2026 Spring Summer Onyx Anneau

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE WOODS

By Betsy Simon Digital and Brand Marketing Manager A rtificial intelligence is here to stay, and Saint Mary-of the-Woods College hopes that the Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education initiative will give students, faculty and staff a leap forward. The Lilly Endowment Inc. has allocated up to $500 million to help Indiana colleges and universities address the challenges and opportunities of using AI. SMWC has received an initial $125,000 Phase I planning grant to explore ways to address these challenges and opportunities posed by rapid advances in AI technologies. “Employers are asking us to get students ready. They are learning AI just as we are learning it, yet they’re asking us to learn it faster,” said Janet Clark, Ph.D., provost/executive vice president for academic affairs. “It’s great that the Lilly Endowment understands the need for higher ed to move quickly when it comes to implementing AI, so they are making funding available through grants, which will allow us to invest in AI more quickly. We can’t equip students if we’re not equipped ourselves.” Last fall, RJL Solutions conducted listening sessions with the campus community to gauge interest, knowledge and comfort level with AI. The findings helped the college to develop its implementation grant, which was due in May. The projects are expected to be reviewed, approved and awarded by the end of 2026. “The listening sessions told us there is a spectrum of people who are comfortable with AI and helped us identify areas and individuals that could be early adopters or champions,” Clark said. “I think we also learned that everybody desires some continuous training, and the campus community wants us to invest in this to help them keep up with the changes.” A Quinnipiac University poll released in the spring of 2026 found that a majority of respondents believe college students should be taught to use AI. In all, 74% of those polled believe it is very or somewhat important for a college student to learn

to use AI, with 14% indicating it is not important at all. The Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2026 State of Higher Education survey found that 47% of currently enrolled college students have considered switching majors due to concerns about AI. They fear AI’s impact on the workforce and that it could eliminate certain jobs. The use of AI doesn’t come without controversy. Clark acknowledged that some people feel AI is unsustainable, while others believe students need to know how to use AI before they graduate to stay ahead. “We need to help faculty understand how to teach in the age of AI. They used to teach and then grade students’ writing, but now this tool can write assignments for them. Faculty must figure out how to teach differently so AI can assist, but not do,” she said. “I feel like it would be irresponsible for SMWC not to train students to understand and ethically use AI because they will be behind how the world is moving forward.” Students are already getting experience with AI research. For more than a year, Rob Vandermolen, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics, and John Davis, Ph.D., lecturer of science and math, have been working with biology and computer science students to design artificial intelligence that can identify bacteria by securing a camera to a microscope. The goal is to enable rapid identification in hospitals, where staff now must send a swab away for expensive, 24-hour testing. With the help of a planning grant, SMWC has determined that the implementation grant will focus on three main areas: staff operations, specifically in admissions, equine studies/ pre-veterinary and nursing. STAFF OPERATIONS In late February and early March, the Office of Admissions began utilizing the AI component in the college’s CRM to help detect fraud. The tool can scrape information from an application and do identity verifications, which are very labor

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