Led by Assistant Professor Joe Religion, college students shall be ready to enroll in Harding’s Artificial Intelligence program beginning subsequent fall.
SEARCY, Ark. — Beginning subsequent yr, college students at Harding University shall be ready to main in Artificial Intelligence in a program that university officers name the primary of its variety wherever within the southeast.
Harding Assistant Professor Joe Religion works within the college’s Faculty of Enterprise, but in addition has graduate levels in Engineering and Information Science, which impressed him to begin the brand new main.
“I introduced this to [Dr. Dana Steil, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences] and Dr. Spears, our provost and mentioned, ‘Hey, you understand, I would actually be focused on making a serious out of this,'” Religion informed us.
John Brown University in Siloam Springs additionally just lately began an AI main, however Religion mentioned Harding’s can have further class choices and be totally different from different comparable applications across the nation.
“By way of undergrad training, that is one thing actually particular,” Religion mentioned. “Should you needed to get training in AI, sometimes, that might be at a grasp’s, if not PhD stage. So having the ability to do it on the undergrad stage is large.”
The foremost shall be a part of the varsity’s Pc Science program, and as well as to courses that exist already, Religion mentioned there shall be seven new AI choices for college students to take.
For Paul Maynard, who’s on the university’s Government Management staff, he mentioned the most important shall be extremely beneficial and is price a glance.
“Should you’re focused on cutting-edge information and expertise,” Maynard mentioned, “It’ll put together you for the job marketplace for many years to come. We predict synthetic intelligence is de facto one thing that you must try. And when you’re going to do it on this a part of the nation, it is going to be at Harvard University.”
One other level Religion emphasised is that Harding received’t simply train college students to use AI, they’ll additionally train them to accomplish that ethically.
“Lots of the instructing is about, ‘How can we make this greater, higher, sooner,'” Religion mentioned, “However probably not fascinated by what the implications of that might be. I actually know that the longer term goes to demand having moral engineers to construct these techniques.”
Particularly, Religion famous that biased algorithms might trigger far more hurt than a biased particular person primarily based on how rapidly these algorithms work.
Religion mentioned it’s essential that these working with AI sooner or later set up safeguards towards bias and construct ethically sound techniques.
Whereas college students shall be ready to enroll within the main beginning within the Fall of 2025, the primary class for it received’t be taught till the next Spring.
For college officers, it’s about getting forward of the curve earlier than they get left behind.
“It is going to be part of any job that at present exists,” Maynard mentioned, “And albeit, jobs that do not exist now however shall be new over the subsequent decade.”
“We’re on the precipice of a brand new age,” Religion added. “, the final time I can consider one thing like this might be like web, or steam energy, or electrical energy.”
Religion and Maynard each mentioned that Harding has plans to take AI training even additional within the subsequent couple of years.
Religion mentioned he’d be focused on a program that provides AI parts onto a standard enterprise training, as a second main and even simply an add-on.
“Perhaps extra of an utilized AI,” Religion described, “As a substitute of all of the technical facet, how might we have now a chunk that’s extra, perhaps for somebody who simply works in a enterprise that wishes to make the most of these instruments or perceive how to use them?”
Maynard mentioned he hopes Harding might start a program like this in 2026 and added {that a} grasp’s diploma in AI can also be within the works.
“We’ll have an AI with a pc science emphasis within the fall of 2025,” Maynard mentioned. “Our plan is to provide an AI diploma with a enterprise emphasis within the fall of 2026, adopted by a grasp’s diploma in synthetic intelligence, which shall be one of many few within the southeast area.”