Mark Solomon's Blog

I don't publish regularly, but I wish that I did. I'd rather the content of my blog were not complaints about academia and thoughts on personal trauma. I hope to change this pattern in the future.

I read this piece on higher education pedagogy this morning and I found myself nodding along to a good deal of it. For instance, it is shocking how little formation graduates receive in the actual mechanics of teaching. As I continued to read though, I found that the solutions being advocated are ones that I have recently experienced, and so I feel entitled to give a bit of feedback. After a lengthy discussion of theories of higher education, here are the recommendations made to educators as a program of self improvement: Walk around campus to assess the accessibility of common spaces and classrooms. An accessible desk in every classroom doesn’t do much good if students can’t get to that desk because the rooms are overcrowded. Invite students to share their pronouns. Model this behavior, but don’t expect it of every student. Make sure there is an easy and advertised process for students, faculty, and staff to change their names within institutional systems. Be su...