A Blog on McConnell Center Life

By Macy Waddle      I first picked up Jayber Crow two years ago, when my scholarship program began to explore the writings of environmentalist and poet Wendell Berry. The novel on its surface follows a man throughout his life in rural Kentucky, as he builds relationships and creates connections with his community and environment. As we dove deeper however, Berry’s perspective on place, fellowship, and nature began to mean something more. For Berry, community is deeply rooted in history, the history of those who made the place, and the physical history of the land itself. One must work to preserve both the abstract and physical history as well as cultivate a future where the local culture can continue to thrive. My study of Jayber Crow pushed me to explore other works of Berry’s, which led me to develop a connection with the place I’ve called home my entire life, and that has profoundly shaped the way I view the world, Kentucky.    “Without a complex knowledg...

By Dyllan Tipton Will we be the controllers of AI, or will AI control us? To put this into perspective, in 2010 we might have asked the same question about smartphones.  I recently read  The Anxious Generation  with my fellow McConnell Scholars, and it left a lasting impression. The book argues that childhood has shifted dramatically, moving from a world of play and imagination to one dominated by screens. This phone-based  upbringing has had profound and often devastating effects on children’s mental health and daily lives. As a society, we have largely failed to address the harmful consequences of social media and pervasive technology. Now, a new challenge emerges. Students  have unrestricted access to software that functions like a whole new brain, artificial intelligence. The question is no longer just how we manage technology, but how we guide the next generation in a world where AI becomes an extension of their minds.  In an August 2025 NBC news repor...

By Bradfield Ross “You’re more excited for this than you were to see the Pope!”      My mom told me this after I excitedly called her to tell her about Ringo Starr’s set at this year’s Bourbon and Beyond festival, and I don’t think her analysis was wrong.      It’s not that I don’t think it was very cool, it certainly was. The multiethnic, multilingual throng of strangers gathered for a purpose which they all felt to be beyond the political and social. Their collective experience of the spiritual realm was an interesting thing to witness. However, it was not a communion I was part of. The linguistic barrier was an element, as was my lack of Catholicism. The biggest separating factor was simply that I don’t think there is anything inherently special about the Pope. Pope is to me as meaningful a title as Professor, Senator, Doctor, or Your Honor. That is to say, I am impressed by the man and not the words a board said he could put before his name. The best of...

By Karmyn Jones For the past few months, I have avoided thinking about graduation. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can put off forever. I am required to consider my next steps, and part of that is preparing to graduate from the University of Louisville in May 2026. I still have one semester left, so while I know I need to think about it, I’m choosing to ignore the fact that I will soon be leaving this city behind. It shouldn’t be this hard; I’ve already done it once. When I first came to college, I left my parents, my five-year-old sister, my friends, and the town I grew up in. I think this time feels harder because I thought I would be going home afterward. Unfortunately, that’s not the path I’m on. The realization that I won’t return to what feels familiar makes the idea of leaving even more bittersweet and forces me to confront just how much this chapter of my life has meant to me. When I first came to Louisville, up until about six months ago, I said I hated living in the cit...

By Hannah Cease Dinosaurs on Skye       This summer, I found myself standing on the windswept coast of the Isle of Skye, staring at footprints left not by people, but by dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs and it has been a life goal of mine to see footprints like these in person my whole life, and here on the coast of the Isle of Skye, they stared back at me.      The Isle of Skye is unique in that it is one of the only places in Scotland where dinosaur fossils can be found, the truth is much of Scotland is far too old for dinosaur fossils. Scotland's geological history is incredibly ancient, in fact it is much older than the age of dinosaurs. Large parts of the Highlands are built from Precambrian and early Paleozoic rocks, formed hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs ever walked the earth. During the time when dinosaurs lived (roughly 230-66 million years ago), much of Scotland wasn't accumulating the kinds of sediments such mud, sand, and floodpla...

By Grant Avis A lady I know died this week. She was a parishioner at the church in which I, my mother, grandfather, and great-grandmother grew up. She was frequently one of the last to remain after mass ended, exchanging friendly words just outside or inside, depending on the season, of the doors to our little brick church with the other gray-haired stalwarts leaning on canes. She always had a compliment prepared, especially for us kids, and her words always seemed sincere. She was always smiling. My cousin, in her early thirties and with small children, posted on Facebook, the center of small town social interaction, a memorial to the deceased lady. My cousin noted her appreciation for the care and affection shown to her children by our church family. In reading this, I lamented that my kids would never know and feel the love from the old men and women of St. Elizabeth as I had. These people so important in my childhood formation would only be scratches on granite slabs in the cemeter...

By Honette Irakiza We recently had a seminar in the McConnell Center about a book called The Anxious Generation. Reading and discussing it really made me reflect on the current state of our generation and how we’ve allowed ourselves to become so deeply absorbed in the trivial rhythms of media and technology. In the book, Jonathan Haidt argues that the widespread use of smartphones and social media has reshaped childhood and adolescence, leading to alarming rises in anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles. His argument feels undeniably true when you look around at the habits of today’s youth, especially here in America. I’ve noticed it myself in how much harder it has become to hold meaningful conversations with my peers, and how rare it is to have truly deep, intellectual exchanges anymore.  This became especially clear to me this past summer when my family and I traveled to Rwanda, our motherland. It was my first time back since we moved when I was one year old, so ...

By Landon Williams      Since the founding of the United States of America, the issue of partisanship has been a concern on the minds of all its intellectual thinkers. Even before the official founding of the US, James Madison was expressing his concerns with factionism in Federalist No. 10 and how America was to combat its effects. In his farewell address, President George Washington, considered by many to be the greatest president, warned about the complications of fighting among groups within the political scene. Yet we have failed to heed their warnings and allowed our parties to drive us further and further apart as we hide away within our echo chambers. Just mentioning you’re a Republican or a Democrat can start arguments that develop into a range of arguments from heated dinner conversations to grudges that last for years. Tthe founding fathers did not intend this, as they wanted their new nation to stand together in the name of the people, but it is those very p...

By Emma White Katseye was my introductory foray into the world of K-pop and the K-pop training model, even though Katseye is not a K-pop group, but instead a global girl group under a K-pop label. I followed along with the Netflix docuseries Dream Academy religiously and even have all of the choreography for their dances memorized. It’s not uncommon to find me randomly breaking out into the “Gnarly” dance at the most inopportune times. While I love Katseye and all of its members, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the way that it was formed and the slightly sinister ethics involved.  Katseye was formed out of a desire to combine the broad appeal of western music with the rigorous training and performance style of K-pop. The American record label Geffen and the Korean record label Hybe came together to develop an intense training program and recruit trainees from across the world. This allowed them to draw upon a global appeal when forming the group. Today, Katseye is known as a m...

By Eileen Thacker For any new college student, the transition to college classes, schedules, and expectations is challenging. For me, one of the first of many questions I get from people I meet here is if this transition has been particularly difficult coming from a homeschool background. This usually comes along with questions of whether I liked being homeschooled (yes), whether I’ve ever had a social life before (also yes), and if I used to do homework in my pajamas all day (no, but that seems to be a popular choice for many here at UofL). I honestly find these types of questions rather amusing, it’s fun to mess with the stereotypes so many people have about homeschooling in their heads, but I’ve also found their questions to be thought-provoking. Has the transition to college been harder for me than most since I was a homeschooler? I don’t think so, in fact I think I’m stronger in many skills that college requires due to my unique education. However, there have been several college ...