Academy Gives Wentworth Instructors Time to Build with AI
When Josh Larson took over Wentworth Institute of Technology's academic technology operation last summer, he spent his first months talking to as many people as he could. He met with deans and faculty, and in nearly every conversation, the same subject came up.
"What I heard the most was, 'I know about AI, but how do I actually do stuff with it?'" said Larson, director of digital transformation and academic technology services in ATLAS, Wentworth's teaching and learning hub.
That question led to the Faculty AI Academy, a 14-week cohort program ATLAS piloted this summer. Eleven faculty members from all five of Wentworth's schools spent the first seven weeks in structured sessions on AI in the classroom, in research, and in day-to-day academic work. They spent the next seven building something of their own. Those projects will debut this fall.
Two faculty members are building AI agents to help students work through lab reports, while another is developing an agent that converts handwritten equations into digital format, an accessibility problem in math courses that has been difficult to solve at scale. One School of Engineering participant put his project to work in the final weeks of the summer semester. The full cohort will present at the Faculty AI Academy Showcase on Oct. 8.
Larson designed the program with Hariharan Naganathan, associate professor of Construction Management and the Faculty Fellow for Teaching and Learning Innovation, who taught alongside him and shaped how the 14 weeks were structured.
"The Academy serves as a platform for faculty to learn about AI and identify opportunities to apply it within their own teaching, research, and professional work," Naganathan said.
It was Larson’s first course design, and he wanted the program to carry faculty ownership from the start. "I wanted it designed by and for faculty," he said.
Naganathan, meanwhile, noticed a shift in focus as soon as the academy began. "The conversations during the live sessions quickly moved beyond simply using AI to generate content," he said. "Faculty began looking at real challenges their students face in their courses and thinking critically about how AI could help address some of those challenges and improve the learning experience."
The cohort was intentionally multidisciplinary (philosophy, chemistry, interior design, mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, computer science, construction management) and Larson said the mix is what made the discussions work. Faculty from different schools kept discovering they were running into the same problems.
"We talk about silos all the time," Larson said. "This was an opportunity to get people across campus in the same room, or at least talking about the same issues."
The Academy also tackled the harder questions around AI. One full module dealt with bias, privacy, authorship, and academic integrity, working through classroom scenarios participants are likely to actually face. Another asked faculty to decide when to encourage AI use in a course, when to limit it, and when to keep it out entirely. ATLAS also brought students into the room for a moderated conversation with the cohort, which participants rated as one of the most valuable parts of the program.
Larson collected anonymous feedback at the end and rebuilt the program around it. A new fall version runs six weeks instead of 14, with more hands-on lab time and more examples from faculty who have already done the work. The student conversation will return.
Registration for the fall cohort closes Friday, Sept. 11, and space is limited. Faculty who are interested but can't make the scheduled times are encouraged to register anyway and make that known. Larson relates that knowing the real demand is what will determine whether ATLAS should offer evening or alternate sessions down the road.
Naganathan's pitch to skeptical colleagues is simple.
"You do not need to be a technology expert to do this," he said. "As faculty, we are constantly thinking about how to support student success, and AI can become another tool to help us do that more effectively. The Academy is really about creating a space to experiment, ask questions, and learn alongside colleagues."