A Duke professor who made national headlines last year in announcing plans to turn grading over to her students has been nominated by President Barack Obama to a position on the National Council on the Humanities.

Cathy N. Davidson is the Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke. She was vice provost from 1998 through 2006.

She also is co-founder of the Humanities, Arts, Sciences and Technology Advance Collaboratory, a network of educators dedicated to learning in the digital age.

The National Council on the Humanities helps advise the National Endowment for the Humanities, which makes grants to support the arts and humanities.
 
Last year, Davidson decided to challenge her students in her interdisciplinary "This is Your Brain on the Internet" course by giving them the power to evaluate each other.

They all got A's. But as you'll read in this profile, Davidson believes they were challenged far more than if she taught the class in a more traditional way.

From this weekend's News & Observer, an in-depth look at Cathy Davidson, the Duke professor who has turned grading on its ear.

Davidson, 60, is a tenured professor with two distinguished professorships and a long history of scholarship. Over the years, she has taught traditional literature courses and bristled just a bit when she gave out traditional letter grades.

Last year, she tried something new. In an interdisciplinary course about technology, communication and the Internet, she decided to let students grade themselves. Gasp!

Some skeptics furrowed their brows at this clear repudiation of the long-held academic grading tradition. But Davidson swears it works. Her students worked both harder and in different ways knowing they'd be evaluated not by a professor but by their peers.

Have a read.