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Can Higher Education Lead From a Position of Fear?

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  There is a climate of fear developing in higher education. And regardless of where you stand politically, that should concern us. Universities have always operated within political, financial, and social pressures. That isn't new. What feels different today is the degree to which institutional leaders, faculty, and staff appear increasingly concerned about what they can say, what they can support, what programs they can maintain, and even what opinions they can publicly acknowledge. Sometimes the safest response seems to be silence, and I understand why. Institutions have employees to protect, students to serve, budgets to balance, donors to consider, and increasingly uncertain sources of funding. Leaders have a responsibility to consider consequences. But there is another question worth asking: what happens when caution becomes fear? Higher education is supposed to be one of the places where difficult ideas can be examined, challenged, debated, researched, and someti...
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When Distraction Becomes a Debate Strategy: Red Herrings, Whataboutism, and the Art of Avoiding the Point

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  There are important conversations happening around us every day. Social issues. Education. Leadership. Race. Politics. Workplace culture. Economics. Community. We cannot, and probably should not, ignore all of them. That doesn't mean we need to be ten toes down on every issue that crosses our screen. Sometimes listening is more valuable than speaking. Sometimes we don't know enough to have an informed opinion. But meaningful progress requires meaningful discussion. And meaningful discussion becomes nearly impossible when someone isn't actually interested in discussing the issue at hand. I encountered this recently during what I thought was a productive online conversation. Different perspectives were being shared, people disagreed, and that was perfectly fine. Then someone repeatedly tried to steer the conversation somewhere else. Not because the new question helped us examine the original issue more deeply. It didn't. It distracted from it, and there is ...
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Gratitude

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  There are many ways to express gratitude, but sometimes I think we make it more complicated than it needs to be. I'm talking about simply being thankful to be alive. It is easy to become consumed by everything that is going wrong, everything that has gone wrong, and everything happening around us that we simply cannot control. If we aren't careful, those things can become so loud that we forget about everything that is still good. Find time to decompress. Spend time with people you love. Laugh. Enjoy the little things. Take care of yourself. And occasionally remind yourself that you get to breathe air for another day. Perhaps one of the best ways we can express gratitude for life is to actually live it , not merely survive it while worrying about everything we cannot change. Be blessed. Stay healthy. And do your best to be happy. The little things matter. Dr. Flavius Akerele, EdD, MBA #Gratitude #Life #WellBeing #Perspective #BePresent #TheLittleThin...
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Confident, Arrogant, or Just Really Good at Their Job?

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  Navigating High Achievers in the Workplace When I was younger, I was sometimes accused of being arrogant at work. Maybe occasionally I was. Age and experience have taught me enough humility to acknowledge that possibility. But I also know that sometimes what was perceived as arrogance was simply confidence. I was educated, prepared, good at what I did, and comfortable expressing what I knew. That distinction matters. Because managers routinely encounter employees who are highly capable, highly confident, or both. And if we mistake confidence for arrogance, or arrogance for competence, we can make poor leadership decisions in either direction. So how do we tell the difference? Arrogance, Confidence, and Competence They can look remarkably similar from a distance. A confident employee trusts their abilities. They can usually explain what they know without needing everyone else to know less. They can accept correction; they acknowledge limitations and learn from som...
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Whatever Happened to Networking?

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  What does professional networking mean to you? Is it reaching out when you need a job? Asking someone for an introduction? Connecting because someone has information that might benefit you? Or is networking supposed to be something more? I've been thinking lately about how many ways we now have to connect with one another. LinkedIn, professional associations, conferences, email, social media, alumni networks, the opportunities are almost endless. Yet I wonder whether we're actually networking more or simply contacting more people. There is a difference. Real networking, at least as I understand it, should involve the genuine exchange of ideas, information, opportunities, and sometimes assistance, with no guarantee that anything comes back to us. Sometimes you make an introduction simply because two people should know each other. Sometimes you send someone an article because you think they'll find it useful. Sometimes you tell someone about an opportunity eve...
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We Already Had This Conversation Once Before

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  Every generation seems to believe the next new technology is going to change everything. Sometimes it does. More often, it changes how we work rather than why we work. I was reminded of that recently after updating my LinkedIn profile with a professionally styled headshot. The photo was created with the help of AI, and I made no attempt to hide that fact. Most people liked it. A few playfully teased me. Others dismissed it with a single word: "AI." That reaction made me smile. Because we've had this conversation before. When calculators first appeared in classrooms, many educators worried they would destroy students' ability to think. I know, I was one of them. Then we realized something important. A calculator couldn't solve the problem if the student didn't understand the formula. As we used to tell students: "Garbage in, garbage out". The tool wasn't the problem. The thinking behind it was. Then came word processors. People worrie...
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When Did Logical Fallacies Become Debate Strategies?

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  Winning an Argument Isn't the Same as Making One.   In my previous article, Whatever Happened to the Art of Disagreement? , I suggested that we've become less capable of having thoughtful conversations with people who see the world differently. That led me to another question: when did logical fallacies become acceptable debate strategies?   When I was a student, logical fallacies were something we were taught to avoid. If you relied on one in a paper or debate, your instructor pointed it out because it weakened your argument. Today, many of those same fallacies are celebrated. Delivered with enough confidence, they can sound persuasive, even when they rely on faulty reasoning instead of evidence. To be fair, every one of us, including me, is susceptible to logical fallacies. The goal isn't to become better at winning arguments. It's to become better thinkers.   Here are a few examples we encounter every day:   Ad Hominem   Instead...
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