AI on Campus: CU Boulder’s AI Literacy Ambassador Showcase

A year ago, Lee Frankel-Goldwater, a CU Boulder Assistant Teaching Professor in Environmental Studies, spearheaded a project to bring faculty and instructors together to collaboratively tackle the challenges of teaching in the age of AI.

Frankel-Goldwater describes AI as a “tidal wave that’s already having a huge impact on higher education - whether we take action or not. However, by working together, I believe we can successfully navigate through these turbulent waters.”

With that genesis, the AI Literacy Ambassador Program was launched last fall with the support of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the Arts & Sciences Support of Teaching Technology (ASSETT).

In the big picture, the program aims to address the disruption generative AI is unleashing on higher education by providing a forum for faculty to share their experiences and ideas, learn from each other, and receive support to develop AI initiatives.

A cohort of 13 faculty and graduate students from 12 departments participated in a series of workshops during the fall and then designed and implemented AI literacy projects during the spring. The pilot culminated in this month's AI Literacy Ambassador Showcase, and the program has been awarded funding to continue and expand in the 2025-26 academic year.

Frankel-Goldwater explains that the idea for the program “came from noticing that many people were working on AI innovations and adaptation, but they were doing so in relative silos. I saw an opportunity to help create a social fabric that would allow innovation to percolate beyond and between the silos to support scaling. The goal was – and is – to create a more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts energy to help bootstrap AI literacy across campus.”

He recruited MCD Biology professor Michael Klymkowsky and English professor Teresa Nugent as faculty co-leads on the project. Additional members of the leadership team included CTL/ASSETT Innovation Catalyst Blair Young and representatives Rebecca Lee and Jacie Moriyama, in addition to AI curriculum strategist (and RMAIIG's Women in AI founder) Susan Adams.

This leadership team met nearly every week over the past two semesters to design and then implement the program. Implementation involved a dozen departments across campus, from Anthropology to Computer Science, from English to Philosophy, and from Engineering to Dance.

When Blair Young was asked about her takeaways from the Showcase, she responded that even after supporting the pilot and its participants for the past eight months, the faculty innovators still managed to "wow" her at the event. She continued:

Many of the presenters shared how much they had learned from their students as they implemented their AI innovations in the classroom. It takes a special blend of vision, courage and humility to experiment with learning technology in partnership with students and to open oneself up to student perspectives and input, all of which is critical to responsibly addressing and integrating generative AI into teaching and learning in higher ed.

Ten ambassadors from nine departments gave presentations on their projects at the Showcase. The projects ranged from in-class, role-playing activities using AI, to assignments in which students critically evaluated AI tools, to the creation of an AI lab where faculty and students can explore various models.

Additional projects included working with students to identify bias in AI datasets, assessing students’ learning in large lecture classes, and cultivating AI literacy, while encouraging an “engaged skepticism” about the technology, balancing an appreciation of its incredible potential with a clear understanding of its current limitations.

Looking ahead, Frankel-Goldwater marveled as to just how robust and diverse the ambassadors' innovation projects were, touching on classroom, department, and campus-wide initiatives. He continued:

We look forward to expanding the program in the coming year, building on the AI Literacy Ambassador community of practice, and supporting initiators across campus to develop bespoke versions of the program for their unique, college- and school-level contexts. We would be delighted to work with schools and universities throughout Colorado and across the country to help them develop their own AI Literacy Ambassador Programs to support adaptation to these dramatic transformations in higher education.

AI Literacy Ambassadors Presenting at the April 2025 Showcase:

Note that the writer is married to Teresa Nugent, one of the faculty co-leads of the AI Literacy Ambassador Project. Phil also serves on the Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group's Board of Advisors with Susan Adams, the Ambassador Project's AI curriculum strategist.