When SUNY Oswego President Peter O. Nwosu stood before faculty and staff last year and declared the college would become an “AI campus,” the room buzzed with questions. What does that mean? How will it affect teaching? Will it change the essence of who we are?
Even Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Scott Furlong was not fully sure.
“After the president’s announcement, about 10 faculty members came to me and asked, ‘What does that actually mean?’” Furlong said. “I see this more as a ‘charge’ to the faculty and staff to engage in a discussion around AI and determine what an AI campus means in the context of SUNY Oswego.”
But what followed was more than just clarification. Over the past year, that one bold statement sparked a campus-wide effort to define, experiment and evolve what it means to integrate artificial intelligence into the fabric of higher education. For SUNY Oswego, becoming an AI campus has been less about technology for its own sake and more about empowering people to think critically, act ethically, and prepare for a world that is rapidly changing.
Always adapting
Furlong sees the emergence of AI in higher education as the latest wave in a long tradition of adapting to disruptive technologies.
“Back then, we adapted as faculty and staff,” he said, recalling earlier digital milestones like the internet and Wikipedia. “And this is going to be another adaptation. This doesn’t mean we’ll be doing things in the same way. We’re going to have to figure out how to best utilize and teach our students how to best utilize this new tool.”
He has attended countless discussions and conferences where AI has been cast either as a threat to higher education or as a breakthrough opportunity. Oswego, he said, is choosing to lean into the opportunity.
“We can’t put blinders on and pretend it’s not going to be here,” he said. “As it relates to preparing our students and having them go out into the world career-ready and civically engaged, we have to engage with it.”
Building the AI campus, together
Since that announcement, the college has embraced an institution-wide approach to understanding and applying AI. Faculty and staff across nearly every division have come together to explore AI’s potential, and its limitations.
SUNY Oswego led all participating campuses in faculty involvement in the initial SUNY-funded AI Faculty Fellows program, with 24 faculty members in the inaugural cohort, the largest relative participation across the system.
“We had the most faculty fellows from any of the schools that were involved. That’s a testament to our curiosity, our openness and our collaborative spirit.”
— Scott Furlong, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs Scott Furlong
“We had the most faculty fellows from any of the schools that were involved,” said Furlong. “That’s a testament to our curiosity, our openness and our collaborative spirit.”
Oswego faculty are integrating generative AI into teaching, research and student support by exploring tools for writing, data creation, course design and academic integrity. While the SUNY-funded AI Faculty Fellows program specifically focused on teaching, Oswego’s broader campus efforts reflect a growing commitment to using AI to enhance learning, streamline tasks and foster ethical, inclusive and career-ready education across disciplines.
The reading groups that sprang up across campus have also played a central role. According to faculty coordinators, these aren’t just technical discussions about tools, they begin with deep dives into the risks, biases, and ethical concerns surrounding AI. From hallucinated citations to issues of bias and misinformation, participants are encouraged to confront uncomfortable realities.
And that, Furlong believes, is part of what makes Oswego’s approach meaningful.
“It says a lot for us as an institution that folks are going at this with an open mind,” he said. “They’re looking for ways to engage with the technology in an ethical, effective way so that our students are going to be better for it.”
This fall, Oswego’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) will host a third AI-focused reading group, this time exploring strategies for promoting academic integrity in the age of AI.
Real conversations, real challenges
For all the momentum, challenges remain. Furlong acknowledged that faculty have wrestled with how to address AI-generated content in assignments and research.
He shared one story from his own classroom, years before AI, where a student turned in a plagiarized paper. The student copied from a reading he had assigned. The student insisted it wasn’t plagiarism because she didn’t get it from the internet, but from the library’s reserve desk.
“This idea of teaching our students integrity in the classroom is not all about the technologies out there,” Furlong said. “It’s about why we do these types of things and why it’s important for us to honor those who helped create this knowledge before us.”
Today, he says, AI simply adds a new layer to that age-old lesson. Tools like ChatGPT might generate references, but not all of them are real.
“Just because you throw something into an AI generator doesn’t mean the answer is automatically correct,” he said. “In my own use of AI while I was working on a book chapter I found that out of the five articles it gave me, I think two of them were real. But it also gave me author names that I could then investigate further.”
That experience, he noted, was a lesson in both the promise and peril of AI, and a reminder of how important it is for students to develop discernment, not just technical skill.
A culture of experimentation
Across campus, dozens of departments are integrating AI in ways that make sense for their disciplines. The College of Business and Entrepreneurship has its own AI working group. Career Services is using it to help students prepare for interviews and anticipate future job market needs. Instructional designers have developed sample syllabus language and curated articles. Librarians have built dedicated resource pages.
Meanwhile, Campus Technology Services (CTS) and Digital Services teams are using AI to streamline processes, analyze data and expand access to digital tools. And with another round of faculty grants secured, the AI Fellows program is set to grow again this academic year.
“With all this rapid change in such a short period of time, our students are looking to us for guidance: to learn how to evaluate AI output critically, to consider if AI can be used ethically and responsibly, and to recognize the value of their own critical thinking. AI can be a helpful learning tool, but we need to build the foundation of critical thinking, ethics and digital literacy.”
— Stephanie Pritchard, coordinator of the Writing Center and coordinator of writing and ethical practice
“With all this rapid change in such a short period of time, our students are looking to us for guidance: to learn how to evaluate AI output critically, to consider if AI can be used ethically and responsibly, and to recognize the value of their own critical thinking," said Stephanie Pritchard, coordinator of the Writing Center and coordinator of writing and ethical practice. "AI can be a helpful learning tool, but we need to build the foundation of critical thinking, ethics and digital literacy.”
From marketing and communications to academic affairs, Oswego is not simply adopting AI, it’s shaping how it’s used.
“The best way for us to move forward is to embrace AI, to integrate it into how we teach and how we assess our students...”
— Sean Moriarty, chief technology officer
“The best way for us to move forward is to embrace AI, to integrate it into how we teach and how we assess our students,” said Sean Moriarty, chief technology officer. “At the same time, what we stand for as an institution doesn’t change. Our commitment to student success, real-world learning and preparing students for meaningful lives remains the same. AI is simply another tool to help us get there.”
Looking forward
SUNY Oswego’s leadership continues to see the AI campus not as a final destination, but as an evolving journey. The next phase includes expanded cross-campus collaborations, SUNY system-wide integration into General Education requirements, and continued hands-on faculty development.
“Go forth and figure out all the things that are out there regarding AI,” Furlong said. “We’re all still learning, and that’s alright. But we can’t ignore it.”
At SUNY Oswego, being an AI campus doesn’t mean replacing people with technology. It means empowering people with curiosity, with integrity and with the tools they’ll need to thrive in a world shaped by innovation.
To explore more about how SUNY Oswego is integrating artificial intelligence into teaching, learning, operations and student life, visit oswego.edu/artificial-intelligence.