The Table Was Never Built for Everyone
Access Means Little When the Design Still Favors the Few
When students don’t fit that mold, we label them “underprepared” or “not college-ready.” We create committees and programs to “fix” them. And we comfort ourselves with tidy narratives about grit, as if determination alone can overcome structural inequity. I’ve heard it countless times: “If I got through it, so can they.” It’s a common defense of the status quo, and I’ll admit, there was a time when I believed it too. As a first-generation college student, I worked full-time while trying to navigate classes that assumed I had endless hours to read and write. I thought struggle was part of the process. I thought everyone had to fight their way through. But in case no one has said this to you out loud, if you had to fight through a system that wasn’t designed for you, your struggle wasn’t proof of your strength; it was evidence of the system’s failure to adapt. “Grit” should never be an excuse to keep making students climb mountains we’ve built ourselves.
The good news is that a lot of people see this. There are faculty members, instructional designers, and academic leaders all over the country who are quietly, and sometimes loudly, doing the work to make education more humane and inclusive. They’re redesigning courses with empathy. They’re rethinking deadlines and policies. They’re choosing clarity over complexity and purpose over tradition. They’re proving every day that rigor and compassion are not opposites.
But there are still a shocking number of people who are actively trying to preserve this elitist mentality. People who comment on LinkedIn and insist that the system isn’t broken. People who call me the “queen of snowflake-dom” or say students just need to “do as they’re told.” This resistance isn’t about protecting academic standards; it’s about protecting comfort, control, and a sense of superiority that has long been mistaken for rigor. And every time we defend a broken structure instead of reimagining it, we reinforce the very inequities we claim to oppose.
So What Can Faculty Do?
If we want to move beyond empty inclusion, we have to start with our own classrooms. We can’t control every institutional policy, but we can examine the ones we create and the assumptions we reinforce. Our teaching philosophies are shaped by how we learned and who we were when we learned it, but the students sitting in our classrooms today are not us.
1. Check Your Assumptions
Our beliefs shape how we design and teach. Before assuming students “don’t care” or “aren’t ready,” pause and reflect:
Who benefits from the way my course is structured, and who might be left behind?
Do I assume that all students know how to “do college”?
Am I measuring engagement by visible behaviors or by genuine effort?
Do my examples, readings, and case studies reflect my world, or theirs?
Have I confused rigor with rigidity?
Checking your assumptions isn’t about lowering standards, it’s about widening the path to meet them.
2. Revisit Your Policies
Policies can either support learning or serve as gatekeepers. They can help create structure or reinforce inequity. Before enforcing or defending a rule, ask:
Is this policy required by the institution, or something I created?
Does it help students learn, or just make things easier to manage?
Who is most likely to struggle because of this rule?
What message does it send to a student already balancing too much?
Does it teach responsibility, or punish circumstance?
When we align policies with learning instead of policing, we create classrooms that reflect reality. Classrooms where accountability and compassion can coexist.
3. Redesign with Empathy
Empathy in education isn’t about lowering standards; it’s about lowering barriers. When you start with empathy, the course becomes a space where students can participate fully, even when life is complicated.
Diversify formats. Supplement readings with short podcasts, videos, or microlectures that students can access while commuting or doing household tasks.
Build in flexibility. Offer brief grace periods, alternate submission formats, or small retry opportunities for growth.
Design for progress. Break major assignments into checkpoints so students build confidence along the way.
Make relevance obvious. Connect course content to real-world applications or student goals.
Reduce friction. Eliminate redundant instructions, outdated resources, and unnecessary clicks. Every layer of confusion is a barrier to learning.
We can’t keep celebrating access if success remains out of reach for too many. We can’t congratulate ourselves for inclusion if the structure itself remains exclusive. If we’ve truly invited everyone to the table, then it’s time to look around and ask: who still can’t reach their plate? Who’s standing because there aren’t enough chairs? Who’s pretending they’re full because they don’t feel like they belong here in the first place?