Permanent link for Meeting -002: Sustainability & Custom AI Tutors on May 26, 2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our second GVSU AI Collective meetup at the futurEDlab. It was a packed session where we explored the intersection of cutting-edge technology and environmental responsibility, while sharing real-world updates on how AI is impacting our campus community.

Key Highlights & Discussion Themes

• External Expert Spotlight: We welcomed a guest team from Amazon Web Services (AWS), featuring Tommy Johnston (Solutions Architect, Sustainability Team) alongside Account Manager John Lee and Senior Solutions Architect Ofir Eshel. Tommy provided an in-depth look at data center sustainability, highlighting AWS’s goal to be water positive by 2030 and data showing cloud-based AI workloads are 3.6 times more energy-efficient than traditional on-premises data centers. He also spotlighted specialized custom chips designed to train AI model workloads using less energy and generating less heat.
• Campus Environmental Impact: Our campus sustainability experts raised essential questions regarding the direct environmental footprints of GVSU's own computing and AI activities. The group discussed the urgent need to start senior leadership-level conversations around mitigating and tracking these local impacts.
• The Industry Co-Op Realities: Colleagues from the College of Engineering shared critical feedback from student co-ops. Regional industries are rapidly integrating AI into their daily development environments. Students are reporting a vital need to catch up to industry expectations so they are prepared for future employment, while faculty navigate how to ensure students possess fundamental discipline knowledge before relying on AI tools.

Technical Spotlight: Custom Socratic AI Tutors

We reviewed an initiative developed in collaboration with the College of Engineering that allows professors to spin up customized AI tutors for their courses. Utilizing a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) framework, the system restricts the AI's boundaries to specific uploaded course materials to eliminate hallucinations. It is embedded with guardrails that rely on the Socratic method—meaning it refuses to simply provide the final answers but instead holds a guided dialogue to walk students through the core material. Please click here to give the AI Tutor Maker tool a try and send any feedback to [email protected].

=â Action Item: Join the AI Collective Zoom Channel!

The AI Collective is designed to be a "living, breathing" community of practice. To stay connected between our monthly meetups, please join our official Zoom IM Channel right now.

Why you need to be in the channel:

• First Access: Get immediate release of meeting registration forms and priority room announcements.
• Resources & Links: We will be posting the AWS presentation slides, the custom Socratic AI tutor application workflow, and a specialized video on newly integrated Blackboard AI tools.
• Continuous Sharing: It's our primary space to post interesting AI news, share daily links, get crowd-sourced tech support, and connect across departments.

=I Click Here to Join the AI Collective Zoom Channel

Next Steps

1. Submit Feedback: Please complete the feedback form (link also available in the Zoom channel) to share your thoughts on this session and propose future topics.
2. Test the Tutors: Reach out in the Zoom channel if you'd like to test the early-stage Socratic AI tutor app and provide development feedback.

We look forward to keeping the momentum going as we collaborate to ensure human insight and ethical stewardship stay at the center of innovation at GVSU.

IT Innovation & Research Team

Hosted at the futurEDlab

Categories: AI AI Collective
Posted by Joseph Van Harken on Permanent link for Meeting -002: Sustainability & Custom AI Tutors on May 26, 2026.