University of St. Thomas President Rob Vischer spoke with WCCO Radio about commencement weekend and several initiatives shaping the university, including the growth of the School of Nursing, the evolving role of artificial intelligence in education, and support for international and first-generation students. Vischer also reflected on the importance of relationships, community and preparing graduates for meaningful careers and lives after college.
From the conversation:
Rob Vischer: We’re taking the advent of AI very seriously. We have nine different working groups through the university addressing various aspects of AI. Professors will make different calls on how to approach it in the classroom. Some professors will go back to the old-fashioned blue book for some exams and writing exercises.
Other professors will presume that the student is starting with AI as a foundation for their research and then expecting them to show their critical thinking and writing ability to improve whatever AI produces, and others are using various tools that are developing to make sure that AI is not sneaking into the assignment, especially in some writing classes.
What faculty are telling me, for the most part, is students are recognizing that they need to develop their own muscles and figuring out how to do things and not depending too much on AI, but certainly, like every other university, we have students looking to it, and we’re trying to keep up with that, and still make sure we’re finding healthy ways to integrate AI that don’t subvert the student’s own development and growth.
Vineeta Sawkar: That’s the challenge. You’ve got to balance all of that, because it’s important to acknowledge the positives of AI as well. This week, I had the opportunity to talk to two students who are graduating in the first class to graduate from the School of Nursing with a bachelor’s degree. I remember when the school was being launched. How has this school progressed and really worked to address the fact that we need more nurses?
Vischer: Well, it’s bursting at the seams. As other universities will tell you, we need more nurses, and young people are flocking to these programs. Yesterday, we had our pinning ceremony, which is a beautiful tradition in nursing, where an experienced nurse actually presents the nursing pin to the graduate, and they take the oath together at the end of the ceremony. It’s a very moving tradition within the profession, and our nursing faculty is doing a great job at preparing our nursing students to thrive in this society, where they’re trying to do more to prepare them to address the whole-person health that’s at the core of some of our health crises, and to be able to deliver healing and medicine and care and accompaniment across different cultural and religious traditions. It’s been a great success.
