Hello Friends,

I'm off LinkedIn for the summer for one of my annual breaks, and thus far it's great. I notice that some thoughts come and go without a need to be formalized into a post, but other thoughts appear as more intense or persistent. That ability to discern this from that feels like something I can only get when I'm off certain socials for extended periods of time. I highly recommend a long break, especially if you're like me and struggle to use it in moderation.

I was thinking this morning about leadership, and the good ol' Garbage Can Model came to mind. This is a classic model of organizational theory, and I highly recommend it, as I think it will explain a lot of infuriating decisions you see being made in higher education and beyond. The short version of the model is "solutions looking for problems," which of course leads to chaos and a failure to make any sort of progress toward stated missions and goals. Picture a new leader coming in and saying, "We're going to go paperless" or "We're going to implement a new evaluation system" or the like. Well, why? What problem are you trying to solve with that strategy, and is that the best and most important problem we should be working on solving? In a sane organization, there is clarity of mission and purpose and then of problems and barriers standing in the way of that mission and purpose. In a chaotic organization, there are often egos with solutions in search of problems.

What better way to describe what we are seeing with AI? It is a level of super charged garbage can chaos that I'm not sure we've witnessed before. "We're going to use AI!" (Why?). "We're going to prepare our students to use AI." (Why?) "We're going to integrate AI into all of our offerings? (Why?) AI is the solution, but what is the problem that AI is trying to solve? Sadly, I think the answer to that is: the capitalist fever dreams of billionaires. It pains me to see good people at good institutions become prey to this solution. But I do think we're seeing progress in the AI backlash as people are realizing that AI is not solving anything, and if it is, it's simultaneously causing a bunch of other problems. I hope people will slow down, take a step back, and look again at their mission and purpose. What stands in the way of those, and is AI really the solution?

Speaking of AI, I recently served as a reviewer on a new Educause report on AI and assessment in higher education. Being that I'm a fairly vocal critic of the AI onslaught, I am really grateful that I was asked to contribute to make sure that perspective was represented. I hope you'll check it out.

Meanwhile, I have something percolating around a new offering on existential presence in higher education. I wrote about this briefly a few years ago in my COI Checklist but think it might be time to expand upon it because of ALL THE THINGS. I'd love to know if that resonates with folks. If so, drop me a line.

I am still responding to emails and am always open to requests for workshops or consulting via my website.

I've got about four work weeks left before a healthy amount of summer vacation. I'm enjoying the French Open and can't wait for Wimbledon too. Tiafoe's match last night was truly wild! The pile of novels is prepared. The art studio is ready and filled with supplies. I hope you all are finding ways forward this summer. Do keep in touch over email if you'd like.

-Karen

P.S. I know AI likes to put text in bold but so do middle-aged women with ADHD. Entirely written by yours truly, FWIW.