About Beth

Beth Platow (she/her) is a writer, presenter, and an associate professor at Berklee College in the Liberal Arts & Sciences Department. She’s been teaching, writing, and presenting for over 20 years.

Beth received her B.A. in English from Suffolk University in Boston, MA as an honors scholar. As part of her Bachelor’s degree she studied at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland for a semester. Beth went on to receive an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Bennington College in Bennington, VT.

Beth’s classes at Berklee have included English Composition, Social Justice Literature, Gender Studies, Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry, and Artistry, Creativity, & Inquiry. With social justice work at the core of her teaching, she is passionate about offering a space for all to be heard and seen. Students have consistently given positive feedback on Beth’s teaching style, both in-person and remote.

Among her professional development accomplishments, Beth is a graduate of the Vogt Leadership Fellows Program, a trained diversity, equity, and inclusion (D.E.I.) facilitator, and has completed many courses and trainings herself, most recently the Planned Parenthood’s Sexuality Education Cornerstone Seminar (SECS). Beth works with the Danroy (D.J.) Henry Social Change Scholarship at Berklee College and volunteers regularly in all of her communities. She currently serves on the board of Theater in the Open in Newburyport, MA.

As a decorated author and scholar, Beth has read and presented at numerous schools, libraries universities, seminars, and conferences including Association of American Colleges & Conferences (AACU), Associated Writing Programs (AWP), Boston University, Harvard College, Cambridge Public Library, Massachusetts Poetry Festival, New York City Public Library, University of Massachusetts, among others. She has been a regular presenter at the annual Berklee Teachers on Teaching Conference. Presentations and talks have included:

  • Fathers in Poetry: Present and Absent: Encounters, Enigmas, and Elegies

  • High Impact Practices in the Classroom

  • I Bet You Think This Poem Is About You: Writing about family, friends, lovers, and others

  • It’s Better Together: Advice on Co-Teaching

  • Role of Activism in the Classroom: How to Create a More Gender Inclusive Classroom

  • Managing the Classroom During the Kavanaugh Hearings

  • Managing Crisis in the Classroom

  • The Tao of Teaching: Mindfulness and Creativity in the Classroom

  • Ethics of Care: Sexual Assault Pedagogy

Beth’s top strengths are empathy, context, developer, connectedness, and arranger. She lives with her husband, daughter, and cats north of Boston, Massachusetts.