Tag: Wisdom

Universities Teaching Wisdom Skills 2030

As with the prior column, this week’s thesis evolves out of the Zoom keynote to the Rethink AI Conference, sponsored in part by the International Academy of Science, Technology, Engineering and Management and hosted by the ICLED Business School in Lagos, Nigeria. Thanks again to the chair of the International Professors Project, Sriprya Sarathy, and the conference committee for making my presentation possible.

Virtually all aspects and positions at universities will be touched by the transformation. The changes will come more rapidly than many of us in higher education are accustomed to or with which we are comfortable. In large part, the speed will be demanded by employers of our learners and by competition among universities. Change will also strike directly at the nature of what and how we teach.

It is not that we have seen no change in teaching over the years. Notably, delivery systems, methods and modes of assessment, and related areas have been subject to significant changes. Anthony Piña, Illinois State University’s chief online learning officer, notes that online learners surpassed 50 percent in 2022 and continue to rise. However, deeper changes in the nature of what we teach have progressed as technology has influenced what employers are seeking.

Most Popular

Building knowledge has been the mantra in higher education for many centuries. The role of the university has been to build knowledge in learners to make them “knowledgeable.” Oxford Languages and Google define knowledge most concisely as “facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.”

The emphasis on facts and information has taken a somewhat changed role with the advent of technologies over recent decades. Notably, the World Wide Web with the advent of the first browser, Mosaic, in 1993 provided instant access to unprecedented volumes of information. While familiarity with key facts and information remains paramount, the recall and synthesis of facts and information via the web can be performed nearly as quickly and more thoroughly than the human brain in most instances. In a sense the internet has become our extended, rapid-access, personal memory. Annual global web traffic exceeded a zetabyte for the first time in 2015. A zetabyte is 1,000 exabytes, one billion terabytes or one trillion gigabytes. This year, it’s expected to hit 175 ZB.

More recently, we have seen a surge in professional certificates offered by higher education. As Modern Campus reports,

“Every professional needs upskilling in order to maintain a competitive edge in the workforce. Keeping ahead of the latest skills and knowledge has become more crucial than ever in order to align with evolving market demands. Although traditional degree programs have long been the standard solution, certificate programs have gained popularity due to their ability to offer targeted, accelerated skill development.”

However, agentic AI is just now emerging. It is different than the prompt to answer generative AI in that agentic AI can include many workforce skills in its array of tools. In fact, working and collaborating with agentic AI will require an advanced, integrated skill set, as described by the Global Skills Development Council:

“In the fast-paced, digitally driven world, agentic AI is at the forefront of demanding new human competencies. While intelligent agents retain a place in daily life and work, individuals should transition to acquire agentic AI skills to thrive in the new age. These skills include, but are not limited to, working with technology, thinking critically, applying ethical reasoning, and adaptive collaboration with agentic AI systems. Such agentic AI skills empower one to consciously engage in guiding and shaping AI behaviors and outcomes rather than passively receiving and adapting to them. If one has agentic AI skills, they can successfully lead businesses, education, and creative industries in applying agents for innovation and impact. As such, re-dedicating ourselves to lifelong learning and responsible use of AI may prove vital in retaining humanity at the core of intelligent decision-making and progress. Without such competencies, professionals risk being bypassed by technologies they cannot control or understand. A passive attitude creates dependency on AI outcomes without the skill to query or improve them. Adopting agentic AI competencies equips individuals with the power to drive innovation and ensure responsible AI integration in the workplace.”

The higher-level skills humans will need as described by the Global Skills Development Council are different from many of the career-specific skills that universities now provide in short-form certificates and certification programs. Rather, I suggest that these broad, deep skills are ones that we might best describe as wisdom skills. They are not vocational but instead are deeper skills related to overall maturity and sophistication in leadership, vision and insight. They include thinking critically, thinking creatively, applying ethical reasoning and collaborating adaptively with both humans and agentic AI.

Agentic AI can be trained for the front-line skills of many positions. However, the deeper, more advanced and more cerebral skills that integrate human contexts and leadership vision are often reflective of what we would describe as wisdom rather than mere working skills. These, I would suggest, are the nature of what we will be called upon to emphasize in our classes, certificates and degrees.

Some of these skills and practices are currently taught at universities, often through case studies at the graduate level. Integrating them into the breadth of the degree curriculum as well as certificates may be a challenge, but it is one we must accomplish in higher education. Part of the process of fully embracing and integrating AI into our society will be for we humans to upgrade our own skills to maintain our relevance and leadership in the workplace.

Has your university begun to tackle the topics related to how the institution can best provide relevant skills in a world where embodied, agentic AI is working shoulder to shoulder with your graduates and certificate holders? How might you initiate discussion of such topics to ensure that the university continues to lead in a forward-thinking way?

Source link

October 29, 2025
Working-Class Wisdom in the Age of Neoliberalism and Trump
In the United States of 2025—where neoliberal capitalism and creeping authoritarianism grind down the human spirit—there’s an urgent need for a way of thinking, surviving, and resisting that doesn’t come from think tanks or corporate wellness plans. Street Psychology is that way.

This idea isn’t new. It’s an outbreak from earlier projects like Street Sociologist (2009–2012) and American Injustice (2009–2013), digital spaces that chronicled working-class survival under austerity, war, mass incarceration, student loan predation, and the Great Recession. Those projects documented both despair and resistance—voices from the margins that understood the system was not broken but operating as designed. Street Psychology is the next step in that lineage. It names the psychic toll of exploitation and dares to offer tools for survival drawn not from institutions, but from the people themselves.

Street Psychology isn’t a licensed profession or clinical method. It’s a bottom-up philosophy. A way of being that honors grit, grief, memory, and movement. It draws from Black Psychology, Radical Social Work, and the unspoken survival strategies passed down through generations—especially those of the poor, the working class, the dispossessed.

It tells us: you’re not crazy. You’re living in a society that has normalized cruelty.

Life Under Pressure

In today’s America, working people face a perfect storm. Medicaid cuts, climate shocks, unpayable debt, and housing crises are daily facts of life. The Trump regime, emboldened by a Supreme Court that erodes checks and balances, offers little more than political theater and corporate tax breaks. “Law and order” is back—but so are vigilante violence and state repression. In this environment, working-class people are expected to carry on as if nothing is wrong—grinding away at gig jobs, navigating broken transit systems, shouldering invisible pain.

Street Psychology offers no false comfort. It teaches that burnout, anxiety, and despair are not personal failures—they are rational reactions to a system that exploits and isolates. It offers a politics of honesty.

It reminds us that mental health cannot be separated from rent, food, dignity, and debt.

Lessons from Horror and Triumph

Street Psychology is grounded in history—not the history of presidents and generals, but the people’s history of how folks made it through.

During the Great Depression, when one in four Americans was unemployed, it was mutual aid, union organizing, and government pressure from below that helped form the New Deal—not just FDR’s goodwill. Neighbors shared food. Workers seized factories. Families survived on ingenuity and grit. Street Psychology carries that memory.

During World War II, ordinary people faced rations, displacement, and death on an unprecedented scale. But they also built community resilience. Black Americans moved north and west in the Great Migration, seeking both work and dignity. Women entered the workforce by the millions—not for empowerment branding, but to survive. Trauma was everywhere, but so was collective purpose. Street Psychology remembers that duality.

And in the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the brutal convergence of economic inequality, medical neglect, and state failure. But we also saw mutual aid networks rise overnight. Grocery workers, nurses, delivery drivers, and custodians became the front line—not billionaires or generals. People created community fridges, distributed masks, and organized rent strikes. Even amid mass death and disinformation, something deeply human survived. Street Psychology draws its oxygen from these moments.

It says: we’ve been through hell before—and we’ve learned how to survive together.

Radical Roots and Collective Healing

Street Psychology stands on the shoulders of Black radical thinkers like Dr. Na’im Akbar and Dr. Wade Nobles, who taught that psychological liberation requires historical truth and cultural self-determination. It borrows from the Radical Social Worker tradition that insists depression and addiction often emerge from exploitation, not deficiency.

It echoes the voices of those doing hard, dirty, “bullshit jobs,” as David Graeber called them—people whose work is exhausting, precarious, and spiritually deadening. It respects those whose minds and bodies are tired because they’ve been used up. And it says plainly: this is not your fault.

Healing begins with naming the madness.

A People’s Practice

Street Psychology thrives outside institutions. It happens in union halls, kitchens, church basements, food pantries, WhatsApp threads. It takes the form of eye contact, a ride to work, a bag of groceries, a story told without shame. It asks us not to fix ourselves to fit a broken world—but to remember we are not alone in our pain or our power.

It teaches that even in a world of distraction and despair, we can practice presence and solidarity. We can re-learn how to listen, how to mourn, how to laugh in defiance.

This psychology is not neutral. It does not pretend to be apolitical. It stands with those being crushed—by the debt collectors, the landlords, the ICE raids, the fascists in suits. It says: you matter. Your struggle matters. And you’re not the only one carrying this weight.

A Call to Reclaim Our Minds

Street Psychology is not a cure. It is not a self-help manual. It is a collective reckoning. A refusal to be shamed into silence or fragmented into diagnosis. It is the unlicensed, unpolished wisdom of people who’ve lived through hell and still show up for each other.

In the age of Trump, AI surveillance, climate breakdown, and economic betrayal, this might be our best chance: to recover the human, to restore the political, and to reclaim the psychological as a shared terrain.

Let’s build a new commons—not just of resources, but of understanding. Let’s build a psychology that is street-smart, justice-rooted, and history-aware.

Sources & Influences:
- Akbar, Na’im. Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery
- Nobles, Wade. Seeking the Sakhu
- Graeber, David. Bullshit Jobs
- Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- Radical Social Worker Collective
- Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
- American Injustice (2009–2013) and Street Sociologist (2009–2012) blog archives
- Historical memory from the Great Depression, WWII home front, and COVID-19 mutual aid networks
- People’s CDC, APA, KFF data on structural causes of psychological distress
Street Psychology lives in those who refuse to forget—and who refuse to give up. If you or your community are practicing this in any form, we want to hear from you.
Source link
July 9, 2025
Words of Wisdom to the Class of 2025

Congratulations on your recent graduation! All those years of hard work have paid off and have prepared you for the journey ahead. You should be incredibly proud of what you’ve accomplished, and I hope you are excited for what lies ahead.

I remember the mix of emotions: the excitement of stepping into something new, the fear of the unknown, and the deep hope that I’d somehow make an impact. Decades later, those same emotions are still relevant. And if I could go back in time and say a few words to the Kim who stood in her graduation robe, here’s what I’d say:

1. Reject the myth of instant gratification

The highlight reels you see on social media and the stories of overnight successes will undoubtedly tempt you to look for shortcuts. Don’t take the bait.

What appears to be instantaneous success is often built on years of hidden struggle. Success isn’t viral. It’s cumulative. It’s built on tenacity, late nights, and years of quiet persistence. One of the most critical lessons I learned, and one that consistently sets individuals apart, is the unwavering commitment to hard work — especially when no one is watching.

Your degree is a fantastic achievement, but it’s just the start. To truly excel, you must show up every day, both mentally and physically. Take on the unglamorous tasks, master the fundamentals, and keep doing the work, even if you are not getting immediate recognition.

Don’t misunderstand; this isn’t about being a workaholic. It’s about understanding that competence, professional and personal growth, and lasting success are forged through consistent, dedicated effort over time. If you chase shortcuts or expect quick wins, you will ultimately be disappointed. Instead, always strive to deliver more than what’s expected.

2. Don’t just seek opportunities, create them

There are very few golden tickets in this world, and if you’re waiting for a great opportunity to land in your lap, you might find yourself waiting for a long time.

Your education has provided you with a foundation — now it’s your responsibility to build upon it.

The most significant leaps in my career often came from identifying a gap or a need and then raising my hand to fill it, even if it meant stepping outside my job description. If you uncover a problem, bring forward a solution. Take the initiative and volunteer for projects in addition to your day-to-day responsibilities. You might just discover new areas of interest or open the door to work with different teams that can ultimately propel your career forward.

3. Embrace the ‘failure as fuel’ philosophy

Coming off an academic career, the term “failure” can be triggering. As students, we often fear failure more than anything. But the truth is that you will fail, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s a given. But failure, when used as a learning opportunity, is a jumping off point — not the end point.

Every misstep, every “no,” every project that does go as planned is not a sign of your inadequacy, but a data point. Think of it as your best instructor. An experiment that reveals what doesn’t work brings you closer to the solution that does. The only real failure in life is giving up, or worse, not trying at all.

When faced with a major setback, you have a choice: Get stuck or grow stronger. Take accountability but choose growth. If you can figure out how to convert setbacks into stepping stones, it can be your most potent superpower.

4. Never stop learning

You’re just getting started, and that’s exciting! Your degree is a testament to your ability to learn. But your degree represents only a starting point. In fact, many of you won’t end or even start your careers in the exact area you studied.

The pace of change in every industry is accelerating, and skills that are valuable today might be obsolete tomorrow, so you must constantly learn and stay current with advancements. AI is a powerful example. Those who spend the time to learn how to leverage AI to work smarter will thrive. Those who do not will be passed up. This is a fact for those starting their career as well as those decades in.

One of the most powerful sources of learning in my career has come from the many informal mentors I’ve had throughout my life. Build a network of good, smart people at all stages in their careers and invest in those relationships. You can learn just as much from someone only a few steps ahead of you as from someone with decades more experience.

5. Take risks

Comfort zones are cozy, but they are also dangerously limiting. Some of the best moves I’ve ever made started as risks that scared but also exhilarated me. But they were calculated risks, well thought through, and aligned with where I knew I could make a positive impact.

Don’t leap without a plan, but don’t freeze in fear either. The magic often lives on the other side of uncertainty. For what it’s worth, the biggest regrets usually come from the risks not taken. Opportunities rarely present themselves without an element of uncertainty. Your job is to discern which uncertainties are worth embracing.

Own your future, one bold move at a time

The recent college graduates I am blessed to know are some of the brightest, hardest working, most curious, ambitious, and wonderful people (yes, Emma, I am talking about you and all your amazing friends!) You all control your destiny. Your path will not be linear, but it will be yours. Own it. Shape it. And never stop evolving.

And most importantly, remember the wise words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!”

Innovation Starts Here

Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

Source link

June 4, 2025
Turning Wounds into Wisdom | Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Dr. Vicki Patterson DavidsonCongresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) delivered a moving speech at Tougaloo College’s commencement ceremony earlier this month. While listening to her speech, I remembered the three times someone called me the ‘N’ word – once as an elementary school student, once as a high school student, and once as a sophomore at Tougaloo College. Each time, the racial epithet was uttered by a white male.

My family was one of the first to integrate the North Pike School District in Pike County, Mississippi in the 1970s – fifteen years after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. I knew it was ignorance that drove others to call me the ‘N’ word during the 1980s and 1990s.

My daughter experienced a similar remark while growing up in central Mississippi in the mid-2000s. A classmate told her during recess that he “did not play with Black girls.” Heartbroken, I shared two quotes and a song with her later that evening. “Nothing in the whole world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and one by Oprah Winfrey, a native Mississippian, who told Wellesley College graduates in 1997 to “turn your wounds into wisdom.”

That evening we listened to “I’m Here” from the Broadway musical, The Color Purple – a song which resonates with so many Black girls and women across our nation. “I’m Here” would later be performed at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors celebrating Winfrey. My daughter decided to dress like Winfrey during Black History Month that school year. My daughter had turned her wounds into wisdom.

Mirroring the courage and strength of Fannie Lou Hamer, a prominent activist who frequently visited Tougaloo College during the Civil Rights Movement, Congresswoman Crockett addressed the state of American civil rights and liberties under the Trump administration. Crockett’s commencement speech was not disturbing. Her speech, full of wisdom, rang with relevance as she stood near the historic steps of the Woodworth Chapel below the steeple bell. The cowardly threats and reactions which followed are what continue to ring with prejudice, hatred, and ignorance nearly fifty-four years after Hamer delivered her famous “Is It Too Late?” speech at Tougaloo in the summer of 1971.

Known for its educational excellence and activism in higher education, Tougaloo College is no stranger to controversy. A private, historically Black liberal arts college that has hosted and graduated prominent civil rights leaders and politicians for years, Tougaloo is the same institution that educates and prepares future physicians, scientists, lawyers, educators, and researchers who serve Mississippi and the global community.

Tougaloo College students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and community stand together in wisdom without fear. We are not invisible. We are not silent. We are here.

Dr. Vicki Patterson Davidson is an alumna and an Assistant Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Education at Tougaloo College.

Source link

May 11, 2025