Plenary Sessions

Higher education is currently facing unprecedented challenges but amid this context of uncertainty, a recent survey of AAC&U members found that their greatest concerns were associated with the implications of artificial intelligence for their institutions and how they advance their missions. This opening plenary will chronicle this broader landscape and set the stage for the conversations regarding AI and higher education that will follow at this conference.

AAC&U leaders will begin by examining the broader higher education landscape and the challenges institutions are navigating before turning to a panel with senior leaders about how their institutions are responding to AI and preparing for what comes next. The plenary will conclude with a student panel exploring students’ perceptions of AI’s influence in the classroom, the skills they believe they need to develop while in college, and how they anticipate AI shaping their lives after graduation.

AI is a new form of labor that is already changing learning, research, and work in higher education: flooding the world with synthetic content, but also raising expectations for speed, polish, and productivity. As technology challenges existing skills, it also invites us to ask what learning goals need to change: what forms of human judgment, interpretation, and reflection need to be cultivated more intentionally? AI has also exposed long-standing assumptions that our existing methods were really developing the critical thinking and reflection we value. Campuses have responded with new policies, task forces, and programs, but these are operational responses to an epistemological crisis. The future of higher education will depend less on how quickly campuses adopt AI than on whether they can clearly articulate the purpose of learning in a world where knowledge work is no longer exclusively human.

How much will the AI revolution transform higher education? In this session, we explore possibilities for the short- and medium-term futures. We start by analyzing the impact AI is having on the broader world, including technology, economics, politics, culture, and psychology. This closing keynote will then map those onto academia. Next, we will survey emerging trends in how colleges and universities have engaged with AI, from institutional strategies and challenges to classroom practice and pedagogy. We'll conclude by offering several scenarios for potential post-AI post-secondary educational futures. Attendees will then be charged with creating the future that best serves their institutions and their students.