Overview

December 14
11AM PT, 2PM ET

Register

Higher education IT teams are modernizing decades-old systems and meeting growing campus demand for new applications, often without additional staff or outside consultants. AI-assisted coding is changing what a small team can deliver, but only when it’s paired with structure, context, and governance.

Join us to hear how three universities are making AI a working part of how they build, test, and run software. The Ohio State University adopted a structured AI development lifecycle and reports a 20x gain in developer productivity on applications serving more than 65,000 students. George Washington University rebuilt complex ERP integrations in about four hours instead of 60 by grounding AI in decades of institutional business rules. And William & Mary’s eight-person platforms team completed a full move off its legacy virtualization platform in eight months while using AI to help manage its new environment.

You’ll leave with a practical playbook for starting small, keeping humans in charge, and expanding AI-assisted development across your institution. 

Why attend:

  • Improve AI results with specification-driven development.
  • Ground AI in your institutional knowledge.
  • Build responsible AI governance from the start.
  • Turn successful pilots into broader adoption.

Speakers

 

Jeremy Boeckman

Ohio State

 

Phil Fenstermacher

William & Mary

Phil Fenstermacher is the Associate Director of Systems Design & Architecture at William & Mary, bringing two decades of experience in higher education systems and platform engineering. He leads the team managing the university’s enterprise compute, storage, operating systems, and cloud environments. He focuses on automation, platform resilience, and finding practical ways to leverage AI to enhance existing systems and everyday operations.

Anna Vakulick headshot

Anna Vakulick

Interim Vice Provost of IT and CIO, The George Washington University

Anna Vakulick is the Interim Vice Provost for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at The George Washington University, where she leads the university’s technology strategy and major modernization initiatives. With more than two decades of experience spanning higher education and industry, she has held senior IT leadership roles at GW and the University of Oklahoma, following her early career as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary, an MBA from the University of Oklahoma, and has served as a faculty member for EDUCAUSE Institute programs.

Ron Bergmann headshot

Ron Bergmann — Moderator

Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Education

Ronald M. Bergmann most recently served as Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Lehman College/CUNY. At Lehman, Ron and his team pioneered the use of analytics, automated major business processes, enhanced classroom technology, and opened the first virtual reality lab in the region. Lehman was cited as an exemplar in the 2018 Horizon Report for its innovative Lehman 360 digital platform. Ron is a fellow of the EDUCAUSE/CLIR Frye (now Leading Change) Institute and was named in 2017 as one of the nation’s top technologists, transformers, and trailblazers by the Center for Digital Education. Ron previously served as first deputy commissioner of New York City's information technology agency where he was selected by Government Technology Magazine as one of the nation's leading individuals redefining and advancing technology's role in government. 

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