Maureen Stokes, the assistant vice president of Communications and Marketing at Worcester State University, discussed the potential benefits of artificial intelligence recently in an interview on the Higher Ed Pulse podcast.
Podcast co-host Mallory Willsea interviewed Stokes live at the eduWeb Summit, an annual conference and trade show that drew higher education professionals and industry partners from throughout the nation and several other countries. This year’s conference was held July 9 to 11 in Philadelphia.
Stokes told Willsea that she views AI as a tool that can be used to enhance productivity and support various aspects of her role at the university, such as visual storytelling and website redesign. She also believes that AI can help overcome obstacles and enhance creativity.
Stokes believes that simplifying content with AI can be useful because it allows for the distillation of dense information into more accessible and understandable formats. “This is particularly important when working with faculty members who often produce research and papers that contain complex concepts,” she said. By using AI to simplify the content, it becomes easier to share the knowledge and insights with a wider audience, including the general public and reporters, she said. It also helps to save time and effort, especially when there is a need to quickly provide information or summarize lengthy documents.
Stokes also mentioned a talk she gave at the conference in which she stressed the importance of using student voices to tell the story of an institution. She believes it’s more effective to use authentic student testimonials to showcase what it’s like to be a student at the university and what the campus and surrounding community have to offer.
“Every institution has a mission, but it shouldn’t be the administration and faculty telling students how wonderful it is,” she said. “It is getting those students to talk about how great the campus is from their perspective, selling the institution to the next generation of students.”
Stokes said she will encourage her team at the university to not be fearful of the unknown and to explore the possibilities that AI can offer in helping the university grow and communicate effectively.
“This is an emerging era that we’re going into, and we need to embrace it,” she said. “It gives us a chance to be far more creative and, sometimes when we’re not really thinking beyond just what we typically do, it can give us an idea of where we can go and then once the idea is there with the assistance of AI, we can see beyond the horizon and go on to greatness.”
Academic Innovation
High schoolers explore environmental science in Cornerstone Bank summer program
Worcester State welcomed 18 rising juniors and seniors from the area for the Cornerstone STEM Connections summer program led by faculty members in the Worcester State Department of Earth, . . .