Imran Mouna
All right, hello everyone. Welcome back to Visions for the Future of Higher Ed. Today, I am joined by our first guest as part of our mini series on American University, Angela Virtu. Thanks so much for being here today, Angela. Looking forward to having this conversation with you.
Angela Virtu
Thank you for having me.
Imran Mouna
Now I'm going to give a quick introduction here, and I know I'll have to keep it brief for the time today, but you have a ton of really interesting experience to share. I'm really looking forward to the conversation today. Folks, Angela is a professorial lecturer at American University in the Kogod School of Business, teaching AI data analytics and machine learning. But prior to that role, Angela actually had a major role as an AI and ML engineer for multiple pre IPO SaaS companies, which is really interesting coming from the line of work I'm in. So I have a ton of questions for you on that front. I'm not sure we'll get to them in this episode, but I have a feeling we're going to be asking you to come back for a second one, Angela. But in that line of work, Angela was responsible for driving millions of dollars in revenue, improving customer retention, and flagging over $1.5 billion in potential fraud. So with that experience, today she's focusing on the practical and ethical implementation of AI into world business operations and primarily doing that in a higher education setting. With that incredible background, Angela, I'm curious, how did you decide to pursue a career in higher ed, and what is the story behind how you ended up in the role you're in today?
Angela Virtu
Yeah, so thanks for the great background on me. You definitely did the research. That's to your point. I had a whole career in the DC area, where I was just going like sort of to start up and kind of propping up lot of their AI and machine learning functionalities and operations. And then around the time COVID hit, I actually started adjuncting for American University like on the side. One of my old professors was kind of just like, hey, any chance you'd want to adjunct for us, because I've been plugged into the community for a few years doing some TA, or just like kind of staying connected to the classroom in our predictive analytics class. And I'm like, well, I'm stuck in my apartment, I might as well like do a little something else. And so that kind of got me the jumpstart into AU again, started adjuncting and I just kind of fell in love with the mentorship and helping students, particularly in a business school, learn some of these like more technical side of the house and have them kind of go from being like, I don't know if I really want to do this to absolutely like loving it or realizing it's not exactly as it seems or it's not as hard as it seems. So that kind of gave me the jump in, and then I just kind of kept saying yes from there. My role kept growing and growing and growing, and about two years ago, I finally made the jump to come full-time to academia.
Imran Mouna
Okay, you know what's funny is I'm starting to notice a trend for busy, ambitious people that it's, it's the busiest people who will end up saying, yeah, I've got time for that extra little thing. And then it ends up taking them down an entirely different path. So it's always impressive, but I'm not entirely surprised, kind of having read a bit about your background, Angela, that you took on that extra work and role and that it's, it's led to something new and interesting for you, but also for the students. I always find it some lucky.
Angela Virtu
Thank you
Imran Mouna
When students get to learn from someone who has the kind of industry experience you do and has seen this in action in an entirely different setting than they might be used to, so, you know, I hope your students recognize that, and if they're watching this, I'm sure they do. So the first question I like to ask is really about what is giving you hope in higher education right now? It's a tricky time for this field, but there are so many interesting initiatives and projects that I've heard people working on. And a big thank you to Mattie Sheriff from the Belfort Group, who helped organize this, who actually told me a lot about the work that American University is doing on implementing AI and how fast you've moved to try and bring some new solutions into the school. So with that sort of broad question in mind, what's giving you hope? Do you want to touch on a little bit of the work that you've done with the team at American University, or share any other stories that would be worth letting people know about, that there are exciting and interesting things happening in this space right now?
Angela Virtu
Of course, I think to answer that first question in like a broader sense, think the thing that's most exciting to me, especially from like my startup background, is that we're at this point where everything's gonna change. And I think higher education is really finally starting to get to that point of acceptance of saying, hey, the way that we've been doing this for however many years is starting to fall apart. And we really need to reevaluate what we expect our students to learn. And I wanna say that Kogod's kind of been more at the forefront of this because we've been starting this work for a year and a half now. So we have a little bit of a lead there, and I can talk about what exactly that looks like in a minute. But now we're having all the other schools, big public institutions, small private liberal arts schools, like any type of school, they're kind of coming to us now and saying, hey, how have you done this? Where are you thinking about this? And I think that next step is really reflecting on some learning outcomes, right? How does our traditional assessment of students change in this age of AI, and what learning outcomes do we now need to reflect those AI literacy skills that we're building on, right? And so we're at that inflection point. And I think, you know, there's a lot of good momentum there to get those answers. Finally, a little bit more about what we've been doing at Kogod for the past year and a half, we've been really, really heads down, dedicated, and kind of revamping our entire curriculum. This past fall, we had our first AI-infused curriculum, where we had 20 classes split between what we'd call AI artists and an AI sage. That way, every single student, regardless of their major or their minor, would leave our school having some AI literacy skills. Our AI artists in classes are those that are a little bit less technical, more like ethical reasoning, ethical thinking. How do we think about the use of AI in business entertainment, right? In music or in law or things of those natures? More case studies, right? And then our AI Sage courses are those that are a little bit more technical, where you can be using it for finance. You can be using it to build like those machine learning models and actually kind of like get your hands in on some of the more technical side, more applicable side of the house as well. Since then, we just wrapped up our academic year. We've actually increased that number from 20 classes to 58. And each one of those courses have an AI learning outcome kind of attached to them as we think about more programmatically what we want that to look like. So we've kind of just hit the ground running. Definitely a little trial and error, seeing what works, what doesn't work. And then the other thing that's been super helpful is we'll have this monthly AI Friday call with all of our faculty and staff, where we can kind of just have a small space to kind of sit down together in a more casual setting and just talk about what's working. Right, because I think in this age of AI and trying to embed all the generative AI technology or tools into the classroom with the students, it's like, sometimes our activities will hit, and sometimes they won't. And knowing both sides of that has been super helpful in just getting us to go a little further.
Imran Mouna
That is super insightful, Angela. Thanks for giving such a comprehensive overview for that question, because it's a big question. So I really appreciate it. And I can see why other institutions would come to Kogod and to American University for advice on how to approach this, because it can feel overwhelming. And that's the sentiment I get from many of the leaders I've spoken to. But I think small, tangible things like that Friday meeting can make a huge difference because I was speaking to a colleague I have that's been in higher education for 40 years, and I was talking about something like Notebook LM. And when they saw the potential of even a tool like that, they said, you know, I wouldn't have even thought something like this is possible. So it's not that I would even be resistive to this idea. It wouldn't have even crossed my mind. So I think having those types of open conversations, people just become aware of what's possible. It makes this so much more approachable. So I think that's a really tangible solution for those of you watching this, looking for, again, tangible takeaways. That's an amazing point there, Angela. And I think the idea of reevaluating assessment is something I'm hearing a lot about. So that's exciting as well. And I think the attitude of trial and error is essential right now. So that's a tough one to embrace, I know, for institutions, but I think it's critical right now because it's the only way to see what works and what doesn't, like you're saying. One thing I'm curious about, and I know other institutions and leaders will be as well, is did you face any opposition, resistance from faculty, from staff, understandable resistance and hesitation just because of how new and how quickly things are changing, but did you face any opposition that way, and do you have any advice on how to potentially overcome some of the initial concerns with this type of rapid change.
Angela Virtu
Yeah, I mean, with any big change, you're always going to see a little bit of resistance. But I also would like to give us a little bit of advice for everybody listening there is that when you think about adopting AI, regardless of if you're a business or if you're a higher education institution, it's much more of a cultural shift and a cultural change that you have to institute than a technological one. Right? When you think about these generative AI solutions or ChatGPT, literally, there's no real skill in it other than talking to it like a human. But there's this thing in our brain that says, hey, this computer isn't a human. And so there's like this weird perception shift of how we want to use it. But at the end of the day, it's can you type a sentence, can you say a sentence, and you'll get some kind of output. Obviously, there's more layers to it from the tech side of it. But if you're just using it at the high level, that's all it is. But the harder shift is getting people to buy into the technology, really kind of reevaluate how they've been doing things for the past 30, 40 plus years, and getting them to kind of start thinking about this new technology in a way that is gonna disrupt everything. So I'll give a little bit of our approach, some of the resistance we initially faced. So I will say that we were blessed in having Dean Dave Marchek be very, very bullish on this. And I would say he's been an outstanding leader, where he's really kind of come from the top down, saying, hey, here's our goal with AI. This is where we want to be. Let's start figuring out how to do it. Right. And when you have a conversation with him, I'm sure he can talk a little bit more about what exactly that looks like. But so we had support from the top. Right. And I want to say that support from the top has been super, super essential. And then at the same time, from the bottom, we always had a handful of professors who, like, regardless of if, you know,
Imran Mouna
He is next.
Angela Virtu
We can use AI or not, we're going to experiment and use it anyway. So what we've kind of done to kind of pull that missing middle, or like the 50 % of our faculty who are inquisitive might kind of want to dabble with it, but don't really know where to get started, or want to like wait to get the technology a little bit better before they want to jump in. We had this AI Friday meetings where it can be kind of casual, but we also invested a lot into having outside industry experts kind of come to our campus to really showcase how they in finance or marketing or I don't know, insert any domain, how they're technically and actually using it and get the demo of how AI has completely changed their role over the past year. And so in this past, I guess a year ago, spring, we had one of our alums come onto our campus who's in investment finance. And she did the ultimate karate kid moment, right? Where she was teaching her old finance professors, here's how we're using all these generative AI tools. And when I tell you that the finance professors, like their jaws were on the floor. Like they couldn't believe how much that the finance, like the investment finance, has been like integrating AI, and so I think that wake-up call of bringing the like. You know, experts of these are the careers that our students are going to be going into, and here's the skills that they're going to need. This was really this wake-up call, and each of those domains of like really reflecting and evaluating like what this now needs to look like in their curriculum. The other piece to that that we've done is we've also just done a lot of conversation and culture building around curriculum. What does it look like? What doesn't it look like getting people in a room? And that's been super helpful with those AI Friday conversations of like, let's just talk about it. And I think that cultural shift is really how we've gone from a small few classes to a much, much larger portion of all.
Imran Mouna
Yeah, that’s so interesting because I think that’s where a lot of the momentum in higher ed right now is — not just introducing AI as a separate thing, but actually integrating it into courses in ways that feel natural and discipline-specific. It sounds like your AI artists vs. AI sages approach is a clever way to do that without overwhelming students who might not see themselves as “tech people.”
Angela Virtu
Exactly. And honestly, I think that’s what’s helped with faculty buy-in, too. Because for some professors, the thought of “now I have to teach AI” was terrifying. But when you frame it as “you’re already teaching your core subject — we just want to weave AI literacy into that,” they realize it’s not about becoming a computer scientist overnight. It’s about making sure students can think critically about AI in their own fields.
Imran Mouna
And that’s huge. I also really like the “AI Friday” idea. That sounds like a fun tradition — and a practical way to share what’s working without turning it into another formal meeting.
Angela Virtu
Yeah, it’s been a game-changer. Sometimes it’s just a casual “here’s something cool I tried with ChatGPT this week,” and other times it’s more like “okay, this activity completely flopped — here’s why.” And both are equally valuable because we’re all learning together.
Imran Mouna
Absolutely. So looking ahead, what’s next for you and for the AI initiatives at Kogod?
Angela Virtu
We’re looking to deepen the integration. Right now, we’ve ensured exposure for all students — the next step is to make AI skills a real differentiator for our graduates. That means developing more advanced electives, creating opportunities for cross-disciplinary AI projects, and building partnerships with industry so students can work on real-world AI problems before they graduate. We also want to publish more about our approach so other schools can learn from our successes and mistakes.
Imran Mouna
I love that. It’s such a generous and collaborative way to think about it — higher ed can be competitive, but the AI space moves so quickly that sharing knowledge feels essential.
Angela Virtu
Exactly. If we’re all reinventing the wheel in isolation, we’re going to fall behind as a sector. But if we share openly, we can keep up with the pace of change and make sure students are prepared for the world they’re walking into.
Imran Mouna
Well, Angela, I could easily talk to you for another hour, but I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insight today — I think it’s going to spark a lot of ideas for our listeners.
Angela Virtu
Thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Imran Mouna
And to everyone watching or listening, stay tuned for more conversations in our Visions for the Future of Higher Ed series.