Some colleges are slowly deploying generative AI into academics and operations. At San Jose State University, President Cynthia Teniente-Matson is boldly championing a vision of “AI everywhere.”
Earlier this year, the California State University System and OpenAI teamed up to provide ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to half a million students and faculty. The unique public-private partnership, designed to fuel workforce readiness, also brings the university into closer collaboration with IBM, Microsoft, NVIDIA and other tech elites.
Luckily for San Jose State, many of those Silicon Valley companies are in the university’s backyard. Teniente-Matson has spent the last three years leading campus expansion efforts into San Jose’s downtown, which is home to Adobe’s and Zoom’s headquarters.
“A significant part of the city and our mayor’s vision is helping us become the capital of AI because we are the only public university in Silicon Valley,” Teniente-Matson says. “It all leads to this shared vibrancy that feeds the whole ecosystem for the AI economy.”
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San Jose State is revamping its academic culture as it launches new initiatives to integrate workforce training. Centering AI in experiential and career-focused learning will ease student and faculty trepidation surrounding the technology, the president continued.
Students can now earn a certificate in AI literacy, while a new, first-year orientation session will cover acceptable AI use.
Providing faculty with professional development and letting instructors interact with industry leaders will accelerate the adoption of AI on campus, Teniente-Matson says.
“It is still the purview of the faculty what happens in the classroom,” Teniente-Matson says. “We have faculty on the far ends of the spectrum who are leading adoption on AI, and those who want to wait. However, our infrastructural support allows us to have more willing staff.”
Campus workshops, conferences and roundtables featuring Silicon Valley thought leaders are sparking imaginations at San Jose State and spreading momentum to the rest of the city, Teniente-Matson adds.
“This emergence of these technologies and potential workforce pipelines is being fueled by faster speeds of computing,” Teniente-Matson says. “It’s an exciting time to be at the epicenter of the future.”
