Kenneth O. Stanley and Joel Lehman, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective (Springer, 2015) Jane Jacobs, the great urban theorist and activist, author of The Death… Read more

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about leadership—especially in higher education—is how much of it is shaped not only by what we say and do, but by… Read more

Four years ago, we were blindsided by the unleashing of LLMs into educational spaces. Faculty in the humanities and qualitative social sciences have responded with a mix of bewilderment and… Read more

By Melissa Morriss-Olson Innovation is a word we use easily in higher education. It appears in strategic plans, presidential speeches, accreditation narratives, and fundraising priorities. We talk about it as… Read more

The core argument in Peter Turchin’s book “End Times” is that social and political upheaval results from what he identifies as “elite overproduction.” Looking throughout history, Turchin claims that: when… Read more

In the Spring of 2021, during the closing moments of the pandemic lockdowns, after a year spent teaching classes over Zoom, an exasperated student, a graduating senior, quipped at the… Read more

The Economist recently reported on a new Silicon Valley trend: the “solopreneur.” They give the example of Sarah Gwilliam, who started a business offering grief counseling and the management of… Read more

I caught a glimpse of the future the other day while attending a Zoom meeting. There were six of us in attendance that day: four humans and two AI note… Read more

By Melissa Morriss-Olson “Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment, and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”—Gilda Radner… Read more

By Melissa Morriss-Olson The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution with which I am or have been… Read more