University of Dayton readies AI-focused offerings for the fall

The University of Dayton will, this coming fall, begin offering students a new curriculum, centered on artificial intelligence.

The university’s new offerings, administrators said, will center on two new units: one centered one AI fundamentals and use, and another looking at the ethical and social implications of the technology. According to the university’s announcement Wednesday, these units will “give students a shared foundation before they build on those ideas in more advanced, field-specific ways throughout their four-year education.”

“Our students will graduate ready to lead in an AI-enabled world, with the skills and agility to stay ahead as technology rapidly evolves throughout their careers,” Meghan Henning, professor and senior assistant provost for undergraduate curriculum and student success, said in the announcement. “Just as importantly, we are preparing students to keep humans at the center, building their capacity to question these tools, understand the limits of technology, and lead others to use it for the common good. That reflects our Marianist values and the heart of a UD education.”

The university, a private institution in Ohio with just under 12,000 students, will provide varying new learnings for students depending on the emphasis of their educations. Education majors, for instance, will receive different AI instruction than those studying aerospace, who might learn how to “use AI to visualize equations involved in designing a wind tunnel and test how changing one variable affects power consumption and other factors.”