Responsible AI for Education 2026: A Campus Convening on April 21
Good Systems, the Office of Academic Technology, and Enterprise Technology are bringing the UT community together for a full day of conversation on how AI should be used in higher education — and what we'll wish we'd done differently.
Ten years from now, what will we wish we had done differently today?
The second annual Responsible AI for Education convening comes to the Texas Union on April 21 — a full day of community conversation on how UT approaches AI with responsibility.
The Office of Academic Technology, Good Systems, and Enterprise Technology are hosting the second annual Responsible AI for Education campus convening on Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at the Texas Union's Shirley Bird Perry Ballroom. The full-day event brings together students, faculty, staff, and experts to ask hard questions about responsible AI in higher education.
Keynote: a conversation about the decisions we're making right now
The day's keynote pairs Cole Camplese, UT Austin's CIO, with James P. Frazee of San Diego State University for a conversation framed around a deceptively simple question: ten years from now, what will we wish we had done differently today? It's a prompt designed to move the room past immediate pressures and into the harder territory — the governance choices, the access decisions, the cultural signals that higher education is sending right now about what AI is for and who it serves.
A full day built for community participation
The event is structured as a genuine convening, not a lecture series. Panels feature UT voices from the School of Law, the Information Security Office, the School of Information, the IC² Institute, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs alongside Enterprise Technology and Academic Technology staff. A student panel asks what students are actually weighing when they think about AI and their education. A morning workshop focuses on cultivating responsible AI principles in the classroom.
The interactive lunch discussion — led by Min Kyung Lee from the School of Information — takes on one of the most practically difficult questions in this space: when does AI assistance become AI dependence in teaching practice? The afternoon closes with a panel on how to balance innovation in education with sustainability.
Tuesday, April 21, 2026 | 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. | Texas Union, Shirley Bird Perry Ballroom, 2308 Whitis Avenue. Breakfast and lunch provided. Advance registration requested.
Why this convening matters
Last year's event was the first time UT Austin brought these communities together around responsible AI in education. The questions were new then. They're sharper now. AI tools are no longer experimental for most faculty and students — they're part of the daily texture of academic work. What the institution does with that reality, how it governs access, shapes expectations, and builds the human capacity to use AI well, is one of the most consequential educational decisions UT will make in the next decade.
Come ready to learn, participate, and connect.
This story was developed with AI support as part of the writing and editing workflow.