Syllabus Glow-Up: 7 Fast Fixes That Work for Every Student  

Open With Welcome, Not Just Requirements

A syllabus that leads with penalties and prerequisites sets a very different tone than one that opens by telling students they belong in the room. Patrick Allen's "Reimagining Our Syllabus" workshop walks through examples of syllabi built around the student experience rather than the instructor's checklist. It's worth a look before your next revision: Student-Centered Syllabus Examples and Slide Deck.

Review the recording: Reimagining a Welcoming & Inclusive Syllabus

Try this:

• Start with a short welcome that names what students will gain from the course, not just what's expected of them.

• Read your syllabus's opening paragraph out loud. If it sounds like a legal notice, it probably needs warmer framing before the requirements kick in.

Let Word Build Your Table of Contents for You

Native heading styles do more than organize a document visually. In Word, Heading 1 and Heading 2 styles generate an actual navigable outline, viewable in the Navigation Pane under View, that a screen reader user can jump through section by section. Bolded, resized text never gets picked up by that outline, no matter how large the font.

Try this:

• Apply Word's built-in heading styles to every section title instead of manually formatting text to look like one.

• Open the Navigation Pane yourself (View > Navigation Pane) and confirm your sections show up in order. If they don't, a screen reader user will hit the same dead end.

Describe Every Image, Down to the Textbook Cover

A cover image of the assigned textbook feels like a small, friendly touch. For a student using a screen reader, it's either useful (confirming edition and title at a glance) or it's nothing at all, depending entirely on whether it has alt text.

Try this:

• Write alt text that names what the image is and why it's there. For a textbook cover, that's the title, author, and edition, not "book image."

• Mark purely decorative images as decorative so a screen reader skips them instead of announcing a random filename.

Build Tables That Survive a Page Break

A long table with no repeating header row turns into guesswork the moment it crosses a page. A student scrolls to page two of your grading breakdown and has no idea which column is which, and a table where a single row splits across two pages compounds the problem for anyone using a screen reader to track cell relationships.

Try this:

• Set your header row to repeat at the top of every page (In Word, select the header row > right-click > Table Properties > Row Tab > check Repeat as header row at the top of each page).

• Turn off "Allow row to break across pages" so no student ever lands mid-row with no context (in Word, select the entire table using the four way arrow > right-click > Table Properties > Row Tab > uncheck Allow row to break across pages).

Name Your Links for What They Are

A link that just says "here" or shows a raw URL forces a screen reader user to guess, or backtrack into the surrounding sentence for context. Screen readers can generate a list of every link on a page in isolation, so the link text is often all a student has to go on.

Try this:

• Write link text that names the destination: "Academic Calendar" or "Grading Rubric," never "click here."

• Do a final pass on your links right before posting. They tend to accumulate generic labels as a document gets edited over time.

Make Expectations Explicit, Not Implied

Ambiguity costs every student time, but it costs some students more than others. A vague late policy or a schedule that only says "Week 4" leaves a student cross-referencing accommodations or outside obligations with nothing solid to check against.

Try this:

• Write your late work, attendance, and participation expectations in plain, complete sentences, not as things students are expected to intuit.

• Replace week numbers with actual calendar dates wherever you're listing deadlines.

Pull University Policies From the Source, Not Memory

Retyping policy language from a previous semester risks handing students something that's already out of date. The current, correct wording lives in the Policies & Resources Module copied into every course, and that's the version students should see.

Try this:

• Link to or copy directly from your course's Policies & Resources Module rather than typing policy language from memory.

• Recheck that module each semester before finalizing your syllabus. It's updated centrally, so your syllabus should always defer to it rather than to what you remember from last year.