ETE Conference
Beyond the Grade
Wednesday, August 13, 2025 | 8:00am – 5:00pm
The Center for Empowering Teaching Excellence (ETE) announces “Beyond the Grade” as the theme of the 2025 annual conference.
Traditional, high-stakes testing can not only overshadow opportunities for deeper learning but also heighten student anxiety and stifle individual creativity. “Beyond the Grade” stresses the move toward continuous, authentic, creative, and/or formative assessment and mentoring opportunities.
This theme aims to open the door for richer insights into learning by fostering a growth mindset and better equipping students for real-world challenges.
Online pre-registration is now closed. Faculty can register in-person on Aug 13th in the Taggart Student Center (TSC) on Logan campus.
Please note that in-person registrations are not guaranteed lunch.
Keynote Speaker
Jesse Stommel
University of Denver
Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop
Jesse Stommel is currently a faculty member in the Writing Program at University of Denver. He is also co-founder of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy and Digital Pedagogy Lab. He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder. He is author of Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop and co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy.
Registration
To check if you are registered, please email empowerteaching@usu.edu.
If you are not preregistered, please arrive by 8am on Wednesday, August 13 to register for the event.