Smarter Campus Podcast

In this deeply personal episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with his sister, Mia Kinzler, a sophomore studying Psychology at Loyola Marymount University, to talk about an experience that is often discussed about students but rarely heard directly from them: what it actually feels like to navigate higher education with severe learning disabilities.

Mia was diagnosed in fourth grade with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and ADHD. She has spent years learning how her brain processes information and developing strategies to succeed academically. But in college, she has encountered a different challenge: a system of accommodations that can be far better at checking boxes than understanding how an individual student actually learns.

Mia describes being able to demonstrate her understanding of material verbally in a matter of minutes while struggling for hours with a written multiple-choice exam—not because she doesn't know the content, but because the format itself creates processing barriers. She shares the exhausting amount of self-advocacy required to receive support, what happens when an accommodation doesn't fit neatly into an institution's existing options, and how repeatedly struggling in environments that don't reflect what you know can change the way you see your own intelligence.

The conversation also offers a very different perspective on AI in education. For Mia, generative AI isn't a tool for avoiding thinking. She uses it as a cognitive translator—talking through her own ideas and asking AI to help structure those thoughts into the written formats college requires. She specifically tells the AI not to give her answers. Yet in an environment increasingly suspicious of AI use, the same technology that can provide accessibility can also expose students with disabilities to assumptions that they're cheating.

This episode isn't ultimately about AI. It's about whether higher education is willing to recognize that equal opportunity doesn't always mean asking every student to demonstrate learning in exactly the same way.

And Mia's message to educators is remarkably simple: when a student tells you how their brain works and asks for help, trust them.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Elijah Craft, a Computer Science and Psychology student at Furman University and Student Fellow for Emerging Technologies, to hear what the AI conversation actually looks like from the student perspective.

Elijah describes an interesting “convenience paradox” emerging among students. While some enthusiastically embrace AI and others strongly oppose it, there is a growing group that distrusts or even dislikes AI while continuing to use it because of the convenience it provides under demanding academic workloads.

The conversation also explores one of the biggest sources of tension on campuses: unclear AI policies. Elijah explains why blanket bans can create confusing gray areas and how greater transparency around what is—and isn’t—acceptable can help students make better decisions. He also shares examples of faculty using AI as a study partner rather than simply a shortcut or replacement for learning.

For educators trying to understand how students are navigating this moment, Elijah offers simple advice: be specific about expectations and actually spend time using the technology yourself. Bridging the AI divide between students and faculty may start with more open conversations about what students are already doing.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with John Hillsman, Founder and Partner at Access Alliance for Education, to look at today’s AI transformation through the lens of nearly 40 years of change in education and technology.

John has watched higher education navigate everything from VHS and closed-circuit television to the internet, online learning, and digital homework platforms. He sees similarities between those transitions and what institutions are experiencing with AI—but with one major difference: the speed of change is unlike anything higher education has dealt with before.

The conversation explores why successful AI adoption can’t simply come from administrators or technology teams. Faculty need ownership, students need a voice, and institutions need to break down what John calls their “Silos of Excellence.” What works for a business school may look completely different in healthcare, law, or the arts, making collaboration and open dialogue essential.

John also challenges educators to start by simply talking with their students. Instead of banning AI or pretending students aren’t already using it, ask how they’re using it, learn alongside them, and experiment together. As AI changes the relationship between students and educators, the opportunity may be to move beyond the traditional “sage on the stage” and toward a more collaborative model of learning.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Lissa Frésquez, Director of Technology Innovation on the Learning Team at EdPlus at Arizona State University, to explore what it actually takes to evaluate, test, and scale emerging technology across a massive online learning ecosystem.

Lissa shares how her team manages dozens of EdTech partners while supporting nearly 119,000 online learners. From automated systems that monitor vendor updates to targeted 7.5-week pilots with individual colleges, the conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at how new technology moves from an interesting idea to something students and faculty can actually use.

The conversation also explores why smaller startups can sometimes make great partners, the importance of security and accessibility from day one, and why institutions shouldn't simply “throw AI at everything.” Lisa advocates for thinking about AI as augmented intelligence—technology that enhances the learning experience rather than replacing the people at the center of it.

Ultimately, Lisa argues that even as online education becomes more technologically sophisticated, one of the biggest opportunities is surprisingly human: creating more intentional, authentic interactions between students and faculty.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with a leader from Pikes Peak State College to talk about what it actually looks like to move from experimenting with AI to making it available across an entire institution.

Pikes Peak initially began with a small pilot group evaluating different tools and approaches. But when the team brought a limited rollout proposal to college leadership, the response was much bigger: go all in. The result was campus-wide access for students, faculty, and staff, with collaboration and shared learning at the center of the strategy.

The conversation also explores why community colleges require especially thoughtful approaches to AI adoption. Different states structure technical education, transfer pathways, and workforce programs very differently, meaning there is no single model that works everywhere.

For educators who are still figuring out where to begin, the advice is simple: start small, understand what people are actually afraid of, and use AI as a starting point rather than a finished product. The episode is a practical look at what institutional AI adoption can look like when access, experimentation, and human judgment are built into the rollout from the beginning.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Kevin Anselmo, strategic communications consultant and founder of Experiential Communications, to explore an overlooked side of the AI conversation in higher education: communication and research impact.

While much of higher education’s AI conversation has focused on cheating, grading, and classroom policies, Kevin argues there is a massive opportunity for researchers, faculty, and academic leaders to use AI as a kind of personal PR assistant. The technology can help translate complex ideas, prepare for interviews, repurpose research, and communicate important work to audiences far beyond academia.

Kevin also breaks down his Clarity, Capability, and Momentum framework for AI adoption. The key is starting with your goals, audience, and message—not the technology. From there, customized AI workflows can dramatically reduce the time spent on communication while still keeping human strategy and judgment at the center.

The conversation also explores “AI slop,” why dismissing AI because of poor outputs misses the larger opportunity, and why higher education may need to rethink everything from slow-moving AI policies to traditional four-year credentials. For researchers in particular, Kevin leaves listeners with a challenge: great research only creates impact if people actually understand it.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dave McCool, President & CEO of Muzzy Lane, to explore how AI can help higher education move beyond traditional assignments and create more experiential, authentic learning.

Dave argues that some of the most promising uses of AI aren’t about inventing entirely new approaches to education. Instead, AI can make proven methods—simulations, role-playing, authentic problem-solving, and skills-based assessment—dramatically easier for faculty and instructional designers to build and scale. He shares how Muzzy Lane has used AI to reduce the creation time for simulation-based assessments from weeks to minutes while keeping humans in the loop.

The conversation also tackles AI detection, the return to blue books, “experience inflation” in the job market, and why students often cheat when coursework feels disconnected from their lives. Dave shares examples of virtual internships and scenario-based assessments that allow students to demonstrate durable skills like critical thinking while gaining experiences they can actually talk about with employers.

For educators and higher education leaders, the episode raises an important challenge: AI shouldn’t make learning easier by removing the thinking—it should help us design experiences that make students think harder.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Chad Okrusch, a tenured Professor of Philosophy and Communication and Montana Tech’s first Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer—the first role of its kind within the Montana University System.

Chad brings an unusually human perspective to AI leadership. With roots in IT and more than two decades of work across philosophy, ethics, environmental studies, and communication, he argues that AI shouldn’t simply be treated as another technology problem. It is a social disruption that forces institutions to think deeply about human agency, integrity, and what they are ultimately trying to preserve.

The conversation explores Chad’s concept of systems integrity, why campus AI leaders should spend more time listening to skeptics, and how AI can actually give people time back for the parts of their jobs that are most human. He also explains why “soft skills” like communication, critical thinking, ethics, and character are becoming increasingly durable skills in an AI-driven world.

For higher education leaders navigating AI adoption, Chad offers a refreshingly simple starting point: listen first. Understand the system, the people within it, and their fears before prescribing solutions. AI leadership isn’t about being the AI police or blindly championing every new tool—it’s about helping institutions adapt without losing sight of human flourishing.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Cleotilde “Coty” Gonzalez, Research Professor of Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, founding director of the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory, and Research Co-Director of the NSF National AI Institute for Societal Decision Making.

Drawing on more than two decades of work across cognitive science, decision-making, and artificial intelligence, Coty explores an important distinction between machine AI and Cognitive AI. Rather than simply recognizing patterns across massive datasets, Cognitive AI seeks to model how humans actually learn from experience, adapt to uncertainty, and make decisions in changing environments.

The conversation dives into human-AI teaming, automation bias, cognitive offloading, and the idea of complementary intelligence—designing AI to strengthen human judgment rather than replace it. Coty also explains why these questions become especially important when AI is involved in high-stakes decisions ranging from emergency response to public health.

For educators and higher education leaders, the conversation raises an essential question: as AI becomes more capable, how do we make sure students continue developing their own ability to think, question, evaluate, and make decisions?

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Jason Bock, Director of Online Education at the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, instructional designer, learning engineer, and AI EdTech founder.

Jason brings a fascinating perspective to the AI conversation by connecting it to higher education’s previous shift toward online learning. While COVID forced institutions to adapt quickly, generative AI presents a very different challenge: it isn’t going away, and the technology continues to improve. That reality is forcing educators to reconsider not just how students complete assignments, but what those assignments were actually designed to measure in the first place.

A major focus of the conversation is higher education’s reliance on writing as the default form of assessment. Jason explores alternatives like AI-assisted oral exams, role-play agents, and even evaluating students’ AI conversations to better understand how they ask questions, iterate, and think through problems. The conversation also tackles transparency around AI grading and why students deserve to know when AI is being used to evaluate their work.

For educators and higher education leaders, this episode offers a practical look at moving beyond the question of whether students are using AI and toward a more important one: How do we redesign learning and assessment for a world where AI is here to stay?