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GSD Episode 7: Dr. Khendum Gyabak
15 Plays1 day ago
The GSD crew has a wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Khendum Gyabak, Senior Director for Teaching and Learning Excellence at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). We explore the unique challenges and opportunities that the College is encountering as it serves a world-wide learner population. Plus, we talk about how MCAD is wrestling with the use of AI in an arts curriculum.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Getting Stuff Done in Higher Ed. I'm Fritz Vandover and I'm joined as always by Kelvin Bentley and Kevin Schreiner. Kevin's wearing a Cubs little logo, so I will be ignoring him and be slightly mean today.
Senior Director Role at MCAT
00:00:37
Speaker
um So today we're joined by Dr. Kendem Ghebock, who's a friend of mine and a former colleague, but still a friend forever after experiencing COVID in higher ed together.
00:00:49
Speaker
So ah we're so thrilled to have you, Kendem, today to talk about your role in higher ed, where you are, what you're doing, your path, um and all the things that we'll get into so welcome and uh let's let's get going so um tell us where you are right now and the role you're in and then we'll just organically start to throw some questions around and and let it go yeah thanks fritz kevin and kelvin for you know inviting me as your second guest speaker
00:01:23
Speaker
um So at MCAT, i'm I work as a senior director for the Department of Teaching and Learning Excellence. It's housed under the area of academic affairs, we're a small arts and design college.
00:01:33
Speaker
And at MCAT, my work has largely been in the area of kind of like moving past the dichotomy of like this online versus in-person, you know, these distinctions have largely dissolved, right, since the pandemic.
00:01:49
Speaker
and really engaging faculty with you know dialogues and topics that matter to
Toolkit Approach for Faculty Engagement
00:01:55
Speaker
them. So for example, at MCAT, a large population of our faculty are adjunct faculty. So it's been very challenging to even engage with them.
00:02:03
Speaker
How do we engage with them? How do we incentivize them? So in my department, instead of thinking about training as a cohort based model, as we generally do, right? When you think about like online trainings,
00:02:15
Speaker
um we started building um toolkits and think about toolkits as like this mini lesson pact. You can kind of like go in and like build your own lesson, do your own kind of, so you kind of like build like mini competencies and then there's something for you to practice in your Canvas course. and i think the one of the benefits right of the pandemic is you know somehow everyone has pretty much come up to speed with being able to use a learning management system,
00:02:46
Speaker
or the ability to you know navigate with some digital tool you know to teach online, right or like facilitate virtual learning, whatever that means. right But there's some understanding based on you know where we were before.
00:03:03
Speaker
So I think in our roles, that's what we've been more effective at is you know listening in. I sit you know in my own role, I'm able, and I think also the ability of being a smaller college, um you know, there's more access to be able to sit in on variety of ah committees, right? I'm part of the curriculum committee. I'm part of the academic cabinet committee where I listen in, you know,
00:03:31
Speaker
to the needs from department chairs, program directors, the registrar's office, from the director of the learning center, from people from student affairs, right?
00:03:44
Speaker
So I think in my role, it's, I think a lot of like listening in and then bringing it back to my team and being like, okay, this is a teaching and learning problem. This is seems to be a mental health issue, but then let's turn it into a little
Pathway Programming and Professional Development
00:03:58
Speaker
toolkit. Let's do a little bit of like, almost like education programming, but then like, how do you kind of infuse and diffuse some of these ideas, right?
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah. um So with faculty, that's been ah very effective doing this toolkit centered way of working addressing their professional development needs.
00:04:19
Speaker
um Kendall, I'm sorry. So before we go too much further down, can you just describe your college? Like you said you're small, like what what's your size? Just so people kind of have an idea of like the type of environment that you're referring to.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's a small arts and design college. So it's about 800 undergraduate students, right? We have about five graduate programs, online programs, but we are very robust students.
00:04:49
Speaker
online programs. um And this was even prior to the pandemic, where there were number of, we have a master's in creative leadership, we have a master's in sustainable design program, and all of these programs are run fully online. Faculty are from all over the world, all over, I'm saying the United States, we have students from all over.
00:05:10
Speaker
And so it's how do we still sustain learning in these programs, innovate these programs, right? And also provide the level of professional development for these faculty who do feel a level of disenfranchisement ah because you're not part of the faculty body, right? But you still need some level of training.
00:05:31
Speaker
um So there's a little bit of...
00:05:36
Speaker
ah Those are some of the gaps that I have seen when I went working at MGAT in terms of like, how do we address faculty development? um And another thing that we just flushed out this fall is a pathway programming. So it's these certificate courses.
00:05:54
Speaker
to incentivize faculty to, so instead of, because, hey, money is low, right? We can't pay people anymore. I think in every institution you go, gone are the days of like paying someone $5,000 to, you know, build an online course, right?
00:06:08
Speaker
And so now we're thinking about like, well, how do we kind of like flip it and be like, well, you're constantly learning. And I think that's what our department is also trying to in a way emulate the culture of appreciating teaching as a practice, right?
00:06:25
Speaker
As a continuous practice. And so when we do that, how do we kind of, then you kind of shift and you see your own personal development as, well, I'm not going to be taking this class because I'm getting paid, but I'm doing it
Understanding Student Profiles at MCAT
00:06:40
Speaker
for my own learning. So our pathways program that we just piloted this fall is the neurodiversity in higher education.
00:06:49
Speaker
and the intention is to slowly spark an interest, but also build an awareness in cultivating neuro-inclusive teaching in our campus.
00:07:01
Speaker
And this was kind of, ah in a way, pushed because in our in our own college strategic plan, radical accessibility is one of like the main goals of you know what what the college wants to be.
00:07:20
Speaker
And so you know in our own department, we're like, well, what does that mean right as an arts and science college? um So I think some of the conversations that we do have is like by bringing awareness of like neurodiversity, inclusive teaching and learning, universal design for learning methods, and saying the list goes on and on, but essentially like frameworks built on the pedagogy of care.
00:07:46
Speaker
This is really interesting, Ken, in that you have this you have this juxtaposition of small scale and large scale. If a small student population, smaller than so many institutions in the U S you said about 800 undergraduate students.
00:08:03
Speaker
I'm assuming there's not 800 graduate students, but never know. I mean, i don't know what your head count is totally, but then you have this giant population of other instructors who are in the U S or beyond teaching the program. So you have this, not many places have that kind of challenge, usually small scale equals small scale staff and, and students, and you can create relationships. So how do you, how are you bridging,
00:08:26
Speaker
at least the on the the large scale side, on the on the faculty and instructor side, how do you, because one of my questions is gonna be is, you know a smaller institution, how much technology do you use to interact with people? But it now i I think I've answered my own question. you You have this giant scale to deal with. So tell me tell us how you're bridging that um to to make connections and move forward with this huge population of instructors.
00:08:53
Speaker
You mean to say, how do we engage these groups of instructors with their learning? Learning and just, you know, like you said, how do you incentivize and and you have your, you lead a team of instructional designers and others.
00:09:08
Speaker
And how big is your team? So we are against small scale, right? So I have a instructional consultant. have a learning designer and then a assistant director who does e tech, like all of the ed tech, like someone who will be all the canvas learning management.
00:09:25
Speaker
But essentially we work more like a team. So we'll have projects. So if you think about like initiatives in our department, like what does that look like, right? So we do course development and support.
00:09:36
Speaker
So we still do like the general online course development. A number of courses are still converting into online courses. There's interest to develop new online courses too. So we continuously support that, I'm saying that market, right?
00:09:52
Speaker
And now there's also this growing market of certificate courses. So like the cer certificate programming is a booming market. And so we are seeing um And so what does that mean for our department is we're building a lot of resources centered around like adult education.
00:10:07
Speaker
um how do you, you know, I'm saying how do you design a lesson for an adult learner, right? Because there's a lot of cert certificate courses is adult learners are coming and re-upskilling, you know, to make their skill sets relevant for the job market right of today.
Integrating Academic and Student Affairs
00:10:23
Speaker
So it's, again, educating our faculty right on that, like the learner profile. I recently published a toolkit. Again, another think about a toolkit as a newsletter, and I can email you some of these artifacts that we have from our department.
00:10:40
Speaker
um But essentially, it's just this summarized, less academic sounding, ah
00:10:50
Speaker
artifact, right? But essentially the toolkit was like showing up in the in class and it was like a self reflection that invites faculty to be like, well, how do we talk about our learner? Our learner is not a monolith right there.
00:11:04
Speaker
know, so I open up our whole MCAD student population and we look at up our student population. 50% of them are Bell Grant recipients. So let's look up Bell Grant recipients are right.
00:11:16
Speaker
And as we talk about and we disaggregate, right? our student profile, we learn that our needs, the backgrounds of our students are completely misaligned with their needs.
00:11:28
Speaker
and Then suddenly there's a deeper, also there's an empathic understanding that's also then built for the instructor right to see that, hey, my this learner is not just like this learner, the student.
00:11:40
Speaker
and I think this is what um my passion has always been when it comes to like oh with the faculty or but when we use this word the teacher, right? Well, who is this teacher, right? Like let's personalize it, let's humanize that person, right?
00:11:58
Speaker
or when we say the staff, right? I think like the losers, when we kind of use and box people in these frames. And so like even the students, so I think like when we kind of like really deconstruct some of these ideas, then there's also some level of empathy that's built in to the process process of lesson design, or also then in the selection of and various education technologies, right, for the learning.
00:12:23
Speaker
So can kind can you talk a little bit about how you're doing, like when you said 50% of your students are Pell Grant, like I just went like, yeah, that's, ah that's interesting you have 800 students, I mean, 800 students, 400 of them are Pell Grant, which probably means they're also first gen by and large, maybe. Correct.
00:12:44
Speaker
and so with your toolkits, because I'm just really intrigued by this because it's like a very strong background of mine as well as thinking about underrepresented students in higher ed. Yes. Yeah. How? How? Because it's it's an alignment between academic affairs and student affairs a little bit.
00:13:00
Speaker
So we are all in tandem. Yeah. So that that's the thing. Like, see, all of these. Higher education issues cannot be resolved in a silo, right? That's why it requires us to kind of like work in teams.
00:13:14
Speaker
And I think it's just problem solving, right? With just like new problems that our society has.
Dr. Kendem's Professional Journey
00:13:20
Speaker
And every time there'll be new problems, right? It's just the way... life course So going back to your, let's reiterate your question. What did you just ask? Yeah, so I'm just kind of interested in how you're blending really the academic affairs through instructional design and student affairs into what ah I just think about higher ed in general. yeah ah so Those are siloed worlds. where Absolutely. So I'll give you a good example of what's happening at MCAD.
00:13:53
Speaker
So at MCAD, we have a foundations program that's run. And so in the foundations program two years ago, we introduced a first year experience ah It's a one credit course. And again, it's just based off the high impact learning practices by George Cruz. Right. And i think it's highly informed a number of this first year program. I think even at the U, there was one Fritz. I think there's still one.
00:14:16
Speaker
Right. ah First year experience, first year writing. Similar kind of programming. So this programming has been super so like helpful in terms of retention first-generation students. as Even like recently, our 10-day stats showed a lot of these efforts point towards the retention, I'm saying, you know and persistence.
00:14:39
Speaker
of these groups of students. right So why? Because um a lot of these resources are esoteric. right I'm saying going to school is a privilege. going I'm saying understanding you know which resources, who to go and talk to, how to advocate for yourself. right like i ah Before I well was in MCAT, I was back at ah the u actually running as a director for the Multicultural Center, kind of working with starkly marginalized groups, that and essentially lot of topics around this. And it's the same issues, right? It's students, they don't know the resources because it was not given to them. And the other thing is most of them, it's not in our cultures also to advocate for yourselves, right? To ask the questions.
00:15:27
Speaker
And so um in the first year experience courses, there are lessons that, specifically designed to make the student aware of campus resources.
00:15:37
Speaker
Where our department comes in is we build a lot of learner guides. We work with student affairs. we work with the learning center. We work with the counselors, you know. So we listen in and we kind of look, kind you know, that kind of like capture what are some of the students needs? What are the pressure points? Right.
00:15:58
Speaker
And then we try to address this in the toolkits and try to make it like bite size, you know, so it's easy for them faculty to be able to because for them, it's like, tell me what to do. Right. A student's having a mental event in the class.
00:16:11
Speaker
Tell me what to do. uh three-part list well these are three and when you i think when you prepare people what to do then he eventually slowly slowly you and i think awareness right and then slowly then you get into a culture inclusive teaching so i want to pause for a second kindne and ask um
00:16:32
Speaker
what was What brought you here? you know that's you You have Entree and you've created Entree into a lot of spaces from your role and where you are MCAD.
00:16:44
Speaker
And it's fascinating to me. you know and And I think people who are in their careers and wanting to broaden them or where they, you know their impact, you have a you have a high impact role. You're a...
00:16:56
Speaker
faculty affairs, you're you everywhere it seems. um And so what did you assemble, kind of skills and expertise did you assemble to get to where you are?
00:17:14
Speaker
That's a really good question. Well, I think I've been lucky in terms of um
00:17:26
Speaker
being able to meet, and I think this harkens back to, I think that Angela Duckworth's book, Grit,
Equity and Justice in Education
00:17:36
Speaker
right? Is it's like sometimes you just end up meeting certain people in your lives that maybe provide certain insight, a certain access you know to talk to this or, you know,
00:17:49
Speaker
don't jump off the cliff. Like, you know, you can still finish your PhD. Like I'm like so many times I wanted to like quit grad school. right and like You always have, and I can name so many people, right? Like in my life, right? Like who've kind of helped me, right? Get there. So I think having a very strong resilience network is key.
00:18:11
Speaker
um I think being able to cultivate a sense of humility in your own thinking in terms of like um
00:18:25
Speaker
the ability to accept
00:18:31
Speaker
except You know, that like you don't know everything, you know, and then the curiosity to learn and the willingness to kind of listen to ideas that might be uncomfortable. Right. And I think that is a skill probably that I kind of started getting good at was because I even in my own graduate research work I had to work with tribal populations in Papua New Guinea negotiating for female teachers to get access to do design workshops.
00:19:08
Speaker
You know doing a lot of like gender-based ah violence work in Nepal designing curriculum So I'm sorry, like you've like that, just like you just went like in a totally different direction with the things that you're doing or have done.
00:19:26
Speaker
How did you get into how did you get. Into into that. To begin with my my ah my Ph.D. was ah I would say the ethos of my work has always been interested in working with marginalized groups.
00:19:45
Speaker
and um And even in your PhDs in instructional systems, if I'm remembering correctly, but you focused it in there, you grounded it in that. So even my master's thesis, I remember, not I remember, i worked with like the digital divide, working with bringing digital storytelling into like rural schools in Bhutan.
00:20:07
Speaker
So I've always been interested in ideas of equity and understanding justice.
AI's Role in Art Education
00:20:14
Speaker
in that lens and more so in kind of operationalizing that in the area of now education.
00:20:22
Speaker
um So how do I do that? I think now, like I think I use a lot of like my knowledge from my own graduate school. I'm deeply interested in neuroscience and you know cognitive psychology. So I bring a lot of like some of that understanding in my own you know practice um But yeah, I think that's what drives me in terms of like my passion. And I think it harkens back to like, well, what interests you, right? And I think that's what interests me and like what keeps me motivated and interested to also work at MCAT is the
00:21:00
Speaker
the people the people deeply care about working at MCAT. And I've never seen this in any other institution. And I think it's because everyone who works there is an artist or a creative.
00:21:14
Speaker
Like in my department, my assistant director is a comic um as yeah and he's a very good comic artist. Then my consultant, she she's a illustrator. So like everyone has and she sews.
00:21:32
Speaker
So everyone has the creative space. And i mean if you if you're living in the Twin Cities, if you ever come to the Twin Cities, please come to MCAT, visit us. It's a beautiful campus with art everywhere.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's isn't it connected directly physically to the in this Minneapolis Institute of Art? which Yeah, it's also six we connected to the MIA. And so it's just simmering ground of like critical like criticality and like...
00:22:00
Speaker
creativity and I, you know, i'm I think that's what we need, right? Like going back to like, so now but another thing that we are doing a little bit more carefully is intentionally thinking about education programming related to Gen AI.
00:22:16
Speaker
So as you can see, a lot of institutions either jumping deep dive, right? um like drinking the Kool-Aid or not drinking the Kool-Aid. And i um I think also in a space of, I don't really think it's a to be or not to be.
00:22:33
Speaker
i think it's more of a space of like knowing what AI is. And for art artists and designers, I think there is an there is an urgency you know to do AI literacy, but do AI literacy in their terms.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's an ethics component. Absolutely. There's an ethical component. There's a moral component. And they' like I'm saying, if you think about creativity, and as ah creative or a designer, like the creative process involves a primary generator, right?
00:23:07
Speaker
And a lot of artists these days, if you're only utilizing Gen. AI to generate your art, you're not going to be innovating or you're not be going to be creating things or developing your own unique form.
00:23:20
Speaker
Right? Yeah. So it's taking, you're taking a cook down version of every other form. Yeah, it's so absurd. So I think there's also this level of surgedity. ah But I think there's also this need for like agentic awareness.
00:23:37
Speaker
that is needed for artists and designers and because there's also this resistance. So it's very challenging at MCAT right now because there is this cultural resistance, like we don't want to use AI, right? Because we are an artist.
00:23:51
Speaker
So there there is this direct cultural resistance, but then on our end, right? Like as educators, there's also this, ethical obligation to do AI literacy because it is a disruptive technology, right?
Ethics of AI in Art
00:24:07
Speaker
And it is going to change everyone's lives.
00:24:10
Speaker
We just don't know how. right So this is really interesting because to me, you know, I'm I bring a critical lens, a lot of things. And even though I've worked in like most of us here, all of us here, we've worked in academic technologies one way or another for decades. um But, i you know, ah to me, Gen AI and AI in general, you can't, and I've said this in other episodes, I think, to me, I don't know how you use a tool like that to ah bypass knowledge and expertise.
00:24:49
Speaker
Because if you're you're faking it, it's pretty darn clear. Whether you're faking it in your work, it's usually pretty clear. And I know this is different from arts, but writing, synthesizing things. you if And if someone says, okay, I need you to invoke this expertise on whatever, engineering or some feel that you have to have expertise, you know eventually you're going to fall flat and it's going to be bad, whether it's in presentation for your degree or to a job interview, or you somehow get the job and then you're asked to produce and you're held painfully accountable.
00:25:19
Speaker
And in the arts world, i think it seems to be more so, you know, that it's it's all about you have to struggle with creating something in an artistic space. So, you know, to to use it to amplify what you do is one thing.
00:25:37
Speaker
Like, you know, they're the arts have used technology, ah adopted technologies on the way, you know, Photoshop to create things. or But to me, a lot of them, you're still looking at a blank space. You have to, you to,
00:25:49
Speaker
take control of a blank space, a blank sheet of music and you gotta create something or a blank canvas or a blank slab of marble. So to me, like, how do you buy, you can't really easily bypass that. You still have to know how to create something Correct, and I think context matters, right? So they are they are faculty, I would say, and I think it depends on the fields or the creative fields, right?
00:26:16
Speaker
So if you talk about illustration, Gen AI has already been infused. It's been infused for the last decade or so, right? Or AI tools have already been infused, right? If you look at Photoshop, like Firefly, ah number of like these tick, tick, tick, they already have like some AI component, right?
00:26:34
Speaker
um So the reality is, i think no one's saying it, but I don't care. I'm going to say it out loud.
00:26:46
Speaker
I don't think people really know in terms of like quantified fact, how much stuff of yours in terms of ownership is really kind of is there once you kind of like upload your stuff, right?
00:27:03
Speaker
or Or if you get it back and then you're now using it to kind of like generate or like generate your art, like how much of it is then the optimized, optimized. So I think that becomes very messy.
00:27:19
Speaker
yeah And so it I think it can be useful, for example, if the artist is able to very carefully, and I think this is like the level of expertise that you develop, right?
00:27:32
Speaker
So I would not recommend a novice artist, right, in training who has not developed ideas of form, functionality, I'm saying the formal techniques, right?
00:27:42
Speaker
of understanding art to use that because they might, you know, but I think like when you have a little bit of level of like maybe some level of like mid-level, you are able to
AI Literacy in Curriculum
00:27:55
Speaker
understand it, but now you're using it to maybe critique or to see what happens or to, I'm saying, there might be benefits for learning there.
00:28:05
Speaker
and And I think there are some, you know, instructors who who are doing or using it in that kind of space, right, or in that context. But it's it's very messy, right? And I think it really depends who you're asking to, and it's a spectrum of responses, and it's very polarized responses too. So for example, at MGAD, um if you ask someone who's highly entrenched in like a very traditional art discipline,
00:28:36
Speaker
It's a very emotional reaction towards AI about it's bad, right? ah The environment, and then you're not having any dialogue.
00:28:51
Speaker
Okay, and then in the other spectrum, then you have um a field where there are like some level of entrepreneurship, there is some level of creativity going on and they are using, for example, Gen AI to engage with ah native populations in um in a Greenland. you know And then so it also empowers these populations who've never been able to like you know share their languages now, but using AI. right So i'm saying AI can also be used as a tool to empower certain groups. So it's so... Yes.
00:29:27
Speaker
So you know it's like it's... It's how you frame it. I think it's the framing and context. It's very important when we talk about Gen. Right. So in the I think in the area of academic integrity and plagiarism,
00:29:43
Speaker
That level of nuance, I think, should be provided by like academic affairs, what I'm saying, you know, like within the syllabus or because faculty need this. that I think there needs to be some clarity of, you know, what is that, right? And so some level of some kind of policy needs to be provided for, you know, how Gen AI is going to be used in the classroom.
00:30:07
Speaker
But students apparently are students already using
00:30:13
Speaker
yeah So so how how how do you all evaluate? so Like, I just think about software and you're in an online program teaching art.
00:30:26
Speaker
Clearly, there's a lot of I'm developing all this on my own and submitting this as an assignment. But do you are you all evaluating? the software, like you brought a Photoshop, right? And I'm a huge Photoshop person as well, because love to get rid of the people that are that are in my photos and and print ah you know and and and display a nice, clean, yeah here's the shot with nobody with nobody in it, right?
00:30:51
Speaker
But you can take that to extremes. So how how are you thinking? how do how does your team help faculty, so how do you guide those conversations as to what you should be using and how to use that?
00:31:04
Speaker
And the ramifications that, you know, a student potentially could like take a photo, but then enhance it, you know, to where it's not authentic to what, what they did.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yeah, so the beauty is, again, we work at MCAT. So we have like um illustrators and we have a print shop and we have the media center. So the media center essentially has the subscription and licenses for all of our Adobe Photo Suite.
00:31:37
Speaker
So because Adobe Suite, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and because all of our students have a component of illustration as part of like their foundational curriculum, right?
00:31:50
Speaker
It's part of like their the tuition that's baked in. So the media center handles all of like the installations into their MacBook.
00:32:01
Speaker
And every student who comes to MCAT gets um a MacBook. Wow. So a Mac that has all of that installed. So the media center, they they're very good with ah providing student support, faculty support, staff support for the tools.
00:32:16
Speaker
Our department provides the instructional level of support. So let's say if they want to run run a certain level of meeting using these tools, then we provide like directions, like in terms of like pedagogical, you know, resources, for considerations, and any other like conser considerations that they need to have. But generally, it's more of you do it on your own approach, you know, so you'll provide like guides, you know, toolkits that they will go in and be able to
00:32:55
Speaker
how So does MCAT have it an enterprise AI
Fostering Professional Growth Despite Funding Limitations
00:33:03
Speaker
tool? you know So for example, the University of Minnesota just about a month or two ago implemented Gemini across the whole system. So it's, you know,
00:33:11
Speaker
We all have access and we're a Google campus anyway, so it makes sense. But now we all have access. you know It's walled off. there's no we're not training their you know We're not training their model. So it's our own closed ecosystem that passes all the security tests.
00:33:25
Speaker
But because of MCAT as a creative or institution, fostering creativity, the arts, et cetera, design, you all do you all have one? Other than say the things that are built baked into tools like Illustrator and Photoshop and other tools that are licensed, but because I can see how there wouldn't be.
00:33:46
Speaker
no we are very and I think because of that. ah The careful consideration of agentic awareness and the it's very careful. So like even the use of these tools, it's like our graphics design program or it's very specific illustration programs that use these. Right.
00:34:05
Speaker
But then um in general, I would say positioning on Gen. AI. is more neutral and careful in terms of like, let's kind of approach it as like from this literacy place, right, of like criticality, understanding like, you know, your own agency as an artist, addressing all of these um concerns.
00:34:28
Speaker
um like of authorship, right? Like understanding all what authorship looks like, but it's not a full dive. Like let's use Gemini and upload a bunch of our artwork. I don't think that will happen at MCAT.
00:34:44
Speaker
um Is MCAT a very strong and current tradition and current state of faculty governance? So do faculty have a say in this where so it's not It's not a top-down institution where he're saying look, we're going to use a at Gen AI or not in the curriculum, et cetera. that it's There's a faculty government. have faculty senate, yeah. So we have a faculty senate, and ah we liaise some of these ideas in terms of like...
00:35:13
Speaker
I'm saying, I think these are just like collective tensions of questions that most college campuses are probably grappling with, right? It's like to be or not to be, and like some are being and some are not being.
00:35:25
Speaker
But I think like we are in a space of like, we wanna be, but we wanna be in our own terms, right? And I think it's okay to say that. um And so our faculty are also artists, right? So there's a certain cultural resistance towards Gen AI, like as a traditional artist, right?
00:35:47
Speaker
So it's, um I think it'll be a series of conversations. My department is leading some of these initiatives to, I would say, start some of these courageous conversations. Yeah, that's a good one.
00:36:02
Speaker
you know But it's a series of conversations that we are all having. I'm curious myself, right? Is it like, hey, like it's affecting all of our fields. What does it mean for us and you know for students, right?
00:36:14
Speaker
So here's a question I think a lot of higher is grappling with right now. I know we are at the University of Minnesota. How do you and your team ah build expertise, knowledge, competency, so that you can then put that through the lens of your perspective?
00:36:30
Speaker
of your backgrounds, your expertise, your knowledge, and then bring that to the MCAD faculty, instructors, students to help them developer develop their competencies too.
00:36:44
Speaker
So basically, it's like, how do you feed yourself so you can keep feeding? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think we just had that ah that conversation a while back, right? Money is low.
00:36:56
Speaker
Money. Yes. So I think in the area of professional development, same for us. Like, I haven't gone to a professional conference, like, aside from, like, a local one in, like, a very long time, right?
00:37:07
Speaker
But there's definitely, like, I think we've shifted the ways of we're looking at professional development. Like, in my own department, every month we lead... we have a club called the Learning Club. And so every member kind of leads a topic of their own interest.
00:37:23
Speaker
And it's been very successful for a year. We've been doing this. And so that's how some of us, keep I'm saying we keep up with like up and coming topics. And there's also some interest for the individual member to kind of like learn about it, build their own kind of like competency and then teach others.
00:37:42
Speaker
so Last week, for example, Alex, who I mentioned is the artist, he has an MFA, so he was he introduced us to various critique methods.
00:37:53
Speaker
And so we were critiquing a whole art piece and it was so amazing. And I was just kind of like, um so I think, so we do a number of these things. Right. um And um i in my, like, I try to go to like one or two conferences locally, bring back some of that information.
MCAT's Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
00:38:12
Speaker
we have subscriptions to like the Chronicle a number of like these LinkedIn learning spaces. Yeah. Um, I give time for my staff to like, we call it pro back time. So in your own time, I just say like, you know, whatever you want to learn.
00:38:31
Speaker
learn, you know and then come back and like you know tell us you know how you can add. So I think that's how we are making do with our professional development. But I think there's also this understanding that you know no one is holding like the money banks, right like the money bag. like There just isn't that kind of funding as we used to see in higher education, right like at least 10 years.
00:38:55
Speaker
We just started talking about this yesterday in our staff meeting. um I mean, one thing I'm trying to do is find people are really good at using AI in their work, whether it's work like mine or faculty who I know and just sit with them. you know just I just want to look over your shoulder. It's like like list sitting next to a really good musician.
00:39:15
Speaker
i do this sometimes with a pianist who I've known forever. just just say, stop. What was that? harmonically, would you break that down for me? Just to see how, just to see how, how they do what they do and then take that and take the pieces that seem useful and, and try them out in in our own space. And that's, i mean, that's why it's great that we have at the University of Gemini now because people were using chap GPT and this or that, and you don't want to put,
00:39:41
Speaker
sensitive things in those tools, because it's way out in the open or your own work products that you might just you're giving it away. So um that's what I've been trying to do is just sit and watch and listen to that to people who are doing it really well.
00:39:56
Speaker
That's a very good lesson.
00:40:00
Speaker
So
00:40:06
Speaker
gentlemen, I, I talk a lot because And plus Ken and I have known each other a long time, so it's easy to it's easy to check up or check in and talk. um Ken, tell us about, you know, tell us, tell let's get into the stuff. like What do you like to do outside of work? you well I know you do lots of good stuff and you know you're busy with your kids, but what do you do? What you doing these days?
00:40:32
Speaker
So these days, what am I doing? i My term has ended with the Council of Asian Pacific Minnesotans. um Now I'm on the board for a School, it's a charter school in the Twin Cities called the Ocean of Wisdom School.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's a school supported by His Holiness, Dalai Lama. And the whole framework is based on social emotional learning. So it's really kind of infusing the pedagogy of care from like very formative,
00:41:03
Speaker
education. So I'm on the board and I've, a lot of my energy is spent there attending board meetings, helping with grant writing. It's a super new school. So a lot of like, programming related to that. So I've been tied up with that.
00:41:22
Speaker
But that's, I mean, that's, ah
00:41:26
Speaker
that's a lot, but I imagine it allows you to bring so much of your background, what you do now, what you've done and to bear, you get to bring it all to the table.
00:41:38
Speaker
So, yeah, I think a lot of my energy is being a twin mom. ah But overall, I think, yeah, it's a lot of good things happening at MCAT. I think,
00:41:52
Speaker
and you have a new president recently, if I saw well have a wonderful president, Gwendolyn. She just came from the you musician. So someone who's familiar, you know, in the arts. Right. Yeah. um Everyone loves her. She's she's a she's a very, very ah good listener. I think she deeply listens, ah very present with the community.
00:42:14
Speaker
So I've been hearing very good things. I've, I personally also have felt good feelings. Yeah. Yeah. So, and given that you have a new president, what have you, um,
00:42:27
Speaker
Has your president shared their you know priorities or is that just something that you're kind of waiting to learn more about? She has, yeah. She shared a priority like ah the moment he did the first step I met her in one of our Catholic art with our higher cabinet meeting she shared where it's um in line with her predecessor and again, reaffirming that we are campus of care, reaffirming our values of diversity, equity, inclusion, right?
00:43:03
Speaker
And so we we still continue to do, you know, advance some of these ideas, right, or sustain
00:43:12
Speaker
in light of what's happening. ah yeah How is that going? I mean, it's, Minnesota is its own place. yeah and I mean, I live here too, obviously. So, you know, we're in the same metro area, um but we how's it going?
Financial Constraints in Higher Education
00:43:29
Speaker
I mean, do you feel headwinds? Yeah, I think it's actually,
00:43:35
Speaker
I'm liking the bubble, Fritz. like
00:43:39
Speaker
I'm liking the bubble. I don't want to read the news. I'm just joking. So I actually am really, I think like overall the community, it's a community of like inclusive practitioners. People all come from various backgrounds. We have a huge population of neurodivergent learners, trans, right? People who i don't identify.
00:44:02
Speaker
with all of these various identities. So, you know, our institutionally, you know, we we are very supportive of these values. And I think even through the leadership top down to its, there is a strong commitment towards this. For example, I'm on the Anti-Oppression Curriculum Committee, which is still simmering. We just still to continue doing work there. We still have the DEIA Committee.
00:44:28
Speaker
um And I know you have a, institutions in a long time, you have a large alumni base. Yeah. Which I'm no doubt is supportive. But you also i mean, you're situated in the Minneapolis Twin Cities area with there's a huge arts and creative community. It's massive theater, music, arts, visual performing arts. So um you know, you're in the right place for that.
00:44:56
Speaker
There's a lot of support. I agree, especially for artists. I think in terms of every artist that I've met, they say, I think the Twin Cities provides a lot of support in terms of... But i want to ask it I want to ask a question about how much, if at all, is the workforce Pell shift giving you all a tailwind, allowing opportunity for people, students, learners to come and take programming and get credentials from MCAD.
00:45:25
Speaker
you know, to give them the funding to do that. You said you have a very large Pell Grant. Does that add another boost of potential students, current and active? I mean, people are coming because of it. Oh, great. I can, you know, I can get a Pell for this small certificate rather than having to be a bachelor's in love.
00:45:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think, ah not in my role, but I think overall, like the college is conducting market studies, you know, as other institutions looking at, you know, the viability of various programs, innovating various curriculums or continuing to enhance um programs. Also kind of looking at like what the market looks like outside of the U.S. market, right? We haven't tapped into the international market at all, you know, and so you think about Why go at MCAT? We just talked about it earlier, right? MCAT is small and mighty. It's been there for a long time. It has a deep tradition, right? A strong foundation, right?
00:46:25
Speaker
And so like, I think there's a lot of potential there, but again, there's also a bit of a fear, right? In terms of like, fiscally, you know, how can you carry out some of these goals?
AI as Tool and Competitor in Art
00:46:40
Speaker
To do all of this, you need money. And we are strapped as an institution, right, for money. um And I think it also, this is something that's probably happening in higher education in terms of like, we really need to reimagine when we think about like, donorship, because those days of like providing big grants, right? Those days of like, someone writing a check to the chemistry department is gone, you know, like, I- It's a tougher hill to Yeah, don't think those days exist anymore. So I think like the this idea of like, how do you sustain, right?
00:47:25
Speaker
oh An institution right fiscal like I'm saying, how do you sustain but while also like sustaining like the quality of its programs, while not compromising on the quality of its programs right because that's the anxiety and fear that stems like in our own college is while we want to.
00:47:48
Speaker
innovate programs to be relevant, or to make it more relevant for the job market, we're also dismissing programs right that exist and people are losing their jobs right because their classes are not relevant.
00:48:02
Speaker
These adjunct instructors. you know So there's a lot of equity also issues that pop up. right so It's messy, it's complicated, but we still live in interesting times, I think in higher ed, no doubt.
00:48:19
Speaker
yeah
00:48:27
Speaker
What other questions you guys want to get into?
00:48:31
Speaker
i mean, I find, like mean, I think as an online program, the the opportunity expand internationally, i think, is just interesting prime from where you sit and that that's a challenge versus maybe more of a strategic priority to try to figure that out faster.
00:48:52
Speaker
um And then earlier, for some reason, i was on mute and you were talking about your graduates being successful, but also
00:49:00
Speaker
what's happening in this space. and um And I made the comment to myself, um everybody's also using AI and they're competing against your graduates in this space. And so now it's almost, mean, literally I created a cartoon character of the three of us through through AI, right? Like using our photos and said, hey, make a cartoon. And it did it.
00:49:19
Speaker
Not great, but it did it. but But you have that. So now you have, and I think probably, many of your students in your programs are probably getting hit more with AI being able to generate cartoons and movies and a lot of the things.
00:49:39
Speaker
But at the same time, they could also be learning how to use AI to do that in their career as well. right like there's a there's a There's a positive and there's a negative to that. If I'm the self-funded artist,
00:49:51
Speaker
and I want to do my drawings and i want to sell my drawings. I'm competing with somebody who may be doing it the other way. So I think that's a good point. And I think like the utility of the AI use should be considered, right? So if you are a student who's going into art school, the purpose of your art education is to kind of like build on your artistic identity right which means you need to kind of really build on all of these skill sets so there is the very limited ways for you to kind of build on your artistic identity if you're in this regurgitation loop right like for example like you're using this cartoon you're not really delving because
00:50:40
Speaker
In the creative process, right? The creative process, every innovation, you look at, there's this pure ambivalence, right? And messiness that provides that insight, right? Yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah. And that's what talking about before. You have to have to wrestle with it and and anything, you know. Anything. To be a good writer, to do research, you know, the quantitative, qualitative research we had all have done and have to struggle with it.
00:51:06
Speaker
I remember Archimedes when he was in that ah bathtub.
00:51:11
Speaker
And he sat down and displaced the water and oh my God. yeah but bring I think that's a miss with when you have this ease of, for example, right? I think this is where I was reading this article a while back where, you know, the M dash.
00:51:28
Speaker
Because now, you know, now the writing is just so like nice, right? That I actually find it like refreshing reading like wrong spelling or, you know, like like mishmash words because, you know, like someone actually like wrote it and was attend like was attentive rather than this long gobbledy prose,
AI's Future in Higher Education
00:51:52
Speaker
right? Of the same thing.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. okay So I think it's what you want, right? And I think as society, this is ah this is also like a reflection of our society, right? It's kind of like we were postmodern, like maybe 10 years ago. Now it's like post, post, postmodern. Like it's like absurdity.
00:52:11
Speaker
Like look at Sora, like this deep fake videos. And now the effects of that, like I can't even imagine. I don't even want to get into that space. But it's it's interesting, I would say.
00:52:28
Speaker
Yeah. Well, maybe that's a good, a good spot to pause.
00:52:37
Speaker
i mean, is there, is there anything else you would want to get to kind of that you would like to talk about with amongst it? We're for higher ed insiders. Well, how are y'all, I guess I'm curious to learn how are y'all approaching, I'm saying AI literacy,
00:52:54
Speaker
And some of these issues centering, let's say, ethics, integrity, academic integrity, right? And also, like, because the tool is so disruptive, the technology, as like in your own roles, how are you also doing the educating, right? Because it's so like changing. Educating of ourselves or people? Of ourselves, of the people that you have be doing, right? Yeah.
00:53:20
Speaker
That's what we are finding challenging in our own areas. It's like, wow, there's it's just like...
00:53:28
Speaker
Well, you know, within the University of Texas system, i think the campuses, yeah, are grappling with all of that. um Some campuses, though, are actually developing, you know, professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to just learn more about what AI is and and to cover these bigger topics around the ethical use of it.
00:53:52
Speaker
um I know at the system level, we're also kind of struggling with Like right now, you know, we are being told not to, as Fritz mentioned earlier, not to use other, like to use ChatGPT for something super sensitive, right?
00:54:09
Speaker
So, you know, we're kind of being corralled to use because we're more of a Microsoft shop, you know, using, you know, the tools there, you know, within Microsoft's co-pilot, right?
00:54:25
Speaker
But but you know I just got invited to a pilot where you know I'll be able to actually like use some of the more advanced features, like test those out. And so so I think we are we' we're definitely not putting our head in the sand, but I think we are kind of treading cautiously ah so that we can share out with each other what's working, you know, what's not working with some of the tools that we're using.
00:54:51
Speaker
So, yeah, there's similar things with the University of Minnesota. And part of it is that the speed of AI, its development, its diffusion bumped into or slammed into whatever you want to call it, the normal rhythm of the University of Minnesota. So we recently, we have a newish president, as I like to say, we have a brand new provost who started the summer. And we just yesterday, ah put out the the framework for the strategic plan that's being that has been under development for quite a while now, since the president arrived, and the other one was done in 2025. So no one has really wanted to push the really put the pedal down on AI,
00:55:32
Speaker
developing a competencies around the adversity, because what if so when one of these new people arrived, when the strategic plan totally shifted where it was going. So there's been a treading, treading and water and wait, a wait, I think a reasonable wait and see, because we want to, but you know, we want to march forward with,
00:55:51
Speaker
with purpose ah that and aligns with the strategic plan that just came out. So um now that we have that, now that we've just implemented Gemini, mean, so the things we're doing is since I since i manage our Coursera a relationship with the university, we have some Gemini and... i and and the, you know, Google Gemini AI essentials learning materials in there that we have access to. So are the units that do staff and faculty development, they're going to, they're figuring out how to deploy this to the, to the, to the masses at the university. So there will be those efforts, but it's just, we had to, we had to check a couple of, get through a couple of gates first, but now I think we're going to start moving forward with that because ah we really need to.
00:56:42
Speaker
We're just wait and learn. I mean, i mean it's it's it's the same. I don't think there's a direct path to where we're going with AI, but I also don't think we're resistant to it. I think it's just, we've all got to figure out how it fits into all of our different places.
00:56:58
Speaker
Especially, don't like. Academically, I think is the biggest challenge. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, for me, I would rather see AI How can we use AI in student success? How can we use AI in our marketing recruiting? How can we use... And and when i me for me, more chat bots probably, or more just predictive analysis, things that will help us do things better, I'm less concerned about whether or not somebody...
00:57:26
Speaker
didn't write their paper. True, true, true. There's different utilities. That can happen anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Yeah, there's different utilities for this, for the tool, absolutely.
00:57:38
Speaker
So, Fritz, going back to your, like, with the you do you think, like, overall, in general, um
00:57:46
Speaker
the people felt a lot more confidence with, like, doing AI literacy, like, after there was, like, a strong positioning on, like, On Gemini?
00:57:57
Speaker
and And through your strategic plan, you mentioned about strategic plan. As it relates to AI, I don't know yet. I mean, a lot of for our office, a lot of the, what we've been looking for is signals and we've been part of the process too, is what's, what does this mean for us and where we're going with online and distributed programs? How, how will we be involved or what's the plan essentially? Where are we going? Where's that horizon? So then now we can figure out how we, we get to that destination. So um But I have all the confidence that there are people thinking about this from an AI perspective. But honestly, I haven't been, it's not really the, it's not my bailiwick, so I don't dig into it all the time. I just want to use it really well in what I do to amplify yeah and speed up effectively what I do.
00:58:42
Speaker
So I can actually, it scales me. I want to scale me and ah we want to scale our office without having to grow our FTE a bunch to get there. Yeah, I totally, yeah. I second, I'm saying all of those are useful, right? like Like a little assistant, mini assistant that you can check, but it's not checking for you. you Yeah. You check in, right?
00:59:02
Speaker
Well,
00:59:07
Speaker
I think this is a natural place for us to to leave it. You know, the big question of what's AI going to do to our world of higher education and our roles? So, Kendam, thank you so much for joining us. It's ah it's great to see you.
00:59:21
Speaker
I owe you a visit at MCAD and we we need to go to Eat Street sometime. Oh yeah, absolutely. Come to so check out some art. Yeah, I would love that. So thank you again. Have a great weekend and all the best.
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. Nice to talk to you, Gavin. elvin Yeah. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.