Building Trust in Higher Education

new podcast episode!

The Episode

For the past few months, we’ve been working on a crossover episode with our friends over at the Instructional Design Collaborative, who make the L&S Exchange Podcast about teaching in the UW–Madison College of Letters and Science. The episode features philosopher Tony Laden and the stories of two students whose trust networks shifted in college in different ways.

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The Aftershow

And - it includes a special aftershow with philosophy professor Harry Brighouse and the Instructional Design Collaborative about what trust actually looks like in the classroom.

Here’s what recording actually looks like in the studio: Harry Brighouse, Molly Harris, and Jonathan Klein in conversation for the aftershow. Photo taken by Carrie Welsh in the Merit recording studio at UW–Madison.

The Instructional Design Collaborative put together a great set of notes and discussion questions about this episode:

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Listen for:

• how to not talk past each other when we disagree

• why we trust what we trust

• how college changes what we trust

• what higher ed can do to become more trustworthy

• 3 things Harry does to build trust in the classroom

• Tony on going home for the holidays (clip below):

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Have a listen and share with your colleagues. Here’s Building Trust in Higher Education with Tony Laden:

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Further reading:

• Networks of Trust: The Social Costs of Higher Education and What We Can Do About Them⁠ (2024)

• "20 Things Teachers Do" ⁠by Tim Brighouse

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Thanks for listening! We love hearing from you. If you liked and learned from this episode, please give us a (stellar) rating on apple podcasts. It helps us reach more listeners — and encourages us to keep making great audio about the philosophy of education.

Best,

Carrie, Harry, and Tony