 In 1976, Grad took a full-time teaching position at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.When she tired of small-town life in 1979, she moved into a cheap loft in the "flower district" on the outskirts of current-day Chelsea in New York City, continuing to exhibit in Chicago and nationally.In 1981, she joined the full-time faculty at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she remained until retiring as Professor Emerita in 2015.