May 11-15, 2026 , 11:45am-1:00pm
Daggett Lounge, Thorne Dining Hall (*Thursday is in Main Lounge, Moulton)
Lunch is provided
Monday, May 11
- Improve Your Research Impact in 30 Minutes with Kate Wing
So many factors contribute to the impact of your research, and some of them you can control yourself! This 15 minute session will walk you through simple steps you can take to improve the visibility of your research and of yourself as a researcher. They are all little things, and you probably already know all of them — you just haven’t carved out the time to actually do them. This session compiles all of those small but impactful tasks into one actionable resourceso you can work through them on your own time.
- Improve Your Powerpoint Presentations in 30 minutes with Juli Haugen and Katy Stern
In just 30 minutes, learn how to turn crowded, boring slides into dynamic visual stories that engage your audience. Accessibility tips and ideas for structure, content and visual will be shared.
Tuesday, May 12
- Reimagine Learning with the Library with Beth Hoppe, Linnea Minich, Sue O’Dell
At the Bowdoin College Library, our goal is for information literacy to be shared, community work. We partner with students, faculty, and staff to build inclusive, discipline‑aware research learning that strengthens belonging and critical engagement with information in all formats. Our intention is to develop agency and joy in research by engaging critically and ethically with a complex information ecosystem—including AI where appropriate.
In this session we will share a draft of the learning goals we have been developing over the past 10 months. There will be an opportunity for discussion and feedback as we continue to refine our goals and think about how to implement these changes and integrate information literacy across the curriculum.
- Reflecting on the Humanities and Connecting to Careers
Learn about partnerships between faculty and CXD aimed at helping students in the humanities reflect on their coursework and connect their skills and strengths to possible careers. Maggie Solberg and Alex Cuadrado will discuss their ongoing collaboration with CXD and showcase the reflective activity that students encounter at the humanities workshop at Sophomore Bootcamp. Kristin Brennan and Bethany Walsh from CXD will also be available to discuss possible future partnership opportunities across humanities disciplines.
Wednesday, May 13
Curious how your colleagues are navigating AI in their teaching and research or how they’re choosing not to use it at all? Join us for an informal AI Show & Tell. Faculty will share 10‑minute lightning presentations highlighting one way they’ve engaged with AI this semester. This session is about practical experiences, questions, and honest reflections. Come to listen or come to get ideas.
AI Landscape Update
1:45 – 11:50 Gradually, Then Suddenly: How AI Is Changing Data and Security, (5 minutes), Michael Cato
AI has evolved rapidly, from chatbots to tools that can act, automate, and make decisions. In this short update, we’ll highlight what’s different now, how it affects data privacy and cybersecurity, and what responsible AI use looks like in our institutional context.
Show and Tell Presentations
11:50 – 12:00 From Slides to Quizzes, Tina Chong
Tina will show how to cut hours off class prep with an AI workflow that turned lecture slides into multiple-choice questions by uploading them to a game‑based learning platform.
12:00-12:10 Artificial Intelligence in the Language Classroom, Christian Puma Ninacuri
In this presentation, Christian will outline his integration of AI tools into the language classroom, including the development of an AI use policy, the design of effective prompts, and a critical examination of the opportunities and challenges these tools present, with particular attention to the role of language(s).
12:10 – 12:20 Lessons from Building AI Assistants That Actually Help, Michael Cato
Michael shares lessons from building and working with personal AI assistants. Using a practical framework as a guide, he’ll walk through what works, what doesn’t, and how you can get started building your own.
12:20-12:30 Consulting with AI to Sequence Images and Construct Folios, Michael Kolster
Michael will discuss how he is using an AI Agent to develop five folios, each comprising 20-30 images and limited text. So far, the AI agent has suggested how the images might be sequenced for two “test” folios and has generated Python code to build the folios’ layouts based on designs I specified it to implement. He hopes to understand better how to direct the Agent’s actions, to see if my “conversations” with the agent yields any new insights or ideas about the work, and how he might have students perform similar tasks with its assistance.
12:30 – 12:40 An AI chatbot to Lower Barriers to Library Research, Not Bypass It. Beth Hoppe, Linnea Minich, Collin Lucken
If students feel more comfortable using a chatbot than going to office hours, how can we lead them to real conversations? We will give you a preview of the AI chatbot we are developing to mitigate the discomfort of uncertainty by giving students a space to think through their research, introduce relevant library databases to begin their exploration, and cultivate collaborative human connection between students and librarians.
12:40 – 12:50 Handwritten Text Recognition with Crowdsourced Humans in the Loop. Meagan Doyle
The Department of Special Collections & Archives has been approved for a Hastings Project Seed grant to fund a one-year subscription to FromThePage, a well-established crowdsourcing site which has recently incorporated AI drafts into the platform. We will upload thousands of images of digitized handwritten text from our collections for transcription by humans with an optional AI assist.
*Thursday, May 14 (Main Lounge, Moulton)
- How Does Assessment Design Shape Students’ Engagement with AI? With Brandon Tate
Generative AI is changing the ways students learn, study, and communicate, introducing new challenges and opportunities in the college classroom. Assessment design has the potential to shape how students exercise agency in deciding whether, when, and how to engage with AI tools such as LLM chatbots, and how they understand the role of AI tools in supporting or constraining their learning. In a mastery-based chemistry course at Bowdoin, students report using AI selectively and with restraint, most often during the revision process as a source of explanation, feedback, and problem-solving support. Student feedback suggests assessments with a built-in revision process may support reflective, purposeful, and judicious engagement with AI learning aids.
- The Emotional Labor of Teaching in an Age of AI with the BCLT
BCLT staff will facilitate a reflection and discussion focusing on how we practice a culture of care (including allowing space for a range of emotions) and engage in constructive critique of ideas. For background reading review the following article- “INVESTIGATING THE “FEELING RULES” OF GENERATIVE AI AND IMAGINING ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
Friday, May 15
- What’s Now, What’s Next? Learning, Assessment, and Being Human in the Age of Bots with Dr. Lance Eaton, Northeastern University
This interactive session will provide some opportunities to see where things stand with artificial intelligence in this moment and what is on the horizon. The session will then ask participants to consider what, why, and how we are asking students to demonstrate learning at a time when many traditional forms are replicable by AI. Participants will engage in reflection and conversation as we examine what might be different ways to assess across different possibilities, from assignments that do not engage with AI at all to those that use it partially to those that use it substantially.
Bio
Dr. Lance Eaton is the Senior Associate Director of AI in Teaching and Learning at Northeastern University. He has earned a Master’s in American Studies (UMASS Boston), Public Administration (Suffolk University), and Instructional Design (UMASS Boston). He completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education (UMASS Boston) with a focus on academic piracy and how scholars navigate the privatization of research literature in the 21st century.
His work engages with the possibility of digital tools for expanding teaching and learning communities while considering the profound issues and questions that educational technologies open up for students, faculty, and higher ed as a whole. He has engaged with scores of higher education institutions about navigating the complexities and possibilities that generative AI represents for us at this moment. His musings, reflections, and ramblings on AI and Education can be found on his blog: https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/