AI Goes to College Newsletter
Helping higher education professionals understand and use generative AI ethically and effectively.
Too long; didn’t read version
AI Goes to College is a newsletter devoted to helping higher education professionals understand generative artificial intelligence (like ChatGPT) ethically and effectively. The newsletter also helps you keep up with the latest developments around generative AI and understand important issues related to how generative AI is affecting higher ed.
Generative AI and higher education
If you’re in higher education and haven’t learned about generative artificial intelligence (AI), you’re already playing catch-up.
As a professor and former administrator, I know how hard it can be to keep up with the never-ending barrage of promising information technology. Like you, I’ve seen my share of ed tech come and go, usually failing miserably to live up to its promise. Generative AI (GAI) is different. Trust me, although there will be missteps along the way, GAI will have significant impacts on higher ed, not just for students and faculty, but for professional staff as well. I’ve been in higher ed for a long time (30 years) and in technology for even longer. (I wrote my first program in 1976.) The changes brought on by GAI will be rivaled only by those from the Internet. Sure, there are lots of issues with GAI, but trust me on this: it may not live up to all of its hype, but it will transform higher education.
Because of the rapid pace of GAI development, it’s getting started is daunting as is trying to keep up. That’s why I started AI Goes to College … to help higher ed professionals (staff and faculty) learn how to use AI ethically and effectively, and how they can help students do the same.
In each edition of AI Goes to College, I’ll bring you tips on how to use GAI, update you on the latest news from the world of AI, and/or provide insights into important issues at the intersection of GAI and higher ed. The newsletter is free, although I will provide a way to show your support.
Who am I?
As I mentioned, I’ve been in higher ed for over 30 years. I’ve been a full-time professor since 1998, and taught part-time for almost a decade prior to that. Currently, I’m the McCallister Eminent Scholar in Information Systems at Louisiana Tech University. Before joining Tech, I was a professor and dean of the Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona. I’ve also been a department chair and associate dean at Saint Louis University and on the faculty at the University of Central Florida and Ohio University. I’ve published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, given more conference talks than I can count, and co-authored four information systems textbooks that have been used in over 20 countries. I also spent a decade in the engineering and technology industries before returning to school for my Ph.D. More recently, I’ve given multiple keynote talks on generative AI and published papers in the area. All of that is a long-winded way of saying I kind of know what I’m talking about.
Disclosure: This newsletter is not affiliated with my employer nor does Louisiana Tech University endorse the newsletter. In other words, this is a personal project.
What will you get out of subscribing to AI Goes to College?
The short answer is that you’ll stay up with the GAI game and along the way, learn how to use GAI ethically and effectively. (By the way, I use the words “ethically” and “effectively” a lot. I think it’s imperative to balance ethical and effective use of information technology, especially GAI.)
Here’s what you’ll get:
Useful tips, tricks, and techniques for using GAI: If you spend some time browsing YouTube looking for information on GAI, you might run across terms like “prompt engineering,” “API keys”, “retrieval augmented generation,” and lots of other scary sounding terms. These are all real things, and they can be useful, but using GAI doesn’t need to be hard. You can benefit tremendously from using GAI by just knowing a few basics and a handful of good practices. I’ve built a good life out of helping people learn complex technologies, so I can help you learn GAI.
GAI news: The pace of development around GAI is dizzying. There are new tools and models coming out daily. Keeping up with all of this quickly becomes overwhelming. I’ll sift through the news and events and give you updates on those that are most important to higher ed.
Higher ed issues: GAI is already having huge impacts on higher ed, and that reality isn’t going to change any time soon. I’m doing quite a bit of research related to humanistic aspects of AI, especially as it relates to ethics and the impact of GAI on the future of work. I’m spending a ton of time thinking about the intersection of GAI and higher ed; there’s a lot to figure out if GAI is going to live up to its promise without destroying higher ed. Periodically, I’ll offer my insights on some of these issues and tap into the thoughts of other experts through guest editorials or interviews.
To say I’ve gotten into GAI and its impacts on the world would be a considerable understatement … obsessed might be more descriptive. (It got so bad at one point I started calling our cat Taz, CatTAZ. Drove my poor wife crazy.) So, I devour a lot of newsletters and podcasts on GAI. Since I conduct research on GAI, I also stay up with many of the leading-edge research on GAI. For each issue of AI Goes to College I sift through what I’ve learned and boil the important parts down to their practical essence. You can benefit from my obsession by subscribing. (Trust me, it will save you a ton of time!)
What you need to do
Subscribing is easy. Just click on the big green “Subscribe now” button, fill out the form, and you’re in. The newsletter is free … seriously (although there will be a way to make donations to help offset the costs.) I’m not trying to sell you anything. My passion is helping others (yeah, I know how that sounds, but it’s absolutely true). AI Goes to College is a good way for me to leverage my efforts to help you and other higher ed professionals.
Bonus: Getting Started with Generative AI
As a token of my appreciation for subscribing, I’ll send you Getting Started with Generative AI: A Guide for Higher Ed Professionals. It’s a 40+ page guide that will help you or others get going with generative AI. The guide includes a set of practical exercises that will help you learn to use GAI in a low-stress, fun way. (The activities are easy to adapt to the classroom; I use some of them in my classes.) I also share the AI use policy I use in my classes. The entire guide is governed by a Creative Commons copyright, so you’re free to adapt it for your own use as long as you give attribution and don’t charge for it. I’ll even send you the Word file if you ask for it.
If you have any questions or thoughts you want to share, feel free to email me - craig@EthicalAIUse.com.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I really do hope you’ll subscribe. I promise you’ll find it worthwhile.
Thank you,
Craig Van Slyke, Ph.D.
craig@EthicalAIUse.com
P.S. - The AI Goes to College podcast
There’s a companion podcast for the AI Goes to College. It’s also called AI Goes to College and it’s available at aigoestocollege.com and on all major podcast apps. The newsletter and podcast will cover a lot of the same topics but with different levels of detail. The podcast may have a occasional hot take or two.