UH president finalist puts emphasis on AI, says it can help remove equity gaps, increase retention
The first of two final candidates to replace the University of Hawaii’s president promised an AI-driven future during a forum Tuesday at UH-Hilo.
Wendy F. Hensel is one of two finalists the UH Board of Regents is considering to replace outgoing UH President David Lassner. Currently the executive vice chancellor and university provost at the City University of New York, and formerly the senior vice president for academic affairs at Georgia State University, Hensel is traveling the state this week for a series of question-and-answer sessions about her vision for UH.
While the forum Tuesday covered a wide variety of subjects, Hensel repeatedly returned to the subjects of data analytics and artificial intelligence, which she predicted will bring substantial changes to higher education in the next several years.
“(AI) is the new electricity,” Hensel said. “That’s the way it’s been described to me. AI will touch everything, not just for people who want to major in that type of degree, like engineers, but it’s electricity — it will touch every other degree. And there is a premium for employers to bring in employees who understand how to utilize that technology.”
As these new technologies become more and more entrenched, Hensel said offering AI and other tech-related courses would provide a boost to enrollment, while employers could offer students microcredential programs, which could lead to part-time or full-time employment.
At the same time, implementing that technology into UH programs could improve the university’s efficiency and student services. Hensel said GSU has implemented the technology in an effort to “remove all equity gaps based on socioeconomic status, race and gender.”
Through data analytics, Hensel said, GSU is able to track hundreds of data points about each student to determine which students are struggling financially or at risk of being unable to afford tuition. That data can then be used to tailor financial aid opportunities, which she called “part and parcel of student success.”
Similarly, AI tech could help reduce “summer melt,” the percentage of prospective students who enroll mid-summer but never actually begin their first semester.
By predicting which students were most at risk of dropping off — typically low-income, minority, first-generation students — an AI chatbot can provide information that is most important for prospective students to know, and guide them through a potentially overwhelming enrollment experience.
A chatbot program at CUNY was able to reduce summer melt by 22% within a single year, Hensel said.
Hensel said her role at UH, if she is appointed, would be to find barriers preventing groups from seeking or succeeding at higher education and remove them.
“I want to reach the student that doesn’t reach out,” Hensel said. “And I can target that student using analytics to do the personal intervention, because it tells me who they are.”
Hensel also praised UH’s current programs offered for Native Hawaiian students, and said she would “constantly strive to elevate that work” and continually seek funding for additional opportunities.
In addition to new technologies, Hensel said improved online education will provide better options for students throughout UH. She noted that more than half of all UH students are enrolled in a fully online program, but UH’s degree programs are only 5% fully online.
“When I speak about online, I don’t mean what we did during COVID,” Hensel said. “What we did during COVID was emergency education. It was educating students who did not elect to be in that format, taught by professors who did not want to teach in that format. … I’m talking about highly technical, skilled, excellent academic programs that are online to allow people who live anywhere on the islands … to benefit from the opportunities that are offered at the university.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
