If you are curious, cautious, or excited about how AI is reshaping learning environments, community partnerships, workforce pathways, and civic life, please join us for an informal discussion on AI, equity, and the higher education value proposition. Potential topics of discussion might include how AI is changing the perceived value of a degree for students and communities, how it is affecting civic responsibility, what widespread AI adoption means for democracy and public trust in institutions, how to prevent AI from widening social inequities or environmental harms, and what workforce and community partners now expect from graduates. We will also discuss how to move from passive adopters or critics of AI to co-authors of the systems, policies, and learning environments where AI appears. Together, we will explore what it looks like to keep humans in the loop so that AI systems reflect community-defined values about learning, work, and democracy.
We welcome administrators, faculty, staff, students, creatives, community members, engaged citizens, policy makers, technologists, governance experts, and enthusiasts. In this Zoom meeting, CUMU members and invited guests will connect with others from our network, share what they are doing on their own campuses and in their communities, and collect useful resources in a shared Google doc that attendees can take with them.
This CUMU member-only program is offered at no cost and is included in your institutional membership.
CUMU members: CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS
Dr. Urmi Ashar is a physician, educator, and leadership coach who directs the Public Health Program in the John G. Rangos Sr. School of Health Sciences at Duquesne University. She works at the intersection of public health, higher education, and systems change, exploring how AI, community-engaged learning, and complexity science reshape how students learn and how institutions serve their communities. As a Gaultier Fellow and faculty lead for the Council of Independent Colleges’ AI Ready initiative, she designs AI-enhanced “living labs” that center ethics, equity, and the future of work. A certified Gallup Strengths and iPEC Core Energy coach, she helps leaders and students build the self-awareness and adaptive capacity needed to stay fully human in an AI-driven world.
Jessica Mann, Ph.D., serves as assistant vice president of community engagement at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she guides initiatives that advance reciprocal partnerships and community-engaged learning across disciplines and neighborhoods. She also teaches in the university’s graduate programs in Education Leadership. As a practitioner scholar of student and faculty development, community-engaged teaching and learning, and democratic institutional strategy, she focuses on how AI can expand access, ease administrative burdens, and deepen reflection within community-engaged courses. Her work asks how universities and communities can share power in shaping the role of AI in civic life and higher education.