Your Syllabus Is a Promise—What Are You Really Offering?
Image: Preview of course syllabi from recent years. Credit: María Célleri
It’s August, and for university professors and instructors, this means the Fall semester is near. Rude. The Google calendar is already filling up. Emails are increasing in number in the work inbox. A slight panic sets in as we begin drafting and revising our course syllabi.
For anyone who has made a syllabus or created a curriculum, we know that it is both an art and a skill, and not an easy one. Not only that, but we do it with little to no training or guidance. I attended three graduate programs, have taught at four public research universities (in Spanish, English, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies Departments), and at a community college. I can only recall one professor who ever discussed with graduate students how to draft a syllabus. Reading dozens of syllabi by other professors doesn’t adequately prepare you for successfully structuring a class with all that a class requires:
A course description that adequately frames the course content, sets the stakes for students on why learning this content is important, and key topics/information that students will engage with, all in an accessible language for your core demographic
Clear, measurable statements around learning goals/outcomes. Selecting content and assignments that align with those goals and assess student learning while also considering varying levels of learning styles
Creating classroom policies and statements that are ever-increasing, and seem to take up half the syllabus—attendance, participation, accessibility, accommodations, and how you will handle the use of AI?
Drafting a schedule that flows, is attentive to ebbs and flows of student attention, works with your schedule, conference travel, and other commitments, but still properly aligns with learning outcomes/goals
And (most important for me) if you’re committed to diversity, teaching relevant material that engages students, and revamping the content
We do all of this while believing that students may or may not pay the same attention to the syllabus as we did when creating it. Why, then, should instructors care about learning and growing in the craft of syllabus-making? Because a syllabus sets the stage for the class, both for yourself and even if you don’t believe it, for your students.
“You know how the saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I say, “Students do and should judge a course by its syllabus.” ”
As a student and now a professor, I consider what it means for my Native students when I write out a land acknowledgement on my syllabus; what it means for my introverted students when I tell them that even though participation is mandatory and a weighed portion of their grade, that participation doesn’t mean just raising your hand and speaking to the class, and that I don’t cold call students—ever; I think about my students of color, when I craft syllabi of any topic with 90% readings and content from other scholars of color; I think about my Latinx students when I intentionally write out the accents in my name, and provide my pronouns in Spanish. I think about my queer, trans, and non-binary students when I share my pronouns and make a statement about how asking, learning, and practicing pronouns is a non-negotiable practice while we are inside the classroom together.
“Appropriately crafted, intentional, justice-minded, and inclusive syllabi in any field require WORK—hard, time-consuming, skilled labor. But it’s so worth it. ”
Not only because it’s an essential, though often undervalued, part of our profession, but because it helps create a classroom environment built with your students in mind. Believe me, students care way more than we sometimes give them credit for.
I recently participated in a campus-wide presentation on a community-engaged initiative I’ve been collaborating on. The presenters included four Latina faculty members, and as the presentation emphasized, we are four of the few Latinx colleagues at a university that is only 7% Latinx. While we presented this data, we reminded our colleagues that it often means we’re overburdened with service work. The presentation was well-received and lauded for its local community-engaged research, collaborative approach, and an important addition to public humanities initiatives. A few minutes after our presentation, we received an email from a colleague, thanking us for the presentation and asking us for recommendations for local Latinx-centered work to include in their syllabus. Requests like these, however well-meaning, often place the burden of “diversity work” on those who are already overextended. It reminded me of Summer 2020, when a Black colleague circulated an abolitionist reading list and included their Venmo at the bottom. I remember thinking: “That is a bold, brave, and badass move!”
I’m not saying I want this colleague to pay me for my expertise. I will kindly offer a couple of suggestions in the spirit of collegiality and helping to diversify any syllabus or reading list that crosses my screen, as I am in the business of radical knowledge production. What I’m saying is that “diversifying your curriculum” is a shorthand description of an underappreciated skill that requires a lot of intentional work and should be valued and remunerated as such. That means I hope that one day, the diversity of our curriculum will actually count towards things like tenure and promotion, which changes our material realities as faculty members. In other words, I want the “invisible labor” that faculty of color undertake not just to be made visible, but to be truly valued. I hope that graduate programs training future professors take the time to teach the craft of curriculum building. That accessibility, diversity, and inclusion form the foundation for learning and practicing this skill. And that the labor for doing such important work doesn’t always fall into the hands of highly underrepresented populations at your university, at least not for free or without recognition.
