Austin Bound

Next January through March

I will be a visiting professor at the University of Austin for the quarter that runs from January through March of 2026. I told you some of my notions about it last month.

You have probably heard about the place. The folks in charge seem to want to combine being traditional with being AI-positive. I hope I prove helpful to the institution. I am excited about participating.

The Board of Trustees and Board of Advisors are very impressive. But I imagine that getting a new university off the ground is a heavy lift.

As you know, I have been thinking about how AI will affect today’s students’ lives. On the one hand, if AI keeps improving, then by the time they graduate a lot of traditional entry-level jobs won’t be there. On the other hand, if AI flops, then by the time they graduate we may experience the worst financial implosion since 1929, followed by a political upheaval that leads to socialism. Have a nice day, freshman!

I have always been attracted to experiments in education. When I was in high school, I applied early-decision to Hampshire College. This was then brand new, and it was going to go against the grain of mainstream higher education by being on the left and by experimenting with alternative approaches to learning.¹

Fortunately, Hampshire declined to offer me early acceptance. Or even late acceptance—in April I was put on the waiting list. I chose Swarthmore instead.

My politics in high school were lefty, but I had never known anything else. Swarthmore’s progressives were into virtue signaling (the lettuce boycott was a big thing), which turned me off. And studying economics led me away from simplistic Moral Dyad thinking. So my journey toward the right was beginning, although it would take place gradually.

Still, the willingness to participate in an educational experiment that attracted me to Hampshire is still with me. I will never believe that a guy standing at a lectern reading a script is the best way to provide in-person education.

I will be trying to conduct a class that would have appealed to me as a student. We’ll see how the typical UATX student takes to it. I am excited.

1. Obviously, Hampshire’s lefty activism is no longer a distinctive brand. The web site seems to scream ideology over rigor. One of the requirements is described this way:

To complete Division I, in addition to the seven courses, students must complete Community-Engaged Learning activities (CEL-1) totaling a minimum of 40 hours, approximately equal to course contact hours. Of these, 20 hours will involve participation in campus educational events focused on diversity, inclusion, equity, and access in order to expand intercultural competencies; ten of those hours will be used to fulfill the race and power requirement. The other 20 hours will consisting of campus activities/projects of the student’s choice that meet the goals of the requirement to work collaboratively in community and meet a community need. The student will document the fulfillment of the CEL-1 and include a reflection on their CEL-1 experience in the Division I retrospective essay.