Pulse Check: Tales from a Community College AI Think Tank — Part 2

Pulse Check: Tales from a Community College AI Think Tank — Part 2

From Higher Ed Pulse by Mallory Willsea

May 21, 2026 · 32 min

About this episode

This episode explores how to transition individual AI experiments in higher education into structured pilots for broader implementation.

If your campus has plenty of AI activity but remains a little light on the strategy, you’re not alone. Many higher education institutions are running lots of experiments without a clear path to scale the right ideas responsibly. This leaves faculty and staff reinventing the wheel rather than moving forward together. In this episode, we go behind the scenes to explore the supports that shift individual experiments to structured pilots with potential for broader implementation. We’ll talk about microgrants, stipends, professional learning, and lightweight governance that doesn’t kill momentum.

People in this episode

Host: Mallory Willsea

Topics covered

  • AI in education
  • community college
  • strategic implementation
  • professional learning
  • microgrants
  • governance

Keywords

  • AI
  • community college
  • higher education
  • microgrants
  • professional development
  • governance
  • scaling ideas

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