Drumm McNaughton: Welcome back to Changing Higher Ed, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions.

Today, I get the opportunity to welcome back David Marchick and Angela Virtu from American University in Washington, DC, at the Kogod School of Business. David is the dean at Kogod, while Angela teaches business analytics and AI.

In January 2024, David and a committee of faculty members launched an initiative to integrate AI at the business school. They established the initiative in six weeks and, within six months, had incorporated AI into all majors at Kogod, ensuring all graduates know how to use AI platforms and tools ethically. These new AI-integrated majors launched in fall 2024 and have been universally accepted by faculty, students, and external stakeholders, including being named one of the top ten schools to watch for two years running.

David and Angela join me today to talk about the changes that have happened, where they’re going next, and how institutions can implement similar changes.

David, Angela, welcome back to the program.

David Marchick: Thank you very much.

Drumm McNaughton: I’m looking forward to hearing what Kogod has been doing over the last year and a half since you were last guests. At that point, you were in the middle of an initiative to convert courses to be AI-focused. A lot has happened since then.

Before we get into it, please remind our listeners about your backgrounds.

Angela Virtu: Hi. I’m Angela Virtu. I’m a professor in the IT and analytics department here at Kogod and the Associate Director of our AI Institute. Before joining Kogod, I worked in industry as a data scientist for a variety of startups.

Drumm McNaughton: Wonderful.

David Marchick: I’m Dave Marchick, dean of the school. My job is to support people like Angela and be their cheerleader.

I’ve had three careers before higher education. I worked in government for both the Clinton and Biden administrations. I was a partner at Covington & Burling, one of the leading law firms in the world. Then I was one of the senior executives at The Carlyle Group, a major investment and private equity firm. I’m happy now to be doing mission-oriented work that supports young people.

Drumm McNaughton: Great. Thank you so much.

Drumm McNaughton: Tell us a little bit about Kogod and how you got started with the AI initiative.

David Marchick: This actually started at a café about a mile and a half away. When I first became dean, I was talking to a friend of mine, Karan Bhatia, one of the top executives at Google.

I told him, “I’m not a technical person. Angela actually knows what she’s doing. I don’t know much about AI, but it seems like it’s going to be big.”

This was before ChatGPT exploded.

Karan came to the school and spoke, and he also brought Kent Walker, president of Google. Kent said AI would be as profound as fire, electricity, and the Industrial Revolution.

I walked away thinking that even if that statement was only one-millionth true, AI was going to be a huge force, and we needed to do something.

David Marchick: I went to our faculty and said, “Let’s do something about this.”

They said, “We’ll form a committee.”

My eyes rolled back a little because I didn’t want a two-year committee producing a hundred-page report. I told them, “You have six weeks and five pages.”

They came back and recommended infusing AI into everything we do—every major, minor, department, and program. They also proposed retraining faculty and becoming AI-forward.

We did exactly that.

Angela has been one of the key catalysts. She trained faculty and helped drive the culture.

The first year, only a handful of faculty volunteered. The second year, about 30–40% bought in. By the third year, we reached a tipping point. Now about 90% of our faculty use AI in the classroom.

It’s revolutionized how we teach and how students learn.

Last year, we won an award for the best AI program in the country. The citation said we had undertaken the most consequential transformation in business education.

Drumm McNaughton: How did you navigate shared governance and faculty buy-in?

David Marchick: It was both a top-down and bottom-up strategy.

There was a post on X recently quoting a Wharton professor who said AI transformation isn’t about technology—it’s about culture.

The most important thing we did was change the culture.

Angela Virtu: Early momentum came from the top down. Dave energized everyone around this big vision.

But ultimately, this was a change-management effort.

In addition to training and socialization, we relied heavily on our undergraduate core curriculum coordinators. We have about 14 core classes and a lead faculty member for each one.

We worked closely with them to integrate AI into those courses. As more instructors became comfortable using AI in teaching and research, adoption spread throughout the institution.

It became a cultural shift.

Drumm McNaughton: Six weeks is almost unheard of in academia. Did you need carrots and sticks?

David Marchick: I come from the private sector, where we move fast.

When they suggested a committee, my eyes rolled. When I gave them six weeks, I’m sure theirs rolled too.

One thing I emphasized when interviewing for this role was understanding my strengths and weaknesses. I’m not an academic. I’ve never managed faculty.

So I surrounded myself with people who are excellent at the areas where I’m not.

We have a fantastic leadership team, including Parth Bhatt, Ayman Omar, Casey Evans, and Sarah Matty. They figured out how to make this work within our governance structure.

Now there’s so much innovation happening that we no longer count classes that use AI—we try to count the few that don’t.

That’s a pretty good problem to have.

Drumm McNaughton: Angela, what are the biggest changes you've seen?

Angela Virtu: Culture change is the biggest because without it we never could have achieved the other two.

The next major project is AI assessment.

We’ve integrated AI into all our classes, but now we need to answer important questions:

• Is it helping students?
• Is it hurting students?
• Can we quantify its impact?

The first layer is evaluating whether our use of AI benefits learning.

The second layer is using AI itself as a tool to help assess learning.

That’s still largely unexplored territory.

Traditional assessment relies on exams and projects.

We’re exploring whether AI can help evaluate student learning more effectively. It won’t replace professors, but it may help us better understand learning outcomes.

Drumm McNaughton: Tell me about the third big shift.

Angela Virtu: We’re challenging the traditional role of the educator.

Rather than being lecturers, professors are becoming coaches.

One of our faculty members, Tommy White, developed a course with no textbook and no assigned readings.

Instead, students use prompts to generate customized readings and videos. Everyone comes to class with different materials on the same topic, then discusses and challenges one another’s ideas.

In another entrepreneurship course, students use AI to refine business ideas and build businesses from scratch.

David Marchick: We’re also seeing non-business students become surprisingly technical.

Professor Kelly Frias teaches a marketing and advertising course. Traditionally, that class isn’t quantitative.

Yet her students use AI to build applications, create social media campaigns, and measure performance.

Many of these students would never have taken a coding class. By the end, they’re building software.

Instead of submitting a marketing plan, students built actual software tools for a small business client.

The company sold apparel through student ambassadors at colleges nationwide.

Students developed tools to help ambassadors create content and dashboards to track campaign performance.

The client expected a report.

Instead, she received working software.

David Marchick: We’re combining three things:

1. Fundamental business knowledge
2. AI fluency and curiosity
3. Power skills

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, told us the most important thing isn’t which AI tool students use. It’s developing the confidence to experiment and adapt because the tools will keep changing.

We’ve also doubled down on communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and adaptability.

Those are lifelong skills.

Angela Virtu: We’ve redesigned our undergraduate curriculum around progressive AI learning.

Year One: AI literacy and foundational business skills.

Year Two: Domain-specific AI applications in accounting, finance, marketing, and more.

Years Three and Four: Major-specific deep dives.

Senior Capstone: Students combine business knowledge, communication skills, and AI into one large project.

We’ve also launched an AI minor so students across the university can gain AI skills.

David Marchick: One thing we emphasize from day one is what’s wrong with AI before we teach what’s right with AI.

AI is a collaborator, assistant, and eventually an agent.

But humans must remain in the loop.

AI is a tool, not a substitute.

Drumm McNaughton: What results have you seen?

David Marchick: Undergraduate enrollment is up 40% over three years.

Applications are up 50%.

AI is what students and families ask about most.

Graduate enrollment remains challenging nationwide because of factors like visa restrictions, but AI has helped us perform better than we otherwise would.

Angela Virtu: Students now have much more ownership over learning.

Knowledge memorization isn’t the goal anymore.

The challenge is learning how to evaluate information, ask better questions, and think critically.

That’s both empowering and intimidating.

David Marchick: We’ve received tremendous media coverage, including features in:

• The Wall Street Journal
• Bloomberg Businessweek
• Financial Times
• Washington Business Journal

We’ve recruited six AI-focused faculty members.

Our scholars are more productive because they use AI in research.

Most importantly, there’s a sense of energy and enthusiasm throughout the school.

People are experimenting.

If something doesn’t work, they pivot and try again.

David Marchick: We’re focused on several initiatives:

• Expanding AI education to non-business students
• Improving AI assessment and learning outcomes
• Partnering with technology companies
• Integrating domain-specific AI tools into coursework

We’re also exploring the idea of students graduating with portfolios of AI applications they’ve built.

Imagine a business student being able to show employers five working applications they created.

That demonstrates creativity, problem-solving, and initiative.

Drumm McNaughton: What should presidents and boards know?

David Marchick: Culture, training, technology.

Angela Virtu: And if you tried AI two years ago and weren’t impressed, try it again.

The pace of improvement has been extraordinary.

The tools available today are dramatically better than those available even six months ago.

David Marchick: We remain focused on AI, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and our new sports management program.

Most importantly, we’re focused on helping students succeed.

That’s what motivates us every day.

Drumm McNaughton: David, Angela, thank you so much for joining me.

David Marchick: Thank you for having us.

Drumm McNaughton: Thanks for listening today, and a special thank-you to my guests, David Marchick and Angela Virtu. I look forward to continuing this conversation in the future and seeing where AI takes Kogod next.