AI is altering how the Cornell community accesses knowledge, produces work, and demonstrates learning. Responding to these changes has been a central challenge for faculty and departments across the university, and has provoked a wide range of institutional and individual responses. 

Cornell has adopted a balanced and evidence-based approach regarding the ethical use or avoidance of generative AI in teaching and learning. The Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and the Center for Teaching Innovation have provided resources and guidance for faculty looking to “lean” in” to AI’s potential in the classroom, and for faculty seeking to “lean out” to ensure AI doesn’t replace key learning. Individually, faculty and departments have also been experimenting with AI’s impact on their specific disciplines.

The AI Experimenters Faculty Fellows Program furthers these disciplinary conversations by recruiting and supporting faculty from a range of disciplinary perspectives to experiment with new approaches to teaching. We welcome both ‘radical adopters’: those seeking to bring AI tools into pedagogy in creative and experimental ways; and ‘radical rethinkers’: those looking to rethink pedagogy in their disciplines – from assessment to assignments to how we imagine and use class time – in ways that preserve and reinvent disciplinary learning. Fellows will spend an academic year learning from each other, designing and testing classroom responses, and sharing their results with the larger Cornell community. 

Description

The Faculty Fellows will meet monthly over the course of the academic year to explore and develop experimental responses to AI and learning. These can include radical efforts to integrate AI into classroom learning, radical rethinking of how instructors use classroom time to preserve learning unmediated by AI, and efforts to combine both approaches. The Fellows will discuss ideas, share concrete examples, provide mutual support and feedback, and learn from each other, within and across disciplinary fields.

Fellows commit to attending and contributing to group meetings, to developing and testing different approaches to AI in their classes and fields, and to sharing the results with the Cornell community. CTI will organize and convene the Fellows cohort and offer support throughout the year, including sharing relevant research and examples, help developing ideas, identifying and securing needed resources and trainings, assessing the effectiveness of learning interventions, and organizing efforts to share the results. 

Program Outcomes

By the end of the fellowship, participating faculty will:

• Describe a discipline-specific approach to AI in their course.
• Redesign at least one course component (content, assignment, assessment) in alignment with that approach.
• Try out that approach in one or more courses, assessing the success and outcomes.
• Share the results with their department and the campus.

Terms

Selected Faculty Fellows receive a $5,000 stipend for the academic year. In exchange, Fellows commit to attending cohort meetings, designing and implementing a teaching response, and sharing their results with their department and the university.

The program supports up to 20 Fellows per academic year.

Application

Applications are due June 30, 2026. Submit your application.

Contact

To learn more about the AI Experimenters Faculty Fellows Program, or for questions about the application process, please contact us at cti-execdirector@cornell.edu.