J.D. Mosley-Matchett (00:38) It's time for another episode of AI Update brought to you by InforMaven. I'm J.D. Mosley-Match, the founder and CEO of InforMaven, and our guest today is Dr. Joseph Levy, Associate Vice Provost of Accreditation and Quality Improvement at Excelsior University. Because it's December, we're spending this month considering how AI has changed since the beginning of the year. Dr. Levy was our AI Update guest in February, and he has some new thoughts regarding a question he answered then. Welcome back, Joe. Joe Levy (01:13) Thanks JD, it's good to be here and holy cow, this February feels like a long, a lot longer between that stretch. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (01:23) It's so true. It's crazy. Okay, so it was the fifth question from that February interview that you wanted to revisit. And I asked you, what advice do you have for administrative leaders regarding AI? So what additional insights would you offer now that we've reached the end of 2025? Joe Levy (01:25) you So, one big shift that I've experienced and others may have experienced, but this is my first experience is on the job interview and hiring front. So right now, I've been going through some interviews for adding to my team, but also participating in interviews for other positions being hired at our institution and this is the first process I've gone through where: One, we've included questions about AI. Two, the candidates have asked and talked about and mentioned AI. And so it just struck me that that's whole other layer that institutions need to be ready for because one, if you are using AI, you want to make sure that if you're trying to hire somebody that J.D. Mosley-Matchett (02:29) It is. Joe Levy (02:38) They're on the same page with your approach. They have the experience you're looking for. They have the willingness and the knowledge. And also that they may have things that you don't know about yet. And so you want to ask them questions and get to know. But also, you need to be ready to talk about the state of affairs at your institution. You need to be ready to answer questions that the candidate may ask. Because if AI is important to them, if that's part of their work, then they're gonna be asking those questions too. And the institution needs to be ready to answer and address that. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (03:10) You're absolutely right. My goodness, I hadn't thought about all of that. It's so surprising how things have changed over the past few months. Joe Levy (03:20) Or have the questions ready to be flipped around because we asked, we were asking candidates, what's been your use of AI? Right? And so then naturally they want to know, well, here's what I've done. How are you using it? Right? and that's one thing that thankfully with candidates, that's something, I was ready to say in know, I've been telling them proactively. We haven't. ⁓ systematically integrated it, so that it's not something that... You know, just in case they're like, "Well, I'm not very experienced in it." It's like, "Well, you're not going to be super behind. It's not a necessary step in the process." Now, that being said, I'm using AI and I'm using it to help me. But it's not something like my full team is being required to use or do, ⁓ but like, one of my team members is very experienced with AI and J.D. Mosley-Matchett (04:00) Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (04:11) she's even teaching me things. And so I'm very much leveraging that and telling her keep going because it's helping the whole team. But yeah, to the point of it was just one of those things that as much as I wanted to ask the question, I realized, well, gosh, if they ask me like about our institutional policy or beyond even just our team, because I can definitely answer for our team and our work. But if they ask beyond that, like I need to be ready. Right. And and the institution needs to be ready. And I went. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (04:15) Absolutely. Yeah. Huh? Yeah, this is so true. Joe Levy (04:40) I went to a campus in the earlier this fall and one of the questions that they were wrestling J.D. Mosley-Matchett (04:47) Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (04:50) thankfully it was what they were wrestling and not something I needed to deal with because we had, I was there for the day and we had sessions and I was just sitting in on this additional session they were having, but they were talking about all the implications for AI. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (04:52) hahahaha ⁓ He Joe Levy (05:11) including the new one that I hadn't thought of is can students opt out of institutional use of AI? J.D. Mosley-Matchett (05:11) Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (05:21) And so the example they gave is they said, you know, AI has a documented high resource use, right? It takes a lot of water. It takes a lot of energy. So if a student is environmentally conscious and does not want to promote that, J.D. Mosley-Matchett (05:21) Mmmmm Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (05:41) ⁓ and they tell the institution, don't want you to use AI for anything involving me and my student record. And that was something there. mean, my my first initial reaction was no. the institution is going to use whatever tools they deem necessary. Now, if you want to opt out of like a report or like for privacy, OK, but like as long as the institution's, you know, covering privacy and like you as a student. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (05:58) Yeah, exactly. Thank you, yes. Right, yeah. Joe Levy (06:18) can't dictate what they use, but then I really thought about it and was like, well, I don't know, right? Because it's an ethical thing. And can a student assert that by you using this technology without my consent? And I was just like, OK, that's an interesting question. I again, I was like, not a question I need to wrestle with. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (06:25) It is an ethical question. Yeah. It's an Exactly. It's an interesting question, but you've got to consider that flying, using airplanes uses up a lot of, know, and pollutes a lot. And it's, it's not up to the student to decide, okay, no one at our institution should be flying because I find it offensive. What? No, you can't do that. Joe Levy (06:53) Yeah? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I mean, that's a good parallel to think about the extent with which students can kind of dictate those things. ⁓ But it gets really interesting when you couple it with their data, right? Or like their information, because then it's like, OK, well, yeah, like how much say does a student have J.D. Mosley-Matchett (07:24) Yes, yes, then it's a privacy issue. agree. Joe Levy (07:31) not just their information, but how it's stored? J.D. Mosley-Matchett (07:35) You Joe Levy (07:35) and how it's used. ⁓ So anyway, yeah, it was interesting because again, at first blush, I was like, come on, that's a ridiculous question. But then, I mean, they were taking it very seriously. And so I listened and I was like, okay, well, in either way, then you need to be ready to respectfully address that student's concern. Even if the answer is a flat out no, like. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (08:02) Right. Right. Joe Levy (08:03) How are you going to explain this to them without making them feel their voice is unheard or that we're not sensitive to their needs or also that will the student take this as the institution having like a reckless environmental stance, right? ⁓ So again, it was one of those things like many others that you start pulling on the thread a little bit and it's... J.D. Mosley-Matchett (08:13) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (08:33) It just gave pause because this is new territory, right? Like, again, you wouldn't have this question with like, don't use Tableau, right? Like, I don't want you to use Tableau. It's like, well, Tableau isn't hurting anything or harming it more than like, you know, ⁓ Power BI. But once you start to layer in like the integrated use of AI that has these extra resources and these extra components... J.D. Mosley-Matchett (08:36) Mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. to mention the fact that AI is being integrated into every piece of software that's out there. What are you going to do? Eliminate thatstudent from the SIS? That's not gonna happen. Joe Levy (09:12) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's where to even if the institution says, like, I agree with you and and for elective AI things like we can limit our use. But to your point, like we use Canvas as our LMS. If Canvas rolls out an AI, I feel like I don't think we can reject that. I don't think we can, like, tell them we don't want that in our contract. Like, so... J.D. Mosley-Matchett (09:20) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (09:41) Again, it was just such an interesting thing that I definitely had not thought of. But it is a thing. I mean, I know plenty of people who that's a big reason why they're resisting AI is not because they don't see the value and not because they don't see the efficiencies. But in their minds, like there's got to be a better way, a more ⁓ environmentally friendly way to do this and use this technology. It's like J.D. Mosley-Matchett (09:45) Mm-hmm. Joe Levy (10:10) I mean, that's like a bit like, you know, that's like electric cars, right? We do have a better way, but if there aren't as many in the market or what it like you have what you have. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (10:10) Well... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Not to mention the fact that if we really want to be environmentally concerned, look at China. They are building solar plateaus. I mean, it's not even a solar farm anymore. They're just putting solar panels across entire swaths of their country. And that is going to be powering a lot of their AI technology. Joe Levy (10:40) Mm-hmm. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (10:49) That takes away this argument that AI in and of itself is environmentally unfriendly. I'm sorry, it is the ways in which we provide that energy that is unsound and that goes back onto something other than AI itself. So I have real big problems with people who try to use that as the reason not to implement AI. I can go along with them if they are on a... If they're outside of the grid and they are not using any kind of fossil fuels at all, okay, I'll go along with them. But, unless they have that kind of a situation going on, I have real problems with using that as the basis. Yes. Joe Levy (11:39) Yeah, yeah, well, like I said, I was like, I'm glad it's not a, you know, question I need to answer. Not something my institution's wrestling with. So good luck to you all with that. J.D. Mosley-Matchett (11:49) it's a brave new world. It really is. And it has changed a lot in the past year. And people's understanding of it has changed a lot in the past year. So I really appreciate those points that you brought