About the Butler University Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hub

Built for this moment in higher education, the Butler AI Hub turns bold ideas into practice by drawing on every corner of campus. We are rooted in a liberal arts tradition that prizes critical thinking, empathy, creativity, and civic responsibility. We balance optimism with hearty skepticism. We name real drawbacks, including environmental impact, intellectual property concerns, job displacement, and the disruption of traditional teaching roles. We prepare our community to use AI with judgment, integrity, and care.

Our Philosophy: The Human Force Multiplier

We frame generative AI as a human force multiplier. This technology does not replace human thought, but it can enhance human efficiency. We build habits of inquiry and reflection so that AI supports thinking rather than replacing it. Our work is an iterative process that grows stronger through diverse perspectives and ongoing campus dialogue

What We Are Building Now

LEAD: Faculty Leadership in AI Integrated Learning

We are expanding earlier AAC&U Institute work into a coordinated, campus wide initiative: the Leadership, Ethics, and AI-Integrated Design (LEAD) Faculty Cohort. More than 60 faculty and staff are currently shaping Butler’s approach through five dimensions: Institutional Learning, Disciplinary Inquiry, Knowledge Creation, Applied and Experiential Learning and Liberal Learning. Participants are building course innovations, research guidance, and institutional resources.

Digital Transformation Ambassador (DXA) AI Lead Student

In the 2026-2027 year, we will integrate a student focused on student-centered programming and perspectives around AI adoption and use to our DXA team. This student will be instrumental in creating workshops and discussions for students surrounding topics related to AI, sharing student voices in university leadership spaces, and helping to draw connections between what students need to succeed and classroom practice.

AI Compass

A decision making flow chart designed to guide users on when to use AI and when to prioritize human specific insight. It will help faculty and students evaluate if a task aligns with institutional values and academic integrity.

What We Have Built

2023–2024: GAI Lesson Plans from PALNI Faculty 

Over the course of the 2023-24 academic year, faculty from several institutions, including Butler University, in the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) contributed to an open repository of peer-reviewed generative AI class activities. Launch the repository to search for ideas on how to use AI in your discipline or adapt any of the ideas to fit your context.

Launch the GAI Class Activities Collection
Read about the PALNI Grant Award

Spring 2024: Provost’s Office GAI Workgroup

An interdisciplinary group met to develop guidance on generative AI in teaching and learning and to shape a campus narrative rooted in ethics and human judgment.

Summer 2024: Faculty Framework for Generative AI

Developed in the summer of 2024, the Framework outlines a roadmap for faculty using GAI in teaching and learning. It aligns AI with outcomes, integrity, accessibility, and disciplinary norms.

View the GAI Faculty Framework

2024–2025: AAC&U Institute Year 1 — Departmental AI Self‑Evaluation Description

In the 2024-2025 academic year, Butler University participated in the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. This program is a nationally competitive, year long faculty development program where interdisciplinary teams study how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum. Through a two day kickoff, a mid institute learning day, weekly webinars, and a national capstone convening, participants examine teaching with and about AI, assessment in AI infused learning, environmental impacts, and AI in the Core.

Butler’s first cohort designed a practical Departmental AI Self Evaluation to help academic units decide whether and how to integrate AI. The tool foregrounds ethics, learning outcomes, academic integrity, and liberal arts values, includes alignment checks, course and curriculum mapping prompts, risk and mitigation planning for bias, privacy, and accessibility, and decision points to pilot, pause, or proceed with safeguards. Disciplines represented included counseling, art, biology, and computer science, turning bold ideas into built guidance faculty could use immediately.

2025–2026: AAC&U Institute Year 2 — Building the Butler AI Resource Hub Description

In 2025 to 2026, Butler was selected again, signaling growing national leadership. Co-led by Meg Grady and James McGrath, and supported by faculty mentor José Bowen, the second cohort built the Butler AI Resource Hub as its capstone. This hub advances what was built in year one into a living, campus wide resource that keeps building capacity and community, with practical tools and decision support like an AI Compass, an Assignment Bank with models and rubrics, transparency and integrity guidance aligned to Butler values, and student AI literacy and storytelling that frame AI as a human force multiplier, not a replacement for judgment or creativity.

Read about Year 1 and 2 Cohorts