Since the Kogod School of Business announced its commitment to incorporate artificial intelligence into its programs earlier this year, faculty and staff alike have been learning how AI can have a place in their work. Between training sessions, educational conferences, and the development of further resources, community members have jumped at the opportunity to learn how to use a wide array of AI tools and how to pass that knowledge along to the students they work with.
As the fall semester approaches, we caught up with Angela Virtu, an information technology professor and Kogod’s AI Instructor Faculty Fellow, to learn more about the current training sessions available to Kogod faculty and staff and why Kogod has prioritized a better understanding of artificial intelligence capabilities.
Kogod: Could you discuss your role and responsibilities in assembling the AI training sessions?
Angela Virtu: As Kogod’s AI Instructor Faculty Fellow, my primary role involves designing and coordinating AI training sessions tailored to faculty and staff. The goal of these sessions is to empower faculty and staff with a holistic understanding of responsible AI and how to implement AI solutions in their classrooms, research, or offices.
My responsibilities include identifying key learning objectives, advising curriculum content, and ensuring that the material is relevant and accessible. I collaborate closely with industry-focused subject matter experts to create a robust program. Additionally, I handle logistical planning, such as scheduling sessions, organizing resources, and managing participant feedback to continuously improve the training experience.
What topics are covered in these sessions, and how are those topics selected?
The training covers three main topics. First, there’s industry applications, where we bring in industry leaders from across sectors to discuss how they build AI solutions within their company workflows. Then, we have hands-on AI exercises, where we test the limits of AI tools. Finally, we cover the responsible use of AI—the big, tough questions we face in society today in terms of data privacy, ethics, and copyright, as well as how we see AI fitting in our instructional design and our workflows.
So far, we’ve covered topics like the introduction to AI and its applications, natural language processing, generative AI tooling, prompt engineering, ethical considerations, AI in business and decision-making, data privacy, and security. These topics are selected to broaden our horizons regarding how AI is used and build a community of continuous learning and idea-sharing. We select topics based on the institution’s current needs, feedback from previous sessions, emerging AI trends in academic and professional communities, and specific interests expressed by faculty and staff. This ensures that our training remains relevant and valuable.
With AI capabilities emerging and evolving rapidly, how do you decide which topics to cover and what is most crucial for faculty and staff to know?
A big misconception about AI is that you need to be technical to be successful and that you need to stay up to date with all the new AI products, models, and features. In reality, it’s the complete opposite; you don’t need technical chops to use generative AI effectively.
Because of this, we prioritize foundational AI knowledge and its business applications over specific tool features, as the core principles of AI remain stable despite its rapid technological advancements.
The tools are changing, and the underlying models are constantly being updated. However, our faculty and staff will be prepared to navigate the evolving AI landscape by having a solid grounding in AI principles, especially through a lens of responsible AI use.”
Angela Virtu
Professor of Information Technology and Analytics, Kogod School of Business
How are panelists selected for these training sessions?
Panelists are selected based on their expertise and experience in AI. We look for individuals with practical experience and the ability to communicate complex concepts effectively. So far, panelists have included internal faculty members specializing in AI, external experts from various industries, and alums who are thought leaders in this domain. The selection process aligns panelists’ areas of expertise with the specific focus of each session, which ensures relevant and insightful discussions.
Is there anything you’ve learned from Kogod’s AI training so far that you didn’t know or found particularly interesting?
One of the most fascinating aspects I’ve learned is the remarkable speed at which industries adapt to generative AI solutions. Witnessing the rapid integration of generative AI into various workflows has been particularly eye-opening.
Building meaningful, value-added AI solutions is a complex task. It requires gathering comprehensive data, rigorously testing the solutions, and implementing robust safety measures to ensure reliability and security. The fact that we’ve seen companies adapt to AI-enhanced workflows in such a short time is incredible. Throughout the training, we’ve observed how organizations apply AI solutions to their workflows. For instance, consulting companies leverage generative AI to write contracts and match key personnel to project proposals. Generative AI can extract key financial data from massive reports and pitch decks in hours rather than days. Additionally, marketing content has become more accessible with generative AI that facilitates translation, adds closed-captioning, and includes content warnings.
The most encouraging and perhaps most important aspect is that all these solutions are centered around human-centric design. This focus ensures that AI developments are technically advanced, user-friendly, and beneficial to end users.”
Angela Virtu
Professor of Information Technology and Analytics, Kogod School of Business
Seeing how AI is continuously adopted in the workplace will be an area that we continue to monitor to find ways to learn and apply it in an educational setting.
In your view, why must Kogod faculty and staff understand AI tools for their work here?
AI is disrupting the traditional workforce. According to a PWC survey, 54 percent of companies have already implemented a generative AI solution in their businesses. The future jobs and internships that our students will compete for will come with the expectation of knowing how to use AI. To have AI-competent graduates ready for those expectations, we need AI-savvy faculty and staff who understand the nuances and applications of the technology.
What are you most looking forward to about integrating AI tools into Kogod’s work?
There are two things: one specific to faculty and the student perspective and one applicable to everyone.
From the faculty perspective, generative AI has the power to disrupt traditional educational pedagogy completely. It can significantly increase accessibility for student learning and create AI-driven personalized learning experiences. For example, course content can be transformed from video to audio to text, catering to whichever format best suits students’ needs. AI can help us identify and reinforce areas that need improvement, explain complex topics at varying levels of simplicity, and instantaneously generate exemplars. By leveraging these tools, we can emphasize the human side of AI, use it to help us become better communicators, and refine how we pitch and sell our ideas to one another.
From a staff perspective, I’m excited about more efficient administrative workflows. Staff members do extensive reporting, for example, and for some tasks, they may need to create two separate reports with unique structures but nearly identical content. Generative AI can significantly augment functions like that.
Besides the training sessions, what resources do you recommend to Kogod staff and faculty interested in deepening their understanding of AI?
There’s tons of really excellent AI content available. My biggest recommendation is to find thought leaders in their respective industries who are leveraging AI in their work and to keep an eye on their social media and newsletters. That’s one of the best ways to see how AI is evaluated in those disciplines.
Some of my favorite resources at the moment are Allie K. Miller’s AI with Allie newsletter, Casey Fiesler’s AI Ethics and News Roundup, and Ethan Mollick’s website More Useful Things, which contains prompt libraries and other resources for using AI in the classroom and beyond.
Here at Kogod, we’ve also been working on compiling internal documents to share resources we find particularly interesting and helpful while also building a Kogod-specific prompt library with examples of how other staff and faculty have been using AI. By sharing this information, we can see how others use AI and spark new creative ideas on AI implementation.
Is there anything else you’d like to add as the Kogod community learns more about using artificial intelligence?
It’s vital to foster a culture of continuous learning and curiosity around AI. Get your hands on the tools. Start small. Spend five minutes each day trying out a generative AI tool. Replace one Google search with it to explore and test its boundaries in a low-stakes way. Our understanding and application of AI technology should evolve as it evolves.
Encouraging ongoing education, experimentation, and collaboration among faculty and staff will keep Kogod at the forefront of innovation."
Angela Virtu
Professor of Information Technology and Analytics, Kogod School of Business
Moreover, promoting ethical AI practices is essential to align our use of AI with institutional values and societal responsibilities. It’s important to remember that it’s okay not to know everything. Continuous learning and community engagement are key because, collectively, we will figure it out.
Learn more about Kogod’s commitment to an education in artificial intelligence here.
