The Human Side of AI: Leading with Purpose in Modern Higher Education

Thom: "So much of it is shaped even before we think that we're in leadership positions. What are the situations we were put into growing up as children, getting into different spaces or invitations where we got access to other leaders."

Thom: "What I saw at the time and didn't necessarily have a term for it would have been what we would very commonly call servant leadership. Always in that space of putting the others that you're working with, you're leading, being led by, kind of in a position ahead of you or equal to you."

Thom: "In the case of distance running, they ran alongside us. So it's like, hey, they're willing to do the same work I'm willing to do. Then later in life you realize that's a part of kind of who you are."

Thom: "A form of altruism. Always understanding things are much bigger than your own. The person in front of you is the most important person in the room, not you, regardless of what your title or position might be."

Sathish: You've seen higher education for over 30 years. What has changed?

Thom: "Having been on a college campus for 40-some consecutive years starting as a student in 1984 to present, a lot has changed."

Thom: "Back in the '80s where I was growing up and coming out straight out of high school, there was just an expectation that everyone would participate as much as possible in some kind of postsecondary education. Something beyond high school was going to be of value, from apprenticeships, certificates, associates degrees, bachelor's degrees, all the way up to terminal degrees, professional degrees."

Thom: "I am one of those people who's in that space where I remember the analog world of higher ed and I'm now fully immersed in and continuing to learn from and lead in the digital world."

Sathish: How do today's students make decisions? How do they see the value of education differently?

Thom: "No two alike are making decisions the same way."

Thom: "What is the program that you have, what are the courses, what is the content, how is it going to be delivered. Ever more so the focus on cost, what will it cost me, and the expectation that they can see that really transparently. And then the career piece. What does it get me? What do I get out of it? Is there something at the end of that?"

Thom: "We used to proclaim as higher ed institutions, this is the way it's going to be. You're going to do this number of credits to get this type of degree in this amount of time. Here's when things are offered. Here's how they are offered. We see more of the student voice and perspective in that nowadays."

Sathish: What's your personal perspective on AI in higher education? Do you see it as risk or opportunity?

Thom: "I think it's all the things. I think we're in chapter one or the preface of the book that will be written about AI and higher ed."

Thom: "Will a therapist be replaced? I like to think of it as, will their work be amplified? Can AI amplify the relational work that we do rather than simulate it? How can it support rather than take the place of?"

Thom: "If I'm not trying to plot into my schedule where am I going to catch up on all of my notes versus enough time to check and review the summaries or the notes that come from an AI tool, I can actually spend more time doing therapy, providing counseling, really developing the relationship that's needed there for healthy outcomes."

Thom: "AI helps us prepare for the human interactions that help us connect."

Sathish: What about someone at the start of their career who goes straight to AI? Is there a risk factor?

Thom: "Absolutely."

Thom: "Someone just coming in looking for ways to be effective, to be counted on as an employee, could very well look at using AI as a shortcut, as something to replace. And the risk in that is more than what we call AI slop."

Thom: "What we did for many, many years and still do is talk about doing research. Make sure to properly cite and attribute and know where your sources come from. Are those good sources for research? Are we using those same skill sets, that same kind of thinking in applying AI to the work that we do, so we don't just lean into it, adopt it, and not think about the ethics, moral issues, and even legalities thereof?"

Sathish: Do you think students are getting overwhelmed with all these tools?

Thom: "I think it's very easy to get overwhelmed, especially with the proliferation of tools right now."

Thom: "I remember when the explosion of apps occurred. In the higher ed space everybody was creating their own institutional app for a while, and then realizing that over a period of time most people drifted back and just wanted a really good website that performed well on mobile and on a screen."

Thom: "My general advice is don't get overwhelmed by the noise, but be curious and go in and work with one or two. See what works for you."

Thom: "Narrow the focus and get good at one or two things. Come to understand it, hone it, give it some time, and you'll see where your comfort zone is. And you also may along the way come to believe in your own skill sets, your own critical thinking, your ability to make judgments."

Sathish: What does leading with purpose mean in an AI-driven world?

Thom: "If I'm able to sit with my colleagues, my leadership team, our faculty at the college, and talk about my experiences, here's what I'm seeing, here's what I'm paying attention to, what I'm learning. That's a first level of relationship and I think trust in the work."

Thom: "It's twofold. Authentic engagement, being involved, taking part in the learning. But then really getting the full scope at my own college of what are our interactions, how are we engaged or not engaged in the use of AI, and what does that mean for policy and practice and process at our own campus."

Sathish: Do you think universities are preparing students well for this new reality?

Thom: "I think it's a very mixed answer."

Thom: "If there's a changing regulatory environment at the same time as there's a wildly evolving IT landscape in the case of AI, it's hard to do both, especially with the staff that you have, the faculty that you have, the limited resources that you have."

Sathish: What kind of students or leaders will succeed in the next five to ten years?

Thom: "Those that continue in the widest sense to be lifelong learners."

Thom: "It's kind of like those who shunned Microsoft Office suite a long time ago and just said, 'No, I'd rather just continue to do things handwritten.' Well, the opportunities really dropped when everybody needed to have some familiarity with word processing tools."

Thom: "The people who remain curious and explore and experiment I think are going to be in a better and more adaptable and flexible position with the work that they get to do."

Sathish: Do you think websites will still matter for enrollment, or will students use tools like ChatGPT and Claude to decide?

Thom: "We're already seeing it."

Thom: "We have probably scaled about 75% of prior pages away from that migration. We're paying attention both to search engine optimization and AI optimization."

Thom: "Do you want to start texting with someone? We can do that. Do you want to get in an email with us? You can do that. Do you want to visit campus physically or do a virtual tour from wherever you are? We can do that. Do you want a phone call? We can do that."

Thom: "Some of them are using it to find, paradoxically, what's real. Our education is very experiential, very relational. I can use AI to find a very experiential, relational graduate program in therapy or counseling and have Southwestern come up for that."

Sathish: Do you think AI can help track student progress and predict dropouts?

Thom: "It's already available and I think being adapted."

Thom: "How do we crawl across student data and maybe see some alerts that see someone's falling behind in a certain way? And that triggers an outreach from a course navigator, a mentor, someone in the advising department."

Thom: "It's imperfect, and we would expect that. Just like AI is imperfect in diagnosing radiological scans, it's also going to be imperfect for early alerts."

Thom: "If they've said we are high-touch, we are human, and they start using some of these tools, they're going to need to be able to articulate how they're using those, why they're using those, so that they don't come off as being inauthentic."

Sathish: What risks or compliance issues should universities watch for?

Thom: "One of the most obvious risks is, are they really clear in the way in which they're communicating the way they're using student data?"

Thom: "A student should not be surprised if a faculty member says it appears that you may have used artificial intelligence to help you write 55% of this paper. And that's the first time a student is learning that those tools are being used to check their work. It should never be the first time."

Thom: "In some cases, individual decisions are being made. Let's try this, let's use this. But who should know when those adoptions are being made, when those decisions are being made, is a critical component."

Sathish: What do universities still overcomplicate?

Thom: "Right now in many, many institutions that's a very manual process. How helpful would it be to use AI to look at some of that same information and create some scenarios?"

Thom: "The same way that professional sporting organizations run multiple sets of how to book the schedule. That's based on a whole lot of logistics, locations, travel, scheduling conflicts. Do the same thing in higher ed. Really look at our student data. Look at where students are progressing. And run some scenarios in minutes that could take hours for someone who's focused on trying to do that scheduling in a manual way."

Thom: "The financial aid process, I think a lot of people would celebrate if we could streamline that. Make it smoother to gather the information. Can we more quickly begin to package and make offers of aid, grants and aid, loans, all the different types of aid that might be available to a student so they can make their decisions more thoughtfully and have more time to decide amongst institutions?"

Thom: "None of that's excluding human participation or things like shared governance. It's really just some efficiencies, back work, a lot of back work."

Sathish: One piece of advice for leaders navigating this change?

Thom: "Stay really curious and open. Reading and exploring and experimenting widely. And don't be overwhelmed by all that's out there."

Thom: "In a manageable kind of way, be paying attention. Rather than assuming it, pay attention to it, and not be surprised by it. Because in my role, and I think many of our roles, people are going to come to you and expect you to know something."

Thom: "Get in with your colleagues at all levels. In the business office, those that are teaching in the faculty. Talk to your people in operations, grounds crew and other spaces. You might be surprised. People that are taking care of our landscaping, for example, are using AI tools to help determine, in combination with weather forecasts, when to water, when not to water, when to anticipate we'll be doing water collection. It's Santa Fe after all."