Higher Education in the Age of AI

This panel convenes faculty, students, and practitioners to consider how generative AI compels the university to confront its purpose.

If you are a Columbia/Barnard affiliate with campus access, please use your Columbia/Barnard email when registering.

Each attendee must have their OWN registration and email address.

Registration for external guests closes at 4PM on April 15. Registration will automatically close at that time. Columbia/Barnard affiliates may register at the door.

As generative AI reshapes how students read, write, and think, the university is compelled to reexamine its fundamental purpose. If writing has long been understood as a mode of thought, what follows when that process can be delegated to, or mediated by, algorithmic systems?

This panel convenes faculty, students, and practitioners to consider how these transformations are unfolding in real time. Drawing on experiences within and beyond the classroom, panelists will assess where AI augments learning and where it diminishes it, how it reconfigures the social dimensions of education, and what these shifts reveal about the aims of undergraduate study.

The discussion will also address broader epistemic and institutional stakes: whether AI compresses intellectual difference into standardized forms, and what it means to teach thinking when the tools that structure it are embedded in corporate infrastructures. At the same time, the panel will consider potential gains, including expanded access to analytical resources, new modes of engagement with complex material, and alternative pathways into academic inquiry.

About the Speakers

is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research and teaching interests include education technologies, the history of computing, and online communities. Currently, his work focuses on the impacts of generative AI on education, workforce, and the environment. His writing is featured in Fast Capitalism, Eludamos, and the Journal of Environmental Media. He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.

is the director of undergraduate studies and assistant director of curriculum development in the Center for Science and Society and a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. As a sociocultural anthropologist and science and technology studies (STS) researcher, Madi studies how technologies, institutions, and subjectivities are made together. This research is currently animated by questions about surveillance and marginality in changing regimes of data collection in higher education in the United States. Madi’s pedagogical work includes supporting interdisciplinary co-teaching at Columbia, developing curricula in science and society, and investigating the landscape of STS education in the U.S. Madi earned a PhD in anthropology from Purdue University in 2020, completed a BA in anthropology at the University of North Dakota, and was previously a Visiting Research Fellow in the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Shea Vance is a senior at Barnard College majoring in American Studies. She served as the 149th editor in chief and president of the Columbia Daily Spectator, Columbia's independent flagship student newspaper and the second-oldest college daily in the nation. Formerly a university news editor, Shea has spent the majority of her time at Spectator reporting on Columbia and Barnard student life, administration, finances, and campus protests. Aside from campus reporting, Shea reports on City Hall and local issues for amNewYork. After graduating in May, Shea will join the Chronicle of Higher Education as a reporting fellow in Washington, D.C.

Preston Parker is a sophomore at Columbia University studying Political Science and Statistics. Last year, he came to Columbia feeling alienated and aimless and quickly realized that cellular devices, and by extension technology as a whole, were the root cause of this feeling. He founded Columbia’s Luddite club chapter, where the group goes to events across NYC, talks about their qualms with technology, and just has a phone free space for people to meet. He is eager to learn more about how he can better people's relationships with technology, constantly critique it, and as a result, attack big tech corporations that exploit human faculties.

Please email [email protected] to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs. This event will be recorded. By being present, you consent to the SOF/Heyman using such video for promotional purposes.

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