Today's Update: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
October 14, 2025
Dear Student Life team,
The second most common two-letter combination on campus (right behind O-H) is AI. The use of artificial intelligence is growing every day, and it is vitally important that everyone, especially our students, understand how to harness its power.
Last spring, Ohio State announced a new initiative to ensure that every undergraduate student, beginning with the class of 2029, graduates with fluency in AI, both within their field of study and in the application of AI across disciplines.
Student Life will be a key contributor to these efforts because of all the ways we interact with and educate our students. I also want to make sure that each of us are AI fluent as well. I have begun my own learning by experimenting with Microsoft Co-Pilot.
To help us get there, I have charged three workstreams to focus on AI integration within Student Life over the next year. The groups will focus on student education, staff education and organizational productivity.
The student education workstream brings together many of our student-facing departments and programs to collaboratively explore best practices and integrate AI fluency into our educational efforts. This group will focus on ensuring our students encounter meaningful opportunities to engage with AI concepts in co-curricular settings. The group will also explore how our teaching around AI complements the Student Life Learning Goals and Outcomes. High Five to Re’Nesha Weston and Nancy Thompson for agreeing to lead the student education group.
The staff education workstream will be part of the existing Employee Education, Growth and Retention Roundtable workgroup, led by Angie Wellman. The group will focus on curating a menu of professional development opportunities for Student Life team members. These offerings will include LinkedIn Learning modules, curated sessions with internal experts and other resources designed to build foundational AI knowledge and skills across our division. If you want to get started, please visit the university’s resources at https://oaa.osu.edu/ai-fluency.
The third workstream will focus on where AI can enhance productivity and operational efficiency. The group will identify several case studies in Student Life to experiment with the use of AI to make our work faster and easier, then see if we can scale those learnings to other departments. High Five to John Link and Erica Regan for leading these efforts.
AI is going to be an important part of the future, and our efforts will help make that future Scarlet and Great.
Melissa S. Shivers, PhD
Senior Vice President for Student Life
The Ohio State University