The Office of the Provost, Center for Faculty Excellence, Center for Instructional Design & Educational Technology, and Information Technology & Analytics are pleased to announce a Day of Learning with a focus on AI. Four interactive sessions will be offered throughout the day to engage all Ithaca College faculty, students, and staff in crucial conversations about AI and its role in teaching and learning at Ithaca College.
This is a college-wide event for all students, faculty, and staff. Faculty who teach on Thursdays are encouraged to bring students during regularly scheduled class times.
When: Thursday, February 19, 2026
Time: 8:30 am - 4:15 pm (see schedule grid for more details)
Where: Emerson Suites A&B
Event Description
This event invites Ithaca College faculty, students, and staff into a shared process of sensemaking about generative AI in teaching and learning. The focus is on understanding how AI is already shaping classroom experiences, surfacing student perspectives, and creating space for thoughtful, values-aligned responses.
Rather than centering tools or policies alone, the day emphasizes conversation, reflection, and practical experimentation. Participants will explore how to talk about AI with students, how to situate it (or intentionally limit it) within a course, and how to rethink assessment so it remains meaningful in AI-rich environments.
Faculty and staff will leave with a stronger sense of how students are navigating AI, greater confidence in addressing it transparently, and concrete starting points for engaging or deliberately not engaging AI in ways that support learning on their own terms.
Schedule at a Glance
| Time | Session | Format & Focus |
| 8:35am- 9:50am | Keynote – Making WAIves: Higher Ed, AI, & The Classroom | An interactive talk that explores how AI is impacting higher ed and the classroom, along with some frameworks for thinking about these tools |
| 10:00am- 11:15am | Panel Conversation with Students & Faculty | Lance moderates a discussion about use and meaning-making with AI in teaching and learning spaces that includes Ithaca College faculty and students. Outcome: Participants will gain a better understanding of how students are trying to navigate this and what they need from faculty. |
| 1:00pm- 2:15pm | Workshop 1 – Positioning AI in Your Course: The “AI Talk” & Low-Stakes Activities | A set of discussions and activities that move faculty from an AI syllabus statement and exploring the role of how AI may or may not show in their course to entry-level conversations and practices to build AI literacy and instructor comfort. *Please bring your laptop for the hands-on activities Outcome: Participants will have a newer and more refined AI syllabus policy, a strategy for ongoing discussion for AI, and 1-3 activities to use in their course around AI. |
| 3:00pm- 4:15pm | Workshop 2 – Rethinking Assessment with AI | A guided session where faculty develop one or more assignments for their course to revise and rethink how it might be made AI-resilient or AI-engaged. *Please bring your laptop for the hands-on activities Outcome: Participants will have a draft of an assignment that is more deeply engaged with GenAI. |
