Interesting 🧵 to consider as institutions of higher ed rush to accommodate AI. It's not just the cognitive drawbacks alone but how those drawbacks undermine institutional missions...

You know, I'm beginning to think giving Silicon Valley the keys to our social well-being, economic life, and human flourishing--all while raking in billions for themselves and pontificating on whether we should continue to exist--was a really, really bad idea.

July 2 marks the 100th birthday of Medgar Evers. It's the perfect time for Senator Roger Wicker & U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith to take a stand against the effort to strip this Mississippi hero and WW2 veteran's name off a Navy ship. I wrote but haven't heard back. Any updates? msn.com/en-us/news/us/…

What a profound mistake by The University of Tulsa, both in terms of the human cost and the decision to gut one of the most unique Honors Colleges in the country. Jennifer A. Frey will no doubt land on her feet, but I'm sorry she has to endure this.

Slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers would have celebrated his 100th birthday today. On his 21st birthday, Medgar Evers and six other World War II veterans, including his brother, Charles, tried to vote in Decatur, Mississippi, only to be turned away by an armed White mob.

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I took a semester off during college, did a work exchange program for students, and got a job at the Westminster Abbey bookshop. I was ten feet away from two famous people who came to the Abbey during my time there: Queen Elizabeth...and Pet Shop Boys lead singer Neil Tennant.

Molly Worthen on the history of charisma: "Spellbound is a wild and satisfying romp through the history of American religion and politics, and a simultaneously sober and hopeful appraisal of the present moment." lareviewofbooks.org/article/unveil…

"When students realize their own humanity is at stake in their education, they are deeply invested in it....The real threat to liberal learning is from an administrative class that is content to offer students far less than their own humanity calls for — and deserves."

Thank you for this teaching moment on the perils of relying on Generative AI for one's research! #DeeperVerification

Two posts within 90 minutes of each other...

Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.

And the sound of crashing and crumbling to rubble comes nearer

U of Chicago is going to merge humanities departments and downscale its language offerings in part because...the institution spent too much money on construction projects. Its endowment: over $10 billion. Are there any leaders in higher ed who *want* to save the humanities?

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A big part of my becoming a Cubs fan, while growing up in SC where everyone was a Braves fan, was watching Ryno on WGN. #RIPRyno

Just read a timely editorial. "The Threat to the Liberal Arts" worries USA becoming a "technocratic anthill" w/ higher ed's loss of imagination/reasoning skills, hyperfocus on technology & careerism. Dire civic consequences. P.S. It's from the Jan 31, 1964 issue of Life Magazine.

Happy 150th birthday to Hibernian Football Club, who may have the best anthem in the sport 💚

OpenAI CEO teases release GPT-5 with an image of the Death Star. Again, maybe handing the keys of the economy and surrendering our institutions and public life to Silicon Valley wasn't the best idea...