Dear Center for Academic Innovation Community,
As we welcome back students to the University of Michigan campus, we should acknowledge that 8,000 students are just beginning their journey as Wolverines. As campus leaders, we should ask ourselves what kind of educational experience we build for them and how we invite them to co-create their academic journey. How will we meet their academic needs? How can we provide students with the support and resources they will need to build early momentum as undergraduates and thrive well into the future?
All educational leaders face the challenge of providing a world-class learning environment situated within a constantly evolving landscape. We explored many of these challenges across the academic innovation ecosystem as we engaged with higher education innovation leaders and advocates at more than 100 institutions as part of the Leading Academic Change National Survey 2.0.
This survey of innovation leaders on U.S. campuses was conducted 10 years after the first Academic Change survey. In that decade, much has happened. Demographics shifted, we battled through a pandemic, and emerging technology affordances profoundly impacted how we teach and students learn.
The Center for Academic Innovation and Quantum Thinking collaborated on the 2024 survey, building on an academic innovation survey conducted a decade ago by Quantum Thinking and partners at the University System of Maryland’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.
Cait Hayward, director of research and analytics at the center, and Anne Keehn, founder and CEO of Quantum Thinking, served as co-principal investigators of the new survey with the center’s senior research scientist Nate Cradit. The final report is full of insights and points to more work ahead as we further explore these questions.
Among the many important findings in the survey, AI and generative AI education and support are now top priorities among innovation leaders. A decade ago, AI-assisted tools largely weren’t on the radar of these organizations. When the technology and tools emerged, it quickly became apparent that it could radically transform the job market and the job skills employers seek. Universities, including U-M and the center, took that challenge head-on. Michigan, supported by Information Technology Services, created custom tools and held various trainings and workshops for faculty, staff, and students. At the center, we continue to develop short online courses focused on AI, with recent launches on learning languages, becoming a data analyst, and leading social impact organizations using AI tools and many more.
We are also working to convene innovators and educators on the topic of AI. This October, we will host an Innovation Summit focused on extended reality, generative AI, and the future of experiential technologies. Registration is now open for our two-day summit, where higher education and industry leaders will discuss experiential technology’s role in education. The event will feature campus innovators, vendor demonstrations from Apple and others, and workshops on AI and generative AI’s use on campus. There will also be a keynote address from Alton Glass, founder and head of immersive for GRX Immersive Labs. GRX uses extended reality technologies in service of storytelling that is innovative, immersive, educational, and amplifies culture. Glass previously worked with Time Magazine as co-creator of “The March,” an immersive installation of Martin Luther King’s iconic 1963 March on Washington.
The summit will unite the innovation community, including students, faculty, staff, the private sector, and community members interested in experiential educational technology and how U-M and others use it to transform education. It is our chance to come together, engage, be inspired by the present, and explore the future.
Go blue!
James DeVaney
Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation
Founding Executive Director of the Center for Academic Innovation