Permanent link for Meeting -003: Shaping Our Future Together on July 8, 2026

Bridging Grassroots Innovation with Institutional Realities: Highlights from the AI Collective June 26, 2026 (Meeting - 03) 

Posted by: Joseph Van Harken – Innovator in Residence | Categories: Emerging Tech, AI Collective, Higher Ed Pedagogy, Institutional Strategy 

Following the momentum of our official launch, the GVSU AI Collective gathered once again at the Grandview Collaboration Hub (CEC) to tackle one of the most pressing questions on campus: How do we push past basic chatbot prompts to build meaningful, custom workflows—while navigating the realities of institutional data, policy, and compliance? 

This month’s session highlighted the incredible ways our community is experimenting with "vibe coding" custom solutions. 

Engaging with "Citizen Development" 

Our feature presenter this month was Paul Hillman, Professor of Management at the Seidman College of Business, who shared his journey from an AI skeptic to a champion of "citizen development". 

Faced with the logistical nightmare of manually evaluating 360 individual student speech transcripts across three class sections using the virtual-reality based emotional intelligence software Ovation, Professor Hillman knew traditional grading wouldn't scale. Without an existing solution available, he turned to AI-assisted development. 

Without writing a single line of traditional code, Hillman utilized high-level vibe coding platforms to build custom applications tailored specifically to his classroom workflows: 

• EngageU: A physical classroom layout app built via Lovable. With a touchscreen interface, Hillman maps required student seating charts and logs real-time participation and attendance metrics directly during class, seamlessly exporting the data via CSV from the vibe coded app directly importing it into Blackboard. 

• BEARS: A custom workflow tool designed to handle weekly business ethics reflection sheets (BEARS). By embedding discrete rubric logic behind every question, the app analyzes student submissions for core grammatical structures and domain knowledge, enabling Hillman to deliver hyper-personalized, high-quality email feedback to 120 students within 48 hours. 

The Vibe Coding Spectrum: The Collective took time to break down the technical layers behind these tools. While surface-level tools like Lovable or Bolt allow non-programmers to rapidly prototype custom front-end facades, deeper agentic platforms (like Cursor or Claude Codex) delegate tasks to specialized micro-agents capable of conducting deep data analysis, checking code syntax against security frameworks like the OWASP Top 10, or executing complex file conversions autonomously. 

For Hillman’s students, this isn't about letting a machine think for them. He enforces strict "voice checks" to ensure real subject retention, treating AI proficiency as a foundational baseline for the modern workplace. "I would never hire an accountant who refuses to use Excel for fear it might do something wrong," Hillman noted. "The human is still completely in the loop." 

Voices from the Collective: Cross-Campus Case Studies 

Our hybrid audience and remote attendees from across the university showcased just how rapidly AI is being leveraged in traditional operations: 

• Consulting & Research: Jeff Williams, Director of Consulting Services at the Dorothy Johnson Center for Philanthropy, shared how his 12-person unit manages 30 to 50 external research projects a year. His team utilizes GitHub Copilot for web development, Claude for data science, and NotebookLM to check hand-coded research variables across hundreds of client documents. 
• Data Foundations: Kurt Partlo, Director of Data and Analytics, emphasized that high aspirations for embedded AI must be built on a secure, ethical corporate data lakehouse designed fundamentally to support student success. 
• Remote Frameworks: Joining us virtually from Minneapolis, Mike Williams from Zoom discussed how he leverages Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to bridge native platform engineering with advanced LLMs like Claude and OpenAI to prototype immersive educational tools. 

Building Institutional Momentum  

As part of the AI Collective Meetup,  Co-facilitator Eric Kunnen provided a briefing on the central AI Steering Team's recent retreat and strategy workshop. 

After a year of collaboration, surveys, and town halls, the AI Steering Team (sponsored by Chief Digital Officer Milos Topic and Provost Jen Drake) is shifting its focus toward strategic  institutional alignment. As the Fall semester approaches, more information will be shared with the campus community around the advancement of AI at GVSU. 

What’s Next for the Collective? 

The AI Collective is a living, breathing community kitchen, we don't just look at the tools; we cook with them and evaluate the output together. 

• Join the Conversation: If you haven’t yet, join the active AI Collective Zoom IM Channel to share your prompts, test custom scripts, and crowd-vibe with fellow Lakers. 
• Next Month's Spotlight: We are thrilled to welcome Mike Williams from Zoom as a featured presenter to give us a deep-dive look into the cutting-edge educational AI pipelines currently being integrated natively into Zoom. And, we’ll hear from some faculty members who have recently submitted AI-focused proposals for the November 3 GV Tech Summit. 

See you at the next meetup on July 31! 

Categories: AI AI Collective
Posted by Joseph Van Harken on Permanent link for Meeting -003: Shaping Our Future Together on July 8, 2026.

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.

Permanent link for Meeting -001: I+R launches AI Collective on May 7, 2026

Introducing the AI Collective

On Friday, April 17, the Innovation + Research team at GVSU launched the  AI Collective!

The kickoff meeting was held in the Grandview Collaboration Hub located in the futurEDlab on the City Campus.

The inspiration for this initiative came to life after Joseph Van Harken, Innovator in Residence, witnessed the success of the XR Collective that was established by the I+R team to focus on immersive learning experiences leveraging virtual and augmented reality. With a similar purpose, the AI Collective is focused on connecting, discovering, discussing, exploring, and experimenting with artificial intelligence at GVSU.

Eric Kunnen, Senior Director, Innovation + Research, co-led the first meeting with Joseph which included over 30 attendees from a wide array of GVSU departments including: Financial Aid, Institutional Analysis, Brooks College, eLearning Technologies, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University Libraries, University Communications, University Marketing, Physician Assistant Studies Program, Statistics Department, Department of Writing, Health Compliance, Finance, School of Interdisciplinary Health/Medical Dosimetry, Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Annis Water Research Institute, Modern Languages and Literatures, and the School of Communications.

Meeting Overview

This first meeting marked the launch of the AI Collective, transitioning from an idea into a monthly “community of practice” meetup. Modeled after the successful XR Collective, this group aims to serve as a cross-disciplinary meetup, where faculty and staff can work to break down silos, share diverse AI use cases, and explore the future of AI at GVSU.

Key Discussion Themes

A few key discussion themes emerged from the first meetup, including:

• Surfacing Current Usage
  • Attendees shared a wide array of applications currently in use at GVSU, including using AI for productivity (grading prep, rubrics, meeting notes), generating teaching and work-related support materials, as well as data and research synthesis. Additionally, specific examples were shared in fields such as Medical Dosimetry and Physician Assistant programs, where AI is being used in CT scans and medical dictation. 
• Town Hall and AI Survey Highlights
  • An overview of GVSU’s recent AI Town Halls as well as results of the AI Surveys of faculty, staff, and students were shared. The highlights included the importance of “walled gardens” to help ensure data privacy and protected use through guidelines and guardrails, environmental/sustainability impact of AI, ethical and responsible use of AI with the “human in the lead”, AI as a digital literacy coupled with training and tool access, maximizing the current use (opportunities) balanced with cautions.
• Elevating Experimentation
  • A demo was provided of an experimental AI Directory. This proof-of-concept tool is being evaluated to help  provide a centralized, GVSU-vetted resource for AI applications. Additionally, a future extension in envisioned to  allow faculty to share, review, and “remix” effective AI prompts for classroom and administrative use.

Summary

The initial AI Collective Meetup was high energy and generated all sorts of ideas and opportunities, including future “show and tells” presentations by local businesses, industry experts, and even “vibe coding jams” by which GVSU faculty, staff, and students can build tools together.

See you at our next AI Collective meeting to be held in May!

Categories: AI AI Collective
Posted by Joseph Van Harken on Permanent link for Meeting -001: I+R launches AI Collective on May 7, 2026.