Category: Wisdom
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I recently came across a Facebook post from my friend Chris Howard, former running back on the University of Michigan’s 1997 national championship team. It stopped me mid-scroll. In a few words, Chris wrote, “Nothing irritates your opponent more than when we support each other.” Simple. Sharp. True. In a digital world obsessed with conflict,…
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I still remember the first time I saw Dune. It was opening day in the 1980s, and my father took me to the Lansing Mall Theater. It is one of the few movie trips I can still picture clearly—the smell of popcorn, the glowing marquee lights, the hum of anticipation in the air. I remember standing…
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When I stepped down as provost, I knew it would come with uncertainty. The role had been a privilege, one that few faculty members ever experience. Most vice presidents, when they leave their posts, leave the university altogether. Their work ends when the office door closes. But provosts are different. We come from the faculty,…
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Recently, I had the honor of delivering the keynote at the Michigan College Access Network (MCAN) Conference in Lansing—and in many ways, it felt less like a speech and more like coming home. Not just to the state that shaped me, but to the very building where my own journey to college began. When I…
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Love and power aren’t opposites, they’ve just been misused. When we talk about power in America, we usually whisper. Power makes people uneasy. It sounds like control, manipulation, or corruption, something done to people rather than with them. Love, on the other hand, is treated like its antidote, soft, pure, and selfless. One belongs to…
Cloaking Inequity 