How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Higher Education?
The Davis Institute for AI will host experts from liberal arts colleges to answer that question
It’s only been two years since generative AI became accessible—and popular—for the everyday internet user. Since then, we’ve learned that AI can ace standardized tests, translate multiple languages, and even drive a car. It’s transformed customer service, healthcare, advertising, and manufacturing. The only thing we know for certain is that it’s going to change everything.
What does this mean about how we learn? That’s the question posed by Michael Donihue, Herbert E. Wadsworth Professor of Economics and interim director of the Davis Institute for Artifical Intelligence.
Are the liberal arts ready for AI?
“I believe that a liberal arts college is well positioned to help students prepare for a world in which AI will be a significant part of their lives,” said Donihue. “The explosion of generative AI, or large language model applications, has completely transformed the curriculum in higher education. As a leader in this space, we wanted to get people together to talk about how AI is impacting what we do at small liberal arts colleges, and what it means for the future.”
The first-of-its-kind conference, titled AI at Small Liberal Arts Colleges, will take place April 4-5, covering topics around ethics, information literacy, and how AI should (or shouldn’t) be incorporated into the classroom. The conference is intended for faculty and staff at small liberal arts colleges grappling with the impacts of AI on their campuses. Colby professors and staff members will lead many of the discussions, and more than 75 professionals from a dozen peer institutions will attend.
Said Donihue, “We’ve got some incredible panels and talks scheduled, but we’re also taking a multimedia approach. We’ll have a workshop and concert from Daouda Leonard called Coders and Beats, which brings together computer science and music, and we’ll also be screening the movie Her, about a man who gets romantically involved with AI, and discussing it. We’re really excited to see how it all comes together.”
A human-centered approach
The heart of the liberal arts model? Curiosity. That’s the approach taken by the conference’s two keynote speakers, Per Urlaub, director of Global Languages at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Eva Dessein, senior lecturer in French at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They will speak at 4 p.m. April 4 in the Diamond Building.
“Watching machine translation suddenly make major progress in terms of accuracy and usability a few years ago—it changed language learning in a big way,” said Urlaub. “But our profession is still very resistant to integrating machine translation into our curriculum in a meaningful way. It’s similar to the debates in math education in the 1970s and 1980s around using a pocket calculator, which really disrupted the educational model at that time. How do we integrate the technology in a way that’s meaningful, and doesn’t undermine the ability of our students to become critical thinkers?”
“In the humanities, we have a responsibility to fulfill two objectives. First, to make young people critical thinkers. And second, to become effective, critical, and ethical collaborators with current technology.”
Per Urlaub, Director of Global Languages at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Urlaub sees AI as another technology in a centuries-long cycle of how humans have worked with machines. From the printing press to the smartphone, we’ve continued to build tools that advance the pursuit of knowledge.
“In the humanities, we have a responsibility to fulfill two objectives. First, to make young people critical thinkers. And second, to become effective, critical, and ethical collaborators with current technology,” said Urlaub.
Asking the right questions
The conference will also include a live demonstration of Davis AI’s MuleChat lab. Powered by student tutors, the lab is a hands-on way to better understand what artificial intelligence can do. Students and faculty have access to multiple models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and LLaMa. Tutors, who are enrolled in an intensive Artificial Intelligence Lab, meet with community members for one-on-one instruction, experimentation, or to work on building a custom model.
“We give people a chance to explore the different models. Some people come with questions that they’re hoping AI can solve, and others just want to experiment and test out the different models,” said Samuel Apoya ’26, a computer science and economics double major and one of the Mule Chat tutors. “Most of what I help with is better prompt engineering, or how we can ask better questions and use more data to teach the model what kinds of answers we need.”
Asking the right questions has always been a key part of a liberal arts education.
“I’m very excited about facilitating this kind of conversation,” said Donihue. “We’re taking a liberal arts approach by asking questions about the role of artists and creatives, the ethical implications, and the sustainability aspect of this technology. We need this kind of conversation and collaboration as we move forward. We’ve always taught students at Colby to ask questions and to apply critical thinking to those answers.”
Colby is home to those initial conversations.
“As educators, we have to recalibrate our objectives and our assessments,” said Dessein. “How can our teaching be augmented by AI rather than compromised? It’s great to see an institution like Colby facilitating these conversations in an interdisciplinary way, which will inspire us moving forward.”
Highlights on April 5 will include a Bagel & Bots seminar at 8:30 a.m., featuring Assistant Professor of Computer Science Tahiya Chowdhury; Ethical, Moral, and Cultural Issues of AI at 10 a.m., moderated by Stacy Doore, Colby’s Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Computer Science; AI and Global Languages at 11 a.m., moderated by Arne Koch, associate professor of German and Russian, with panelists that include Ghada Gherwash, director of the Farnham Writers’ Center; AI in the Classroom at 1 p.m., moderated by Jordan Troisi, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning; and Information Literacy in the Age of AI at 2 p.m., moderated by Kara Kugelmeyer, data services librarian. At 7 p.m., the Maine Film Center at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center in downtown Waterville will host a public showing of Her with an introduction and discussion following the film by Veronica Romero ’09, assistant professor of psychology.
