Ohio State to hire 100 new faculty with AI expertise - OSU

The Ohio State University has announced a major Artificial Intelligence (AI) Faculty Hiring Initiative that will add 100 new tenure-track faculty with expertise in AI over the next five years. The initiative will expand AI research and education across disciplines and strengthen Ohio State’s position as a national and global leader in AI-driven discovery and societal impact. 

The new hires will join one of three AI Faculty cohorts:

Foundational AI — Elevating the theoretical, mathematical and algorithmic underpinnings of AI.

Applied AI — Harnessing AI to revolutionize the translation of ideas to real-world solutions for Ohio and beyond.

Responsible AI and Cybersecurity — Ensuring ethical innovation and safeguarding digital landscapes for a secure future.

https://news.osu.edu/ohio-state-to-hire-100-new-faculty-with-ai-expertise/

Preparing for tomorrow’s agentic workforce - McKinsey Podcast

The time is now to focus on AI infrastructure, which will enable companies to scale AI and build a future where humans and multiple AI agents successfully work together. To effectively compete, companies must take a hard look at what they can do to support an AI infrastructure. On this episode of the At the Edge podcast, SambaNova Systems cofounder and CEO Rodrigo Liang joins host and McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee to discuss agentic AI, the S-curve of AI value, and why businesses must adopt a hybrid AI model.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/preparing-for-tomorrows-agentic-workforce

Padmasheela Kiiskilä: Building trust in micro-credentials requires strong data governance - Tampere University, Finland

In her doctoral dissertation, Padmasheela Kiiskilä (MS) investigates how higher education institutions and alliances can implement scalable, trusted, and strategically aligned micro-credential systems. Her research identifies the essential features of digital platforms needed for issuing micro-credentials, examines how learners and institutions perceive their value, and analyzes how centralized approaches can support large-scale coordination across universities. Micro-credentials have emerged as an important way to support lifelong learning, reskilling, and the recognition of smaller units of learning. As higher education institutions adapt to changing learner needs and labor market demands, micro-credentials provide digitally verifiable proof of specific skills, competencies, or achievements. 

https://www.tuni.fi/en/news/padmasheela-kiiskila-building-trust-micro-credentials-requires-strong-data-governance

Wharton Online Launches Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking Certificate - University of Pennsylvania

Wharton Online today announced the launch of its new Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking Certificate, a fully online, self-paced credential designed to help professionals master innovation from idea generation through execution. Developed and led by Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich, global authorities on innovation management, the certificate brings together three in-depth online courses that can be taken individually or as part of the full program:

Introduction to Innovation:

Everyone Is an Innovator – Build foundational literacy and learn to identify and evaluate innovation opportunities using structured, AI-enabled methods.

Innovation Tournaments and the Process View – Learn to design and run live innovation tournaments that surface and scale winning ideas.

Design Thinking: Developing the Solution Concept – Apply customer-centered design frameworks to turn insights into tested, actionable solutions.

https://news.wharton.upenn.edu/press-releases/2025/11/wharton-online-launches-innovation-strategy-and-design-thinking-certificate/

The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation - McKinsey

Almost all survey respondents say their organizations are using AI, and many have begun to use AI agents. Most organizations are still in the experimentation or piloting phase: Nearly two-thirds of respondents say their organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise. High curiosity in AI agents: Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say their organizations are at least experimenting with AI agents.

Positive leading indicators on impact of AI: Respondents report use-case-level cost and revenue benefits, and 64 percent say that AI is enabling their innovation. However, just 39 percent report EBIT impact at the enterprise level. High performers use AI to drive growth, innovation, and cost: Eighty percent of respondents say their companies set efficiency as an objective of their AI initiatives, but the companies seeing the most value from AI often set growth or innovation as additional objectives. Redesigning workflows is a key success factor: Half of those AI high performers intend to use AI to transform their businesses, and most are redesigning workflows. Differing perspectives on employment impact: Respondents vary in their expectations of AI’s impact on the overall workforce size of their organizations in the coming year: 32 percent expect decreases, 43 percent no change, and 13 percent increases.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai

EDUCAUSE ’25: How AI Policies Affect Student Mental Health - Abby Sourwine, GovTech

Punitive, fear-driven approaches to rule-making about artificial intelligence in higher education can deepen mistrust, stress and disconnection among students. Alternatively, there are opportunities for teachable moments. As some institutions and instructors respond to the boom of artificial intelligence with bans and automated detection tools, students are worried about being falsely accused of using AI. At the 2025 EDUCAUSE conference, Ashley Dockens, associate provost of digital learning at Lamar University, and Cindy Blackwell, director of academic faculty development at Texas A&M University, warned that higher-education leaders and teachers may be holding students to an unreasonable standard — expecting students to inherently understand when AI use is appropriate and inappropriate and, in the latter case, to keep a perfect track record of resisting temptation.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/educause-25-how-ai-policies-affect-student-mental-health

Google seeks partnerships lead to drive AI in higher education - Edtech Innovation Hub

Role aims to advance adoption. Google is recruiting a senior partnerships manager to help shape its artificial intelligence work across higher education, according to a recent LinkedIn post by Alisa Sommer O’Hara, who leads Global EdTech Business Partnerships and Developer Relations at the company. The new Strategic Partner Development Principal Lead will focus on building partnerships that drive the use of Gemini for Education, Google’s family of AI models designed to transform teaching, learning, and research. The position forms part of Google’s Learning and Education team, which develops tools and strategies to scale AI responsibly across academic environments.

https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/google-seeks-partnerships-lead-to-drive-ai-in-higher-education

Penn State Smeal launches comprehensive artificial intelligence initiative - Smeal College of Business

The Penn State Smeal College of Business has announced a comprehensive, college-wide artificial intelligence (AI) initiative. Smeal is integrating AI across its teaching, research and operations — ensuring students, faculty and staff are equipped to lead responsibly in an AI-driven economy. “AI isn’t a future possibility — it’s here, now,” said Corey Phelps, John and Karen Arnold Dean of Smeal. “As a leading business school, we have a responsibility to prepare our students not just to use AI, but to lead with it — with purpose, responsibility and integrity. The future success of our graduates depends on how well we rise to this moment.”

https://www.psu.edu/news/smeal-college-business/story/penn-state-smeal-launches-comprehensive-artificial-intelligence

The rise of micro-credentials in continuing education - BC Business

Learn or be left behind. This is the imperative that’s driving many mid-career (and, increasingly, earlycareer) professionals to gain a competitive advantage in today’s tough employment market through upskilling. “Today, artificial intelligence is not a futuristic concept but a mainstream reality reshaping industries and professions,” says Jo-Anne Clarke, dean of Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Victoria (UVic). “Add the complexities of tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty and economic volatility, and it’s clear that both employers and employees are navigating an increasingly dynamic and unpredictable landscape.” In this context, a person’s initial credentials, degrees or training may not be enough for prospective employers, or for existing employers hiring for a senior role. 

https://bcbusiness.ca/industries/education/the-rise-of-micro-credentials-in-continuing-education/

Scaling the 21st-century leadership factory - Bob Sternfels, Daniel Pacthod, and David H. Berger; McKinsey

In the wake of extreme uncertainty, CEOs should take a step back and reflect on the leadership traits and capabilities that will define their own and others’ success in the future and embed these traits and capabilities into their organizations. Our previous research on the art of 21st-century leadership, as well as our more recent thinking and discussions with CEOs on the topic, point to six critical traits for leadership success: positive energy, personal balance, and inspiration; servant and selfless leadership; continuous learning and a humble mindset; grit and resilience; levity; and stewardship.1

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/scaling-the-21st-century-leadership-factory

Kelsey Robinson: Reshaping the Marketing Landscape - McKinley Quarterly

Across C-suites, there is growing interest in working hand in hand on everything from ROI and performance measurement to making space for bold ideas that drive growth. There is a lot of interest in the duality of rigor and inspiration. Another topic that’s dominating marketing conversations is agentic AI, autonomous AI systems that work independently to complete tasks. A year ago, marketers were talking about experiments and pilots with gen AI. Now, they’re exploring how to use agentic AI across broad domains in marketing and beyond: creating consumer experiences at scale, enabling hyperpersonalization, rethinking media buying, and unlocking creative development in ways that not only save money but also truly fuel growth. Many CMOs are asking themselves whether they have the right strategies and systems to make this leap.

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/email/rethink/2025/11/2025-11-05d.html

UPenn Expands Educator AI Training Program With Google - Government Technology

A $1 million grant from Google will help scale a one-district pilot program on teaching with artificial intelligence, offered through the University of Pennsylvania, up to five districts and regions. A University of Pennsylvania program training K-12 teachers and administrators on artificial intelligence best practices is scaling up, thanks to a $1 million investment from Google. The funding, announced Oct. 28 by the university’s Graduate School of Education, will allow the university’s Pioneering AI in School Systems (PASS) program to expand to five school districts and regions across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware beginning in December. Launched in spring 2025, PASS was first piloted in the School District of Philadelphia. It provides professional development to help educators and administrators understand and implement AI responsibly in schools

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/upenn-expands-educator-ai-training-program-with-google

Use GenAI to slow down and reflect more deeply - Sam Illingworth, Times Higher Education

GenAI is often presented to academics as a tool for acceleration. Marking can be automated, lecture slides summarised in seconds and drafts polished at speed. The message is clear: do the same work, only faster. Yet, this framing risks reinforcing an already unsustainable level of efficiency. What if, instead of speeding up, GenAI could help us slow down? Used thoughtfully, these tools can encourage reflection, deepen dialogue and make space for richer connections between research and teaching. Slowness here is not inefficiency. Instead, it is the deliberate act of reclaiming attention for what matters most: curiosity, questioning and collaboration.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/use-genai-slow-down-and-reflect-more-deeply

Opinion: Higher education needs to catch up with AI, not run from it - Teresa Butzerin, Willamette Collegian

Given that AI will only become more prevalent in our lives, universities should be taking more formal steps to make sure graduating students are literate in the practical uses of AI and leave college with a well-rounded understanding of the ethical issues surrounding it. While the threat AI poses to academic integrity has caused it to become villainized in higher education, it’s time for universities to prioritize teaching students to use AI as a tool because these large language models are only getting faster, smarter and more omnipresent. A recent study conducted by OpenAI — the company that owns ChatGPT — revealed that over one-third of adults aged 18-24 in the U.S. use the chatbot regularly, and a significant portion of this use is related to the completion of schoolwork.

https://www.willamettecollegian.com/post/opinion-higher-education-needs-to-catch-up-with-ai-not-run-from-it

Teaching with AI: From Prohibition to Partnership for Critical Thinking - Michael Kiener, Faculty Focus

However, banning AI will not prevent students from using it, whether for nefarious or appropriate purposes. Instead, it may deny students a chance to practice and engage with AI in an educational setting where they and faculty can explore its full potential collaboratively. This kind of restrictive thinking is based on two flawed assumptions: that AI cannot support student thinking and that students will only use AI to cheat. The challenge is not to police every use, but to reframe our approach from one of prohibition to one of collaborative partnership.  This shift in perspective allows faculty to systematically integrate AI into courses in a developmentally appropriate manner. By centering policies on learning, we can encourage students to take an active, self-regulated approach to their education. This reframes the focus from dishonesty to autonomous learning, emphasizing academic values while scaffolding meaningful assignments that challenge student thinking. 

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/teaching-with-ai-from-prohibition-to-partnership-for-critical-thinking/

Transitioning to the Agentic University 2026–27 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Most of us in higher education are now familiar with generative AI bots, where you formulate a prompt and get a reply. Yet, we are now beginning the advancement to agentic AI, the autonomous 24-7 project manager. The dramatic enhancement in the capability of AI as it moves from bots to agents will bring about efficiencies and have a far greater impact on the day-to-day operations, strategies and effectiveness of our institutions. We will become less expensive, more personalized and more responsive to students and employers. Those are big claims, so for this column, I turned to my personal assistant, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro on Nov. 1, 2025, to help me with identifying the pathway to those outcomes.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/11/12/transitioning-agentic-university-2026-27

Agents for growth: Turning AI promise into impact - Kelly, Lisa Harkness, and Steve Reis - McKinsey

As CEOs and CMOs ask where AI is moving from hype to real results, frontrunners demonstrate that tighter human–AI collaboration and sharper governance is required. Value comes from end-to-end change. Broad productivity wins are table stakes. Impact comes from prioritizing the biggest growth problems and then solving them end to end in a domain. Reimagine workflows, not tools. Growth comes from mapping decisions and handoffs, and embedding agents where they change outcomes, not bolting them onto legacy steps.Scale with a new operating model. End-to-end transformation requires cross-functional human–AI teams, shared data products, and governance that treats agents like managed talent.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/agents-for-growth-turning-ai-promise-into-impact

Student Mental Health Challenges Persist - Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed

Students’ mental health and overall well-being continue to lag, finds Inside Higher Ed’s Student Voice survey, even as campuses expand support services. Just 27 percent of undergraduates describe their mental health as above average or excellent, according to new data from Inside Higher Ed’s main annual Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions. Another 44 percent of students rate their mental health as average on a five-point scale. The remainder, 29 percent, rate it as below average or poor. In last year’s main Student Voice survey, 42 percent of respondents rated their mental health as good or excellent, suggesting a year-over-year decline in students feeling positive about their mental health. This doesn’t translate to more students rating their mental health negatively this year, however, as this share stayed about the same. Rather, more students in this year’s sample rate their mental health as average (2025’s 44 percent versus 29 percent in 2024). 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/health-wellness/2025/10/30/college-student-mental-health-remains-wicked

Redefining Learning: How Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence are Transforming Education - digitalLEARNING Network

We are living through one of the most profound transformations in the history of education. The industrial model of learning is being replaced by a new paradigm that values experience, adaptability, and creativity. For decades, education has been structured around the transfer of information; now, we are moving toward the cultivation of intelligence itself — human and artificial. The convergence of Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not simply an enhancement of traditional teaching tools. It represents a cognitive revolution. These technologies allow us to simulate reality, model complexity, and personalize learning in ways previously unimaginable. Education is no longer confined to the classroom or the screen; it becomes an immersive journey — emotional, sensory, and experiential.

https://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2025/11/redefining-learning-how-virtual-reality-and-artificial-intelligence-are-transforming-education/

Can creativity still exist in a world of Artificial Intelligence? - Bailee McLeod, Avondale

Our relationship with Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ever evolving. The continual advancement of the technology means our interactions with it can change, almost daily. What started as asking Siri to ‘call mum’ evolved to asking Google to ‘turn down the air conditioning’, to now asking Chat to make an itinerary of our three-week Euro vacation, or craft a work email for us. All time saving tasks, but what are the costs of integrating AI into our lives? We spoke with four leading creatives on Avondale University’s academic staff to explore the effects and impact Artificial Intelligence has on creativity, art and our human experience.

https://www.avondale.edu.au/news/op/can-creativity-still-exist-in-a-world-of-artificial-intelligence/

Explainable artificial intelligence for predictive modeling of student stress in higher education - Rasikh Tariq, et al; Nature

Student stress in higher education remains a pervasive problem, yet many institutions lack affordable, scalable, and interpretable tools for its detection and management. The objective of this research is to develop a cost-effective, survey-based stress classification model using multiple machine learning algorithms and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to support transparent and actionable decision-making in educational environments. The analysis revealed five principal predictors: blood pressure, perceived safety, sleep quality, teacher-student relationship, and participation in extracurricular activities. Results demonstrate that both physiological indicators and psychosocial conditions contribute meaningfully to stress prediction. The study concludes that institutional interventions targeting health monitoring, campus safety, behavioral support, relational pedagogy, and extracurricular engagement can effectively mitigate student stress. These findings provide an empirical foundation for the development of integrated policies in higher education aimed at promoting student well-being.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-22171-3