies, Literature, and Writing to a position more focused on Writing Program Administration. The scholarly writing associated with that kind of job is quite different from what I had been doing, and I felt that the M.Ed. would give me the opportunity to learn more about undergraduate pedagogy and philosophies of educational administrative leadership. So, in Fall 2015, I enrolled in the M.Ed. program at Ashland University. It was helpful that I already knew a number of faculty in the College of Education, including my eventual thesis advisor, Dr. Howard Walters, and Dr. Judy Alston who kindly allowed me in to one of her Doctoral Leadership seminars. I learned so much from all of the faculty and students I was able to work with in the program.
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| Dr. Grady with Jacob Poiner (Music Education major) |
Having completed a Ph.D. in English (UC Davis) and subsequently devoted my professional life to scholarly research and teaching certainly meant that the act of learning knew things was something I was very comfortable with! Researching and writing very detailed papers about new subjects always takes time and hard work but I found the process more enjoyable than I might have the first time around, as it were, when I was working on seminar papers and my dissertation in my English Ph.D. program. I've learned so much about how to learn, how to manage longer writing projects, and how to maintain focus since then. I have to thank the AURWC (Ashland University Research and Writing Community), founded by Dr. Sharleen Mondal, and my AURWC small group for much of that focus and structure since becoming a faculty member at AU.
HD: As the Director of the Writing Center and the Composition Program, how will your M.Ed. work determine your teaching, scholarship, or administrative work in the future?
HD: As the Director of the Writing Center and the Composition Program, how will your M.Ed. work determine your teaching, scholarship, or administrative work in the future?
MKG: The work I did while completing the M.Ed. has already been very useful to me in my current position-- I was able to work on several projects involving the Composition program (developing an assessment procedure for our ENG 100 course) and the Writing Center (writing a mission statement and outcomes) and using best practices to design an assessment focused on those outcomes. The Writing Center intern, Bethany Meadows (English/Creative Writing/ILA major) has worked extensively with me on a study focused on student understanding of the writing process and we will be presenting the results of our research as the East Central Writing Center Association annual conference in March.
One wonderful part of the experience of graduating from the College of Education was the chance to graduate with some of my favorite undergraduate students! As the Director of the Writing Center, I have the privilege to work with so many brilliant undergraduates and its always bittersweet to watch them graduate-- I wish they could stay forever at the same time I'm happy to see them go on to do great things! I was also happy to have my family there on the day of graduation, since my children were tiny when I received my doctorate (too little to attend a long graduation ceremony). They had to put up with a lot while I was doing my coursework and writing the thesis (as well as working full time) so I was really happy they could see the "end" of the process!
