The Ohio State University
You see it when you scroll through your social media feed. You see it in ads and commercials. You may even see it in your inbox, offering responses to emails.
AI has entered countless aspects of everyday life, but despite its ever-growing knowledge base, it still needs to be guided – which provides an opportunity for people who want to learn how to guide it.
With AI’s increasing prevalence and applications, The Ohio State University this past June kicked off an AI Fluency initiative with the goal of teaching the next generation of workers how to ethically apply this new tool in their fields.
The Ohio State University
Getting started
Led by the Office of Academic Affairs with support of other offices and centers, including the Center for Software Innovation and the Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning, the AI Fluency initiative at OSU is the first of its kind in the nation.
The initiative was spearheaded by Executive Vice President and Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda after he joined OSU in 2025. Having launched and led an AI initiative when he worked at Emory University in Georgia, Bellamkonda was excited to help OSU create one of its own.
“Ohio State students will become ‘bilingual’ – fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area. Grounded with a strong sense of responsibility and possibility, we will prepare Ohio State’s students to harness the power of AI and to lead in shaping its future of their area of study,” Bellamkonda wrote in a statement.
The goal of the initiative is to make members of the current freshman class fluent in AI applications by the time they graduate in 2029.
“AI fluency is about being fluent in the application of AI to the field of study,” says Center for Software Innovation Executive Director Shereen Agrawal. “It’s one thing to learn about technology and treat it as something (like) ‘I learned how X works,’ or ‘I learned X concept.’ There’s another piece. How does it apply to the things that you care about and, increasingly, field applications?”
In the classroom
The Ohio State University
With that goal in mind, instructors across the university began incorporating AI-related practices into their classes this past fall semester.
Dr. Vince Castillo, an OSU assistant professor of logistics and member of the AI Fluency Faculty Advisory Council, began incorporating AI into his classroom in 2023. He has continued to work with students and lead discussions on how the tool works and how they can ethically incorporate it into their workflow.
In his classes, students have discovered ways to use AI to streamline or eliminate harder and menial tasks related to their field, such as creating data sets or writing coding scripts.
“It frees the students up to now think about, ‘What is the bigger picture? What is the problem that I’m really trying to solve? Can I find the right terms to instruct the AI to build the exact analytical model that I need to accomplish the goal?’” Castillo says.
Dr. Tina Tallon, assistant professor of AI and music composition, has worked for years to incorporate AI models into the music world and learn how to quantify it in a way that computers can engage with.
The Ohio State University
“Our students are really interested in thinking about what data is and what it means to them within music, so they’re able to approach artificial intelligence and machine learning from their own experience – and in many cases, from an embodied experience, as opposed to a linguistic one,” Tallon says.
As examples, Tallon points to audio recognition programs that can help students improve their solo practicing or analyze audio files that can be used for musical therapy.
Here to stay
The Ohio State University
With three National Science Foundation-funded centers on campus – the AI-EDGE Institute, ICICLE and the Center on Responsible AI and Governance – students and staff at OSU have received lessons and guidance on how to incorporate and work with AI for years.
Agrawal says the introduction of the AI Fluency initiative as a university-wide program is meant to branch connections across colleges and fields and create a pathway for the future.
“We have this moment in time where we can decide that we’re going to take a concerted and bold approach to thinking about this head-on,” she says. “(Determining) ‘What’s going to be that Ohio State identity to it?’ and ‘How are we going to make sure that it still reinforces some key and core principles?’ … is going to be hard, but we’re up to the challenge.”
Rachel Hanz is the lead editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at rhanz@cityscenemediagroup.com.
