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AI Initiatives
Artificial intelligence is prompting important conversations about how we work, learn, create, and understand the world around us. At Â鶹Æƽâ°æ, faculty, staff, and students are exploring the possibilities, questions, and concerns AI presents across the university and beyond.
This page brings together information about Â鶹Æƽâ°æ’s evolving work related to artificial intelligence, including university initiatives and policies, the AI Innovation and Policy Council and its working groups, campus resources, and opportunities for conversation and learning. We invite you to explore these materials, consider the questions AI raises for your work and discipline, and participate in conversations about its place in our community.
AI Fridays: Insights on AI Across the Disciplines
Join us on Fridays as we welcome distinguished scholars and leaders from outside Â鶹Æƽâ°æ to campus for lively conversations about the questions, possibilities, and concerns surrounding artificial intelligence in their fields, professions, and institutions. Each event will feature a public presentation followed by an informal lunch discussion, offering an opportunity to hear fresh perspectives, ask questions, and connect with colleagues from across Â鶹Æƽâ°æ.
The series will grow throughout the academic year as new speakers and topics are confirmed. Please check back regularly for announcements, event details, and registration information.
October 2, 2026: Dr. Jesse Spencer-SmithSome of the scholars best equipped to make the highest and best use of AI are not in engineering and computer science but in the humanities and other allied fields. New developments in AI allow us not only to extend our reach—of our faculty and our students—but also to explore new kinds of scholarship. In our new Vanderbilt AI minor and major, we are training students from every college on the latest AI advancements and helping them explore applications to their areas of study. Fluency in AI for universities ideally means deepening disciplinary engagement and strengthening intellectual rigor. We are responsible for training the leaders of the future, who use AI responsibly to further human endeavors. and our guest speaker, Dr. Jesse Spencer-Smith, as we begin the conversation with the concepts and grounding necessary to conduct informed critical examinations of AI's opportunities and pitfalls. is Chief Data Scientist and Director of Vanderbilt University's Data Science Institute, Associate Dean for Partnerships and Innovation, and Director of Vanderbilt's M.S. in Artificial Intelligence program. A leader in AI research, education, and interdisciplinary collaboration, he has applied artificial intelligence to challenges spanning healthcare, scientific discovery, and public policy. |
October 16, 2026: Dr. Jeff GuanThis presentation examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping higher education and what universities must do to remain credible, relevant, and distinctly human. Drawing on Jason Potts’s The University After AI, Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt’s The Great Upheaval, recent reports from MIT and Cornell, and presenter's own experience in AI research, teaching, and leadership in AI strategic planning and adoption, it argues that universities must move beyond simple adoption of AI LLM use toward redesigning learning around authentic evidence of capability and intellectual formation. Graduates will need practical AI fluency, but also the enduring human capacities AI cannot replace: sound judgment, critical thinking, creativity, ethical responsibility, the ability to work across differences, and a sense of purpose. The central message is that higher education should use AI to expand human potential while preserving the demanding practices and relationships through which genuine learning occurs. is the Executive Director for AI Strategy and Innovation for the University of Louisville. With decades of experience in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and academic leadership, including serving as Interim Dean of the College of Business, he is helping shape the university's vision for the responsible adoption of AI in higher education while preparing the next generation of AI-enabled business leaders. |
More coming soon.