Screenshot of the "Centering Centers" podcast episode "It Started as a Name on a Door" with description "It Started as a Name on a Door with Thomas Tobin. In this episode of Centering Centers, we talk with Thomas Tobin about what it means to build a teaching and learning center from the ground up and what happens when that work is shaped by listening, context, and collaboration. Drawing on his recent experience working with a university in the Philippines, Tom shares how a center can grow from “a name on a door” into something that actively supports teaching across an institution. Throughout the conversation, we explore how teaching extends beyond the classroom into everyday interactions across campus, why starting with what people are already doing well matters, and how small, immediate changes can lead to meaningful shifts in practice. We also talk about universal design for learning at scale, the challenges of defining and evaluating teaching, and what it looks like to design for the realities students actually experience."

NEW PODCAST EP ON TEACHING CENTERS

I enjoyed talking with DeElla Wiley for the @PODNetwork #CenteringCenters podcast recently [46:40].

"It Started as a Name on a Door" is the story of starting a teaching center with a university in the Philippines.

Have a listen!

open.spotify.com/episode/1fdc...

Tom Tobin smiles in front of a sign for the AAC&U CLASS conference.

Tom Tobin smiles in front of a giant cactus.

Tucson, Arizona! Here for the @aacu.org #aacuclass2026 conference.

My Life as a Series of Near Misses with Dana Lawrence, a Novel

Title slide for "Sneaky Inclusive Design, or How to Be Inclusive when You Can't Say 'Inclusion.'" Image of a fussy baby resisting being fed by a spoon, inset image of Tom Tobin (a white man with gray hair, glasses, and a giant black mustache).

Over the next 3 days, Tucson, Arizona will be imperceptibly but statistically more mustachioed.

See you at the @aacu.org #AACUCLASS2026 conference, friends?

32 F*CKING YEARS, my sister.

In a college classroom, a student in a wheelchair is handing in a piece of paper.

HELP 2 COLLEAGUES IN 15 MINUTES

Instructors, do me a favor, please. Share what would help you provide disability accommodations.

bit.ly/AHEAD26survey

H/T to @liznorell.bsky.social & @lilliannave.bsky.social for doing this needed research.

Respond & share with your colleagues, too.

Thank you!

6/ The emotional effects are strong and entrenched on all sides of this conversation, and I'm proud of the way Brooke frames them in their piece.

5/ New tricks for old dogs: more seasoned practitioners & administrators are used to defining their work in terms of traditional models of assessment. People are freaking out over the new WCAG requirements because they put enforceable details into requirements that were already there for years.

4/ Training for the everyday: in graduate programs, subject-based students seldom get trained in access needs. Grad students in service-based programs often do: newer instructional designers & educational psychologists, for example, routinely graduate knowing how and why to make content accessible.

3/ Work assignment: instructors are, and have been, shouldering the burden of accessible design largely alone. The myth of "you teach it, so you design it" is making Minimum Viable Product a (misguided) goal for most instructors.

2/ This piece is well written, and offers hooks for further conversations around three key elements of the fight to get to "the floor" of accessibility compliance:

Reactions to the ADA Title II Updates are Failing Disabled Students, Instructors, and Staff Casual ableism is not a good look.

1/ Your Friday Moment of Awesome is . . .

from @BrookeShafar, writing for the Engaged Learning Collective: "Reactions to the ADA Title II Updates are Failing Disabled Students, Instructors, and Staff."

engagedlearningcollective.substack.com/p/reactions-...

Name In Blood YouTube video by Black Label Society - Topic

Today's "on repeat for hours so I can focus and work" song is a new one. Black Label Society has created one of the few perfect songs.

Banger. Absolute banger. \m/

Black Label Society
"Name in Blood"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKHS...

Colleague whose family came from Pakistan took me out for a celebratory lunch after we published a piece together. Cousin's restaurant. Chicken with rice. One bite and my airway closed. Cousin: "milk, now." Saved my life. Ate the entire meal.

Rock on, Jason.

I am learning here; thanks for the explanations!

Gaslit?

Tom Tobin peers over a spread-out deck of conversation-prompt cards that he is holding.

Hey, friends.

I enjoyed talking to @JustinShaffer about his work re-designing STEM courses & curricula. His card decks help departments talk about course design, & his services are grounded in evidence & research. Check him out, & invite him to your campus.

www.recombinanteducation.com

I spend so much time counseling folks who've been brainwashed into thinking they *have to* give back to a system that doesn't reward them in any way for their unpaid labor unless/until they are tenured profs. That ain't happening for 97% of us. Rock on, and know your own worth.

Buffalo Sabres promo: "we live hockey"

Dear Universe,

Please arrange for the following 10 wins:

Apr 7: Sabres & Canadiens
Apr 11: Bruins & Blue Jackets
Apr 12: Islanders
Apr 13: Sabres & Red Wings
Apr 14: Flyers
Apr 15: Sabres & Rangers

Thank you very much.

Signed,

A long-suffering born-in-Western-New-York fan

@lollardfish.bsky.social's son might be *a little* biased about his dad's new book. It's a banger.

Order it, friends.
Order it for your friends.
Have your friends order it for their friends.

FREE . . .
ONLINE . . .
BOOK LAUNCH!

(tomorrow, so hurry)

Title slide for "The Art of Strategic Alignment: Supporting Enrollment & Persistence in Any Climate" webinar, April 14, 2026 from Innovative Educators. With photo of Tom Tobin in a suit. Tom is a tall, smiling man with gray hair, glasses, and a giant black mustache.

CAN'T SAY "D!VERS!TY" OR "!NCLU5!0N"?

Join me on April 14 at 3p EDT for "The Art of Strategic Alignment: Supporting Enrollment & Persistence in Any Climate" for Innovative Educators.

Use code web50 to save $50.00, too!

www.innovativeeducators.org/products/the...

Tom Tobin peers gleefully over the covers of two books: *A Practical Guide to Teaching Neurodivergent College Students* and *The Joyful Online Teacher.*

This is like chocolate & peanut butter. Get 'em both.

Jen Pusateri, @harvardpress.bsky.social: A Practical Guide to Teaching Neurodivergent College Students
hep.gse.harvard.edu/979889557078...

@flowerdarby.bsky.social, @oupress.bsky.social: The Joyful Online Teacher
www.oupress.com/978080619653...

I think what you meant to say was . . .

[sighs audibly]

Y'all, buy this book. Then write that op ed, talk to your local TV station, and give that talk. Your community needs your voice.

^^^^^^^^^^ CORRECT

The "no kings" logo of a crown with a big red X across it.

No kings.

This is why I have an account.

So what kind of response to AI do we need? Rather than just turning to literacy for the answers, we need to carefully consider what kind of ‘text’ AI is. Is it amenable to a literacies response? The stakes are high if we do not think carefully about an appropriate educative response. Not only will we not use AI effectively, ethically or well, we will stop looking for a more suitable and perhaps more robust response to it. We also risk literacy being coopted for compliance and productivity purposes, so it operates as a kind of ‘soft governance’ for participation in the digital economy (Pangrazio and Sefton-Green Citation2024), just as it did in the late nineteenth century when it was used to teach values and morality. If literacy is the right response, then it needs to be more nuanced in how it is operationalised. Currently, it is used in ways that are both too narrow to capture the digital platforms and political and economic systems it is embedded in, but also too broad to capture the huge variations of how it is employed.

On "AI Literacy Day" I suggest reading "The (im)possibility of AI literacy" by @lucipangrazio.bsky.social questioning whether "literacy" is even the right response to AI and, if so, how a meaningful AI literacy could build on the history of "critical digital literacies" doi.org/10.1080/1743...

Tom Tobin smiles and points to an Ed Tech Day poster with his photo and presentation information on it.

Tom Tobin stands in front of a sign that says "we heart Ithaca," with Ithaca represented by a red star on a map of New York state.

If you're wondering where I'll be tomorrow, it's @ithacacollege.bsky.social, where I'll be the closing featured speaker for Ed Tech Day!