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.
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.
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.
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.