2026 Summer Faculty Institute on AI

Morning Schedule

7:30-8:30 A.M.  Breakfast at Founders Table 

7:30-8:30 Coffee and Registration outside the Ballrooms

8:30-9:30 OPENING PLENARY SESSION IN BALLROOM B 

Report from Team Members of the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, & the Curriculum:

Betsy Burow-Flak (English), Ed Finn (College of Arts & Sciences, MOL), Teresa Augustine (Library), Julie Brandy (CONHP), Jamie Stangel (COB)

This session will provide an overview of the work done by the AAC&U team, including lessons learned, next steps, and how grant and collaborative opportunities emerged. The group welcomes your questions and hopes to have a lively discussion.

9:30-11:00  KEYNOTE ADDRESS IN BALLROOM B

“Embracing AI as Essential Learning: Preparing Students for Life Beyond College”

C. Edward Watson

11:00-11:15 Break

11:15-12:00  BREAKOUT SESSION #1: various locations

Socratic Questioning with AI: Using Papyrus for the Writing Process 

Betsy Burow-Flak (English) 

Papyrus, a Socratic “walled garden” AI for writers developed at the University of California–Irvine, offers assistance for all stages of the writing process. In this session, we will look at Papyrus transcripts from WIC and first-year writing classes. In particular, we will look at what the general revision chatbot calls  “grows” and “glows” and students’ responses to them, as well as Papyrus feedback on faculty scholarship. We will discuss best practices on using Papyrus to support writing without offloading cognitive work or the generation of drafts. Papyrus is freely available to university and k-12 educators and students.

The AI-Enhanced Teaching Toolkit 

Jessica Bruskoski (CONHP) 

My fellowship project focuses on how AI can help faculty create more engaging learning experiences while reducing the time required to develop educational materials. In clinical medicine, students are often expected to learn dozens of diagnoses in only a handful of class sessions, so I am exploring how AI can help shift learning from memorizing lecture content to repeated application and clinical reasoning activities that better prepare students for practice.

How Students use AI/How Faculty use AI 

Jamie Stangel (College of Business), Ed Finn (College of Arts & Sciences, MOL)  

This session will walk through the findings from student and faculty surveys and focus groups conducted as part of the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. We will focus on student and faculty use, specifically similarities, differences, and perceptions, while engaging attendees in discussions related to their own thoughts about acceptable use of AI in the classroom.

The Energy Implications of AI

Luke Venstrom  & Pete Johnson (Mechanical Eng. & Bioengineering)

This session looks behind the AI prompt box at the resource requirements of the physical infrastructure on which Large Language Models (LLMs) run. The relationship between AI data centers and the global energy transition is complex; this session invites participants to unpack this complexity.  Together, we will critically examine two competing narratives: the evidence that AI’s electricity demands could become a major climate boondoggle, versus the perspective that these data centers could be leveraged as vital assets for building a more sustainable grid.

The AI-Proficient Graduate: Preparing Students for AI in the Workplace

Brett Calland (College of Business)

As employers work to leverage AI, we can prepare students for evolving workplace expectations while protecting the learning process. We need to prevent students’ passive shortcutting by implementing scaffolded assignments within a flipped classroom model, ensuring that students master foundational learning processes before using AI. This intentional structure dedicates valuable in-class time to human-centered critical thinking, teaching students how to evaluate AI as a collaborative tool. Ultimately, this approach seeks to bridge the gap between academic learning and the working AI literacy employers are seeking.

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Afternoon Schedule

12:00-1:00 Lunch at Founders Table

1:00-1:45  PLENARY SESSION IN BALLROOM B

How AI Impacts Teaching & Learning Technologies 

Ed Finn (College of Arts & Sciences, MOL), Raina Isaacs (CITAL), Jessica Wilson (IT), Erik Kispert (IT) 

The relationship between CITAL and IT is crucial with the rise of AI. In this panel session, we will talk about the unique and shared challenges that AI represents from a technical and user implementation perspective. Representatives from the CITAL and IT teams will share experiences related to different AI implementations and engage attendees in a Q&A discussion about how our groups can best support faculty and students.

1:45-2:00 Break

2:00-2:45 BREAKOUT SESSION #2: various locations 

AI Exploratorium

Melissa Desjarlais ( Mathematics and Computer Science) 

This Faculty Learning Community was for faculty who are curious about the use of AI and ways to help students use it appropriately in the classroom. They engaged with Flower Darby’s “Small Teaching with AI” and other resources that demonstrate how various fields are using AI. They also learned about different ways that AI might be utilized in and out of the classroom, including generating paper prompts, completing data analysis, and AI as a brainstorming tool.

What Our Students Think about AI

Student Panelists

Valpo’s summer research students have graciously agreed to form a panel to give us an idea about how our students view AI. They will voice both their concerns about the technology and also their hopes for how it might positively affect their academic and future work. They will also share how they and their classmates are currently using AI, and in what ways their faculty are choosing or not choosing to incorporate AI in their classes.

Socratic Questioning with AI: Using Papyrus for the Writing Process 

Betsy Burow-Flak (English) 

Papyrus, a Socratic “walled garden” AI for writers developed at the University of California–Irvine, offers assistance for all stages of the writing process. In this session, we will look at Papyrus transcripts from WIC and first-year writing classes. In particular, we will look at what the general revision chatbot calls  “grows” and “glows” and students’ responses to them, as well as Papyrus feedback on faculty scholarship. We will discuss best practices on using Papyrus to support writing without offloading cognitive work or the generation of drafts. Papyrus is freely available to university and k-12 educators and students.

The AI-Enhanced Teaching Toolkit 

Jessica Bruskoski (CONHP) 

My fellowship project focuses on how AI can help faculty create more engaging learning experiences while reducing the time required to develop educational materials. In clinical medicine, students are often expected to learn dozens of diagnoses in only a handful of class sessions, so I am exploring how AI can help shift learning from memorizing lecture content to repeated application and clinical reasoning activities that better prepare students for practice.

How Students use AI/How Faculty use AI 

Jamie Stangel (College of Business), Ed Finn (College of Arts & Sciences, MOL) 

This session will walk through the findings from student and faculty surveys and focus groups conducted as part of the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. We will focus on student and faculty use, specifically similarities, differences, and perceptions, while engaging attendees in discussions related to their own thoughts about acceptable use of AI in the classroom.

2:45-3:15 Snack Break in Ballroom B

3:15-4:00 BREAKOUT SESSION #3: various locations

Author Talk Session with C. Edward Watson 

The Energy Implications of AI

Luke Venstrom & Pete Johnson  (Mechanical Eng. & Bioengineering)

This session looks behind the AI prompt box at the resource requirements of the physical infrastructure on which Large Language Models (LLMs) run. The relationship between AI data centers and the global energy transition is complex; this session invites participants to unpack this complexity.  Together, we will critically examine two competing narratives: the evidence that AI’s electricity demands could become a major climate boondoggle, versus the perspective that these data centers could be leveraged as vital assets for building a more sustainable grid.

The AI-Proficient Graduate: Preparing Students for AI in the Workplace

Brett Calland  (College of Business)

As employers work to leverage AI, we can prepare students for evolving workplace expectations while protecting the learning process. We need to prevent students’ passive shortcutting by implementing scaffolded assignments within a flipped classroom model, ensuring that students master foundational learning processes before using AI. This intentional structure dedicates valuable in-class time to human-centered critical thinking, teaching students how to evaluate AI as a collaborative tool. Ultimately, this approach seeks to bridge the gap between academic learning and the working AI literacy employers are seeking.

AI Exploratorium

Melissa Desjarlais ( Mathematics and Computer Science)

This Faculty Learning Community was for faculty who are curious about the use of AI and ways to help students use it appropriately in the classroom. They engaged with Flower Darby’s “Small Teaching with AI” and other resources that demonstrate how various fields are using AI. They also learned about different ways that AI might be utilized in and out of the classroom, including generating paper prompts, completing data analysis, and AI as a brainstorming tool.

What Our Students Think about AI

Student Panelists

Valpo’s summer research students have graciously agreed to form a panel to give us an idea about how our students view AI. They will voice both their concerns about the technology and also their hopes for how it might positively affect their academic and future work. They will also share how they and their classmates are currently using AI, and in what ways their faculty are choosing or not choosing to incorporate AI in their classes.