Kylee Sanders
Junior Editor
On certain late nights, a group of people known as the Sewanee Night Owls will meet at the McGriff Alumni House to discuss an interesting philosophical topic. Sometimes they’re even controversial. The Sewanee Night Owls was created by Dr. Mark Hopwood, an associate professor of philosophy here at the University, who got the idea from a professor at the University of Chicago. Currently, as far as Hopwood knows, Sewanee and the University of Chicago are the only universities to have an event like this.
The main point of the Night Owls event is to create a safe space for informal conversations about whatever topic they may be discussing. On Thursday night, November 16, the Night Owls asked the question, “Is AI Making Your Degree Useless?” and then proceeded to answer it with their own opinions. Two other professors were guest speakers that night: Dr. Stephanie Batkie, an associate professor of English, and Dr. Sid Simpson, an associate professor of politics. Simpson has spoken at multiple Night Owl events, but it was Batkie’s first time being a guest, which earned her the Night Owl pin. Hopwood gives every person who comes on as a guest at Night Owls a pin and every student who has declared philosophy as their major.
Now, Night Owls is not just for philosophy majors or students who have experience in philosophy, it is for all students interested in partaking in conversation, or even students interested in just listening. Doing either one makes the event fun, especially since they serve coffee, hot chocolate, and different pastries to all who come!
When the conversation began this particular night, a lot of different opinions on AI were shared. Some were pessimistic and said that AI is making degrees worthless, and jobs will soon disappear as they get replaced by AI. Others were more optimistic, saying that AI can be used as a tool instead. One person even shared that they use AI to sort all emails from important to non-important to cut down the time of scrolling through their long list of emails to find the important ones to answer. There were even people on the fence about AI, believing that AI does hurt degrees in a certain sense, but can be helpful as well. All these opinions were met with a variety of answers from Hopwood, Batkie, and Simpson, but also questions for the audience to ponder and answer.
The back and forth of questions and answers can lead to the conversation lasting a long time, which is the purpose of Night Owls. On all their invitations and flyers, the time is given as “8 p.m. – late.” This is intentional, Hopwood explained at the beginning of the event. They will talk and talk with people until they no longer feel like it and need to retire for the night. Of course, this means the later it gets, the smaller the crowd does. Hopwood said that when the crowd becomes small, they will ask for people from the back to move forward, creating an “intimate conversation.”
If all of this sounds appealing to you, be on the lookout for the next Night Owls event!