No Grades, High Stakes: The New College Story

Join us for a Community Gathering with our guests on Saturday, September 26, at 12 noon ET. Please RSVP here to save your spot!

Once the hostile takeover was announced…no one was talking about their jobs. The first thing out of everyone’s mouth was, “What about the students?”

—Jessica K. Young

A Different Kind of College

This conversation explores what made New College of Florida distinct: narrative evaluations, contracts, tutorials, ISP projects, and a deeply student-centered culture. Professors Rebecca Black, Jessica Young, Liz Leininger, and Jenn Wells reflect on how that model transformed teaching and learning, supported risk-taking, and shaped relationships between students and faculty.They also discuss the labor required to sustain narrative assessment, the fragility of that system after the takeover, and what educators can carry forward from a place that no longer exists in the same form.

topics

• New College’s narrative evaluations, contracts, tutorials, and independent study.

• How alternative assessment encouraged risk-taking and richer feedback.

• Teaching as partnership and the importance of student-faculty relationships.

• How students adapted from grades, perfectionism, and constant tracking.

• The labor and culture required to sustain meaningful narrative assessment.

• What educators can carry forward from New College’s student-centered model.

• Grief, community, and what remains when a cherished institution is dismantled.