Tyler Austin Harper
@Tyler_A_Harper
Staff writer @TheAtlantic. Co-host of @ttsgpod podcast. Gone fishing.
I wrote about Montauk, a fisherman, and a dying extreme sport for the October Issue. It’s a story of a gentrifying town, a changing ocean, obsession on the knife-edge of madness, and a man who swims through shark-infested water—at night—in pursuit of a great American fish. 🧵
“Wetsuiters” swim out into the surf at night, often during storms, and spend hours in the darkness attempting to catch striped bass. @Tyler_A_Harper reports on this alluring and addicting sport—and why he can’t get enough of it: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Crucial problem, the rise of a *class* of admin aligned with boards of trustees and narrowly defined capital interests. You don’t see this narrative a lot bc Ed is considered a “culture” topic, so we ignore that it is a massive business sector with pernicious vested interests
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
So here’s a short thread on why what the admins say they believe cannot be true and why they know that neither academics nor student experiences will “remain the same” 1. Honors class sizes have already been increased by at least 33%. This vitiates the seminar format that was 🧵
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
I wrote about the civility mania sweeping elite college admissions for @nytopinion nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opi…
Katherine gets it—brilliant as always
“Intelligence Is Always Artificial” — my new essay is out now. 🚀 Per Hegel, intelligence necessarily denaturalizes. It is a *stepping outside of the self,* which AI in its immediacy and bounded algorithm can never do. Huge thanks to @apa_blog & @gbglax
Extremely important to recognize that Trump is the excuse, not the cause
The Division of the Arts & Humanities is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes, citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education.
Trump is a convenient excuse here, but the actual cause is that university trustees and administrators across the country have simply decided that the project of civilization is no longer worth the money
The Division of the Arts & Humanities is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes, citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education.
genuinely breaks my heart to see the administration destroy whatever’s left of the complit department
The Division of the Arts & Humanities is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes, citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education.
And the sound of crashing and crumbling to rubble comes nearer
The Division of the Arts & Humanities is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes, citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education.
I don’t think we AI shame nearly as much as we could or should.
University of Tulsa students have started a petition to save their Honors College and have asked me to share with my followers here. If you are inclined to support these students in their goal to recover what was lost, you can sign here: change.org/Protect_UTulsa…
The University of Texas will waste $325,000 of public money on a speechwriter for the President.
getting off this site for a while to finish up this book. If you see me back on here please bully me mercilessly. If I return in the next month I will do the Paul Pierce and walk to Ocean Beach in a bathrobe.
Tech free private schools and abstaining from tech will be a new class signifier like eating healthy and being in shape
As the university system collapses and millions succumb to tech-induced brain rot, the concept of the autodidact—a self-educated person who loves learning for its own sake—will become more important than ever. Read widely. Form study groups. Let the library be your college.
One reason I’m always hesitant to make any official complaints about anything in academia is that I’m worried someone will hear me and create a center.
Dealing with things the way only academia knows how: a new center.
A danger with these “centers for teaching and learning” is that they end up being counterproductive, encouraging any community that might develop within individual departments to migrate into a bureaucracy of limited usefulness. (1)
Is it possible for university teaching/learning support centers to be useful rather than primarily exist to produce "trainings" that faculty either don't actually need or, if they do need it, don't really use? Someone pls investigate.
Woke was used to shield corporate power. Anti-woke is now used to shield corporate power. Heads they win, tails workers and consumers lose.
Cool cool. We're now waving through anticompetitive mergers in exchange for ending commitments to hire minorities. So much winning!