Date: Tuesday, May 19
Time: 9am -3pm (you are invited to attend one session or all day)
Location: Lowry 201
Faculty and staff were invited to a one‑day retreat designed to explore, experiment with, and rethink how generative AI intersects with a Wooster experience. Through a mix of collaborative discussion and hands‑on activities, faculty and staff examined what AI literacy means for our students, explored AI integrations that promote deeper thinking rather than shortcuts, and learned about practical tools to assist with our work. The day ended with an AI Pedagogy Lab, where participants brought real teaching challenges, questions, or ideas and worked through them with peers in a creative, low‑stakes environment.
Each session featured faculty and staff from the AI Task Force and this spring’s Exploring AI in Teaching professional learning community sharing their experiences and lessons learned. Our presenters included Elora Agsten, Alicia Brazeau, Karl Feierabend, Drew Guarnera, Heather Guarnera, Grit Herzmann, Katie Holt, Kara Morrow, Missy Schen, and Megan Wereley.
Attendees were welcome to participate in any or all sessions, making it easy to tailor the experience to individual interests and schedules.
- Keynote: Aaron Winston, Wooster ‘14, English and Philosophy
- Session 1: AI Literacy at Wooster: what it means for our students, what it means for us
- Session 2: Using AI to Support Student Learning
- Lunch: Lunch tickets for Lowry Dining will be provided
- Session 3: Faculty and Staff AI Toolbox
- Session 4: AI Pedagogy Lab: Workshop your ideas
In addition, we were pleased to host a gallery walk of final project posters from students in Prof. Dan Palmer’s AI and Creative Computing Class.
Resources
Our AI Summit Program.docx features the topics, presenters, and links to their slides along with links to resources including AI Summit Resources.docx and the AI Summit Resources folder.
Future plans
Thanks to our Dean for Faculty Development, our next sessions around AI are scheduled for 3 afternoons following Writing Wednesdays on June 3, July 8, and July 22nd. More details forthcoming.
Keynote: Aaron Winston, Wooster class of 2014
We are delighted to have Aaron Winston join us to kick off our day. Aaron is the Head of Content & Communications at Arize AI, where he leads content, communications, and narrative strategy around AI observability, evaluation systems, and agentic software. His work focuses on helping developers and organizations better understand, evaluate, and improve the behavior of large language models and AI agents.
Prior to joining Arize, Aaron spent nearly five years at GitHub and Microsoft. His work included messaging, editorial strategy, and developer education around GitHub Copilot, one of the earliest widely adopted generative AI tools.
Aaron graduated from The College of Wooster in 2014 with dual majors in English and Philosophy, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. His Independent Study explored the philosophical problem of selfhood and personal identity.