AI in Higher Education

Curriculum design

In 2016, with Jon Chun, I co-founded the AI CoLab at Kenyon College (originally named the KDH Lab, renamed AI CoLab) and co-developed the world's first human-centered AI curriculum at an undergraduate institution. The curriculum predates the institutional vocabulary of “human-centered AI” that emerged with Stanford HAI (2019) and Berkeley CHAI (2016) by treating undergraduates — not just graduate engineers or industry practitioners — as the audience for whom human-centered AI education needed to be built.

The curricular framework is articulated in:

• “Crisis of AI / AI Digital Humanities” (Chun and Elkins, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 17.2, 2023) — names the framework that AI should be reimagined as a companion to humanistic inquiry, enhancing the process of asking questions rather than merely delivering answers.

The curriculum runs at Kenyon as the Integrated Program in Humane Studies (IPHS) AI course sequence, which I direct. Student research from the program has been downloaded over 95,000 times by 4,000+ institutions worldwide.

What LLMs do to the university

• “A(I) University in Ruins: What Remains in a World with Large Language Models?” (Elkins, PMLA 139.3, May 2024) — argues that large language models constitute a structural challenge to the university as an institution, not merely to specific pedagogical practices. Cross-listed with Mind.

Institutional engagement and commissioned work

• Bloomberg AI Strategy course (developed and delivered)
• OpenAI Higher Education Forum, Education Guild selected speaker (October 2025)
• Chronicle of Higher Education Virtual Forum, invited speaker (June 2025)
• Carleton College Day of Digital Humanities, “Human-Centered AI: High-Impact Change from the Classroom to the Lab” (keynote, 2024)

Recognition for this work

NEH Distinguished Teaching Professorship for curriculum innovation. Kenyon Senior Trustee Teaching Award. See also Recognition.