Lisa McGrady

In 2015, Dr. McGrady became Olivet’s first Dean of Teaching and Learning. She works closely with the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the other deans to ensure quality learning for students and support for faculty members. Among other responsibilities, she leads the new faculty orientation program and is the catalyst for Scholar Week, an annual symposium celebrating Olivet’s tradition of faculty and student scholarship. She directs Olivet’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which provides faculty workshops and other resources to support faculty.

In 2013, Dr. McGrady became Olivet’s first Dean of Online Learning. In 2014, additional duties were added to the role, and she became the Dean of Online Learning and Curriculum Development. Her assignment was to update and expand the University’s online learning opportunities and teaching methods. She established an instructional design team and an online curriculum development process. She also partnered with colleagues to design Greenhouse Production Studio, Olivet’s first dedicated space for recording online course content.

When she arrived at Olivet in 2011 as an assistant professor in the Department of English, she taught college and advanced writing, business and technical writing, and advanced grammar. She also developed a series of workshops on writing in the workplace for upper-division finance majors in the School of Business. She led the team that developed Olivet’s first faculty training for online teaching, the Community at Olivet for Online Learning (“COOL”).

In each of her administrative roles, Dr. McGrady has remained active in the teaching of writing at Olivet. She enjoys keeping one foot in the Department of English, which keeps her connected with her first love, the students.

Prior to coming to Olivet, Dr. McGrady held faculty appointments at Cedarville University and Palm Beach Atlantic University. She has also taught courses during various stages of her graduate school years at Purdue University, DePaul University College of Law, Case Western Reserve University, Robert Morris College and University of Illinois at Chicago.

She is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.

Dr. McGrady has been a presenter at several professional conferences, including the Conference on College Composition and Communication; Association of Teachers of Technical Writing; Computers and Writing; and the CCCU Conference on Technology. Three of her columns on writing were published in the Illinois Bar Journal, and she has published an article in The Writing Instructor. Working with her husband, Paul, chair of the trademark practice at international law firm Winston & Strawn, she is a regular contributor to McGrady on Domain Names and McGrady on Social Media, as well as a co-author on the forthcoming McGrady on ccTLDs: A Global Guide to Registration and Renewal.

Outside of the office and classroom, Dr. McGrady enjoys international travel and has visited nearly 20 countries so far. Travel is a family affair since her children, Lily and Danny, often join her and Paul on their travel adventures. Locally, she co-teaches an adult Sunday School class at College Church of the Nazarene, sings in the choir and can’t get enough of the preschool kids.