This session is for faculty and staff who have not yet used AI in their work, or who tried it once and were not sure what to do with it. No prior experience is assumed and no preparation is required. The goal is not expertise by the end of ninety minutes—it is enough comfort to try one real thing the next day.

The session begins with the plain-language version of what generative AI actually is. From there participants get a guided walk around ChatGPT Edu—where the settings live, what custom instructions do, how to move between models and when a slower one earns its extra minute—alongside a look at the everyday work AI genuinely helps with: beating the blank page on a first draft, condensing a long report into something readable, turning messy notes into a clean agenda, and reworking tone, length, or format on something already written.

Participants will see at least three short live demonstrations across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini: such as building a real prompt from scratch, sharpening a draft through follow-up requests, and/or checking a confident-sounding answer against reality.

The session closes on judgment and safety, where the University's interest and each participant's own interest meet, so anything factual, numerical, cited, or high-stakes gets a human check before it leaves your hands. Just as importantly, protected information belongs only in approved, protected tools: student records under FERPA, health information under HIPAA, and confidential University material generally have no place in a personal AI account.

Six practical “nuggets of wisdom,” drawn from real administrative work rather than from theory, run through the session and are gathered at the end as the takeaways to carry out the door. Participants leave with a working understanding of the tool, an honest sense of where it helps and where it does not, and one low-stakes task to try.

✔ 100% Online, Live Instructor-Led
✔ Designed for Non-Technical Professionals
✔ Focused on Practical, Everyday AI Use