Director of Applied AI for Academic Initiatives
College of the Holy Cross
Full Time
JREQ-000812
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by attracting and retaining employees dedicated to fostering a
culture of professionalism, pride, mutual trust, and respect-one
that values appreciation and recognition, empowering each of us to
flourish both individually and collectively. We seek candidates who
are inspired by our mission and values, and who are eager to make a
meaningful difference on our campus. Learn more about Life at Holy
Cross
here.
The Director of Applied AI for Academic Initiatives leads the
College's applied use of artificial intelligence and other emerging
technologies across research, teaching, learning, and student
development. The role is deliberately cross-disciplinary: it works
with a chemist evaluating whether agentic systems can open new
experimental avenues as readily as with a colleague in student
affairs studying how these tools affect student development.
With a designee of the Office of the Provost, the Director helps
establish and lead a new AI Exploration Lab. The Lab is not only a
teaching and learning space. A central part of its purpose, and of
this role, is to shepherd and curate student-led research: helping
students scope viable questions, pairing them with faculty mentors
and appropriate tooling, and bringing their work to a standard
worth showing. The Director also tracks external funding in this
domain and helps faculty pursue it.
The Director works in close partnership with the Learning Design
team and the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching,
contributing applied artificial intelligence expertise to the work
they lead. It is a role for someone as credible in a faculty
research conversation as in a technical one, and who understands
that the most useful answer is sometimes to recommend against the
technology.
Job Description
Major Areas of Responsibility
Research enablement and domain acceleration
- Partner with faculty across disciplines to evaluate where
artificial intelligence, including agentic systems, can genuinely
advance research, from literature synthesis and experimental design
through data analysis and interpretation.
Assess feasibility in laboratory and computational disciplines,
such as whether agentic approaches can open new avenues in
biochemical research, and design pilots with the faculty who would
use them.
Advise on research computing needs, tooling, data handling,
provenance, and reproducibility in artificial-intelligence-assisted
scholarship.
Support faculty and staff studying the impact of artificial
intelligence on student development and co-curricular life,
contributing to the design of that inquiry and to the
interpretation of its findings.
AI Exploration Lab and student-led research
- Help establish and lead the AI Exploration Lab in partnership
with a designee of the Office of the Provost, including its
purpose, operating model, and terms of responsible
experimentation.
- Shepherd and curate student-led research: help students scope
viable questions, pair them with faculty mentors and suitable
tools, guide method, and bring completed work to a standard worth
presenting or publishing.
- Curate the Lab's models, tools, and environments, maintaining a
clear-eyed assessment of what each is and is not good for.
- Move promising projects from idea to prototype, drawing on
engineering capacity within Information Technology Services.
External funding and partnerships
- Identify and track grant and fellowship opportunities in
artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, and bring
credible fits to the attention of individual faculty and
departments.
- Support proposal development with technical narrative,
architecture, data management plans, and realistic computing
budgets, in coordination with the College's sponsored research and
advancement colleagues.
- Build relationships with peer institutions, consortia, funders,
and vendors, including institutions of the Association of Jesuit
Colleges and Universities.
Teaching and learning, in partnership
- Partner with the Learning Design team and the Center for
Inclusive Excellence in Teaching, contributing applied artificial
intelligence expertise to the course design, pedagogical practice,
and inclusive teaching work they lead.
- With the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching, examine
how these tools affect students differently, including questions of
access, accessibility, and whether AI assistance widens or narrows
gaps between students.
- Establish means, technologies, and assessment approaches that
deliberately constrain or remove artificial intelligence from
learning experiences where desirable difficulty is the goal, and
help faculty implement them with confidence.
- Advise on assignment and assessment design that remains
rigorous in an environment of ubiquitous artificial
intelligence.
Governance, policy, and horizon scanning
- Contribute to institutional artificial intelligence governance
and policy in partnership with the Office of the Provost and
Information Technology Services leadership.
- Advise on evaluation, procurement, privacy, accessibility,
academic integrity, and research data considerations for artificial
intelligence tools.
- Monitor the emerging technology landscape and advise College
leadership on what merits investment, what merits a pilot, and what
merits restraint.
Collaboration across Information Technology Services
- Work closely with the Principal AI Solutions Engineer and the
AI Solutions Engineer to turn faculty and student ideas into
working systems.
- Coordinate with colleagues in Data Architecture, Enterprise
Systems, and Information Security so that applied work is sound,
secure, and supportable.
- Other duties as assigned.
Minimum Qualifications
- Master's degree in learning design, instructional technology,
education, a relevant disciplinary field, or a closely related
area. Doctorate preferred.
- Five or more years of relevant professional experience,
including experience in higher education.
- Demonstrated expertise in learning design or instructional
design, with a record of substantive partnership with
faculty.
- Demonstrated experience supporting faculty research or
scholarly work, and the credibility to hold a research conversation
across unfamiliar disciplines.
- Working knowledge of contemporary artificial intelligence tools
and their application, including large language models and agentic
systems, together with the judgment to evaluate them critically
rather than enthusiastically.
- Experience mentoring or advising student research, or a
demonstrated aptitude for it.
- Familiarity with grant-seeking or sponsored research support is
preferred.
- Familiarity with learning science, including the roles of
retrieval practice, spacing, and desirable difficulty in producing
durable learning.
- Evidence of building something new, such as a program, lab, or
practice, rather than only operating something established.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including
the ability to explain technical matters to non-technical
audiences.
- Experience in a liberal arts setting preferred.
Core Competencies
Role-specific
- Applied artificial intelligence and emerging technology
fluency
- Faculty and student research partnership
- Learning design expertise
- Cross-disciplinary translation
- Program and lab building
- External funding awareness
- Governance and policy judgment
- Critical evaluation of technology
College-wide
- Collaboration: Exchanging information, ideas, and thoughts with
others in a manner that is proactive and enhances
partnerships
- Inclusion: Actively engaging with the values of the College by
promoting a work environment that embraces diversity and
demonstrating respect for the opinions and beliefs of others
- Innovation: Performing one's job with creativity and
proactivity, improving procedures and problem-solving
- Mission/Service Orientation: Focusing on service to others and
contributing to the College's collective mission
- Responsibility: Taking ownership of one's actions and
accountability for one's tasks and duties.
Salary: The salary range for the Director of Applied AI for
Academic Initiatives position is
$137,000-$145,000,
commensurate with education, experience, and qualifications.
Weekly Hours:
40
Annual Work Schedule:
12 month
Application Instructions
An updated resume and cover letter are required as a part of your
internal application. In your cover letter, please reflect on how
your professional and personal values align with the
Mission of the College of the Holy
Cross to form individuals of integrity and purpose who are
committed to the flourishing of all.
Additional Information
To review our generous benefits
options, please review our detailed information
here or check
out our
Benefits at a
Glance.
The College also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified
individuals with disabilities during the hiring process in
compliance with law. Please contact Human Resources for questions
or to request an accommodation via email at hr@holycross.edu, or by
calling 508-793-3391.
The College is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and
complies with all Federal and Massachusetts laws concerning Equal
Opportunity in the workplace.
To apply, visit https://holycross.wd12.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Careers/job/Worcester-MA/Director-of-Applied-AI-for-Academic-Initiatives_JREQ-000812
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