Leading AI Innovation in Higher Education: Key Questions Every President Should be Asking

AI should not be adopted simply because it’s available, but rather as a tool to advance the broader mission of the institution. College leaders should aim to align AI initiatives with the strategic plan, ensuring they contribute to the institution’s educational offerings, student success, and operational efficiency. This requires a clear understanding of how AI can support long-term goals. Regularly evaluating AI projects against the strategic plan will help maintain focus and ensure AI serves the institution’s mission. 

Integrating AI into daily campus life requires a deliberate approach that directly supports the institution’s mission. College leaders should encourage departments to identify areas where AI can enhance student success, streamline operations, reduce costs, or advance research. Pilot programs can explore mission-driven applications such as AI-powered tutoring to improve learning outcomes or AI solutions for more efficient campus management. By embedding AI into activities that align with institutional priorities, colleges can ensure that AI adoption serves a higher purpose and builds comfort with the technology across the campus.

While ethical and legal guardrails are critical to safe AI adoption, it’s important not to stifle innovation by being too prescriptive. Institutions should establish clear policies and guidelines that prioritize security, compliance, and ethical use while also encouraging responsible experimentation. College presidents can foster a culture where innovation thrives within these guidelines, ensuring that faculty, staff, and students feel empowered to explore AI’s possibilities. These policies should address data privacy, bias, and compliance with legal standards. By working with legal counsel, IT, academic leadership, and faculty, presidents can create a secure framework for innovation that reflects the institution’s values.

Leadership in AI adoption begins at the top. College presidents should be among the first to engage with AI, demonstrating its potential and challenges. By personally experimenting with AI tools, you not only gain firsthand experience but also send a clear message to your campus community that AI is a priority. This could involve using AI in decision-making processes, adopting AI-driven analytics for strategic planning, or even incorporating AI into your daily workflow. By sharing these experiences, you create a culture that values experimentation and innovation.

AI adoption should not be treated as an optional activity or the responsibility of a few enthusiasts, but rather as a tool to advance the institution’s core mission. The use of AI must serve a clear purpose, whether it’s improving student success, enhancing learning quality, reducing costs, streamlining operations, or advancing research. To embed AI into the fabric of the institution, it’s important to create structures that encourage broad participation and align with these mission-driven goals. This could involve integrating AI into professional development programs, offering incentives for faculty and staff to use AI in ways that directly support students and institutional priorities, and embedding AI projects into strategic initiatives. By ensuring that AI experimentation is purposeful and tied to improving institutional outcomes, its adoption can become a collective priority rather than a niche activity.

Unintentional bias in AI models is a growing concern, particularly regarding how models are trained. While most institutions will not have the resources to develop and train their own large language models, college presidents should be aware that models might contain and perpetuate bias. It’s essential to at least consider this issue in any AI use across the institution. Presidents should encourage their teams to critically evaluate AI tools and ensure that equity is at the forefront of AI adoption efforts, even if the institution relies on external AI systems.

Integrating AI into evaluative processes ensures that AI initiatives are not isolated efforts but are instead tied to the institution’s broader goals. Strategic planning, reaccreditation, and budgeting processes are ideal touchpoints for incorporating AI considerations. For example, the strategic plan can outline the institution’s AI vision, while the reaccreditation process can assess how well AI initiatives support academic excellence. Similarly, budgeting can allocate resources for AI projects, ensuring that they receive the necessary funding and support.

Involving underutilized groups in AI integration can uncover unique perspectives and opportunities. Students, for example, can provide insights into how AI can enhance learning and campus life, while alumni may offer expertise and resources for AI initiatives. Community resources, such as local businesses or tech hubs, can also play a role in AI experimentation. College presidents should consider whether to create an “AI Across the Curriculum” effort, focusing on how AI affects all areas of study, or concentrate on IT and technology programs most impacted by AI—or possibly do both.

Students are likely to be at the forefront of AI experimentation. College leaders should create opportunities for students to explore AI in safe and productive ways. This could include offering AI-focused extracurricular activities or integrating AI into the curriculum. It could also include creating student-led AI clubs or activities that encourage peer-to-peer learning and innovation. By making AI a visible and exciting part of the student experience, institutions can cultivate a generation of learners who are not only familiar with AI but also prepared to shape its future.

As students increasingly adopt AI in various ways, it’s equally important to guide its use in alignment with campus culture. By empowering students to take an active role in AI exploration, colleges can harness their creativity while ensuring the technology is used responsibly.

A plethora of new AI tools are emerging daily, and staying informed is a challenge. College leaders should invest in continuous AI education for faculty and staff, providing resources such as workshops, webinars, and access to online courses that cover the latest AI technologies and their applications in education. Creating a centralized AI resource hub on the institution’s intranet can also serve as a go-to place for tutorials, case studies, and support, ensuring that faculty and staff are well-equipped to integrate AI into their work. 

Innovation often occurs in pockets, leading to fragmented efforts that fail to scale across the institution. College presidents should actively identify and highlight AI projects happening in various departments. Creating cross-departmental AI task forces or innovation committees can help in sharing knowledge and best practices. Regular campus-wide presentations, digital showcases, student AI fairs, or innovation forums where faculty and staff can present their AI projects can also break down silos, fostering a culture of collaboration and shared learning.

The skepticism that often accompanies new technologies, especially AI, can be a significant barrier to adoption. College presidents can address this by sharing a clear and compelling vision for how AI could transform the institution. This involves not only communicating the benefits of AI but also demonstrating its real-world applications and successes. Equally important is designing and communicating how success will be measured. Leaders need to assess the impacts of AI initiatives, share stories of positive outcomes at other institutions, openly discuss less than successful AI efforts and the lessons learned from those experiences, highlight pilot projects, and show tangible improvements in efficiency, learning outcomes, or resource management. Without clear metrics for success, AI is unlikely to be embraced beyond its true believers. 

AI can provoke anxiety among faculty, staff, and students who may have concerns about job displacement, data privacy, or ethics. College leaders should acknowledge these apprehensions and address them through transparent communication and education. Hosting open forums, creating AI FAQs, and providing reassurances about the institution’s commitment to legal and ethical AI use can help in alleviating fears. Additionally, highlighting positive examples of AI in action—where AI has enhanced learning, improved efficiency, or created new opportunities—can shift the narrative from fear to excitement.

The adoption of AI technologies requires robust IT governance to manage risks and ensure alignment with institutional goals. College presidents should work closely with their CIOs and IT departments to establish governance frameworks that include rigorous evaluation criteria for AI tools, ongoing monitoring of AI applications, and clear protocols for data management and security. Additionally, involving faculty, staff, and students in the governance process brings diverse perspectives that help identify blind spots and reduce the risk of unintended bias. This inclusivity ensures that AI adoption not only supports the institution’s mission but is also equitable and reflective of the needs and experiences of the entire campus community.

To keep up with AI advancements, institutions should adopt a dynamic approach that evolves with the technology. This means continuously revisiting and refining AI strategies to ensure they remain relevant and effective. College presidents should encourage a mindset of perpetual learning and adaptation, where faculty, staff, and students are motivated to explore new AI developments and integrate them into their work. Regularly scheduled reviews of AI initiatives, informed by the latest industry trends and technological advancements, can help institutions pivot as needed, ensuring that their AI exploration remains cutting-edge, safe, based on evidence, and aligned with institutional goals.

The integration of AI brings both promise and peril, introducing new security challenges, particularly in the areas of data privacy and cybersecurity. College presidents should ensure that AI adoption not only aligns with the institution’s mission and strategic goals but also addresses the unique risks it poses. This requires developing robust cybersecurity strategies that account for AI’s transformational potential, investing in advanced security technologies, training staff and students on safe AI practices, and regularly updating security protocols to address emerging threats. Additionally, fostering a culture of vigilance where everyone understands their role in maintaining security is essential for protecting the institution’s digital infrastructure while navigating the evolving risks and opportunities that AI presents. 

Cost is a significant consideration for any new initiative, and AI is no exception. College presidents must ask: What will this cost our campus? How will we pay for it? Will it pencil out financially, and what are the risks if we do not adopt an AI strategy? Leaders need to carefully evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for AI projects and consider both the short-term and long-term financial impacts. AI can reduce costs through efficiency gains, but upfront investment in technology, training, and governance is required. College presidents should work closely with their CFOs to ensure AI projects are financially viable and aligned with broader institutional goals.

The cost of ignoring AI is perhaps even more difficult to measure. By overlooking AI’s potential, colleges may forfeit key opportunities to enhance both student success and the overall student experience, jeopardizing their ability to stay competitive in an increasingly technology-driven world.