How Is AI Shaping Institutional Resilience?

Gerry Bayne: Welcome to EDUCAUSE Exchange, where we focus on a single question from the higher Reddit community and hear advice, anecdotes, best practices and more.

Gerry Bayne: Artificial intelligence is being integrated into campus operations as a way to address accelerating uncertainty and disruption from enrollment pressures and financial strain, to shifting student expectations and a fluctuating job market. Many in our community see I as a possible lifeboat, helping us to navigate these choppy waters by improving access to information, streamlining workflows, unlocking data, and supporting more agile thinking. AI is a tool for building more responsive, more sustainable institutions. According to a 2024 EDUCAUSE Quick Poll, some IT leaders have responded that their institutions already have some AI tools and resources in place, but the majority do not. And about half the respondents indicate their institution has begun developing an enterprise AI strategy. That gap between experimentation and strategy is where resilience is being tested and defined. So, we're asking how is artificial intelligence shaping institutional resilience?

Mustafa Akben: So we have a three legs idea engage, explore and experiment. So, what do we mean by that. We try to engage with our faculty and staff and students to understand their prospective needs related to AI. This is kind of humanizing part. Empathize them. What are the needs? What are the challenges those people face?

Gerry Bayne: That's Mustafa Akpan, director of artificial intelligence integration at Elon University.

Mustafa Akben: And explore piece is the explore our inner strength. What we are good at that and how we can amplify with combining with AI. An experiment piece is the piece that I'm very excited. We are experimenting and piloting different activities, different practices, the events that foster AI literacy, AI integration in our institution.

Gerry Bayne: He says that training students, faculty and staff to use these tools and to upskill their engagement with AI gives them more than the tool. It gives them agency.

Mustafa Akben: When you just enable people to experiment by themself, they come up with the best way. They come up with the best tool. They come up with the best custom generative AI tools improve their productivity.

Klara Jelinkova: How do we give people agency? And how do we kind of, you know, put them in control? So like, you know, in in the programs, for example, we actually teach people in the business how to use and build their own bots. And I have these, like, great emails, people saying, I built my first job and my loved it, you know, and I think it's really important for us to, to just, again, give people agency back and say and give them control back, whether it's like human centered design, human in the middle design, how are we want to think about it?

Gerry Bayne: Klara Jelinkova is vice president and CEO for Harvard University. She says that while CIOs often lead new technology adoption with AI, the real advantage is in setting the stage for others to lead.

Klara Jelinkova: Inviting people onto the platform to to lead the conversation. And a colleague to colleague, student to students, staff member to staff member. Way. At Harvard, we have chosen not to rush toward like deployment of a, tool for its own steak sake. But we focused on building kind of the conditions on under which we can have responsible experimentation.

Klara Jelinkova: And it really was a platform for staff led experimentation to kind of do a pitch and try something. So the opportunity span operations research and education. But they need to be grounded in principles, purpose and values. And the reason why you need to do that is because they’re going to be some really tough questions that are going to come up that have to do with purpose what is going to be the relationship, the trusted relationship that they are going to have with faculty, staff and students that the path that you're on is grounded in something else than just external technology trends, I think, is an absolutely critical component.

Gerry Bayne: For Sarah Buszka, aligning with the institutional mission is the starting point. But in her role as director of the applied AI Lab at Waukesha County Technical College, she sees an even larger context.

Sarah J. Buszka: What is my impact overall? Not just for the college, not just for students before my community, for my economy? Knowing that a lot of things that we do in our and these powerhouses, that our higher education institutions as they serve for the community and knowing that that trickles out, what's my role in that?

Gerry Bayne: She says that in helping her community members figure out where workforce gaps will occur and where they can augment their skills, she's communicating the value of her institution.

Sarah J. Buszka: So that when we get to 2030, when we get to 2040, we're not going to be feeling the strain. As much of this dwindling workforce because we're empower our community, figure out the technology now to adapt and transform as AI is transforming how we all interact and do business so that we're ready and that we don't feel the pains of those changes.

Sarah J. Buszka: And the ultimate goal, but this is looking up towards is how are we increasing and supporting our economy and our community through technology. And that's what we're doing in the lab and here at EDC.

Gerry Bayne: Artificial intelligence is not making institutions resilient on its own, but it is forcing questions and creating urgency around how resilience is built, whether through planning, infrastructure or culture. These leaders remind us that resilience isn't about control. It's about building the habits, structures, and trust that help people respond with clarity when conditions shift.

Gerry Bayne: Are you looking for more insights on the evolving role of technology in higher ed? Explore the full EDUCAUSE Review podcast network for expert perspectives, practical guidance and leadership conversations. Find us at er.educause.edu/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts and for video highlights and thought leadership from across the community. Check out the EDUCAUSE YouTube channel.

Gerry Bayne: I'm Gerry Bayne for EDUCAUSE. Thanks for listening.