Category: Higher Education

Trigger Warnings in Higher Education

Over the weekend, trigger warnings hit the mainstream with a New York Times article about recent calls from university students for trigger warnings on syllabuses. Many of the responses I have seen online assume that such requests are about students wanting…

Manifesto(cean)

If I can wake up every morning and face the fallen world with an open heart, even if I know that it will hurt, If I can bring an open heart to a world in which educated people would rather…

I’ll Burn My Syllabus

A pedagogy that cannot respond to change is at best a zombie pedagogy. Monday morning I came in to my office to learn that Seamus Heaney had died over the weekend. Because one of my goals in my Introduction to…

Near-Disaster Pedagogy

Sometimes the best classes happen when you start out thinking the whole thing is going to fall apart. I finished off this week—my first full week at the College of the Marshall Islands—with a lesson that began that way. I…

How to Use Creative Writing Workshops

This summer, thousands of ambitious writers will move to new towns and cities in order to pursue their MFAs. Others will start (mostly) online programs in the fall. All of them will be subjected to workshops. These are two strategies…