A quick search of articles related to Gen AI in The Chronicle for Higher Education reveals a variety of reactions, solutions, and big questions about the future of higher education and our current students. Top hits from the article list include: “AI is Making the College Experience Lonelier” (September 22, 2025), “Can Generative AI Promote Student Success?” (September 26, 2025), and the tough question: “Can the Humanities Survive AI?” (January 23, 2025). The expansive use of AI is changing both how and what we teach. Is AI really the new calculator? Will it really boost our intelligence (Mollick, 2024)? As we wait for history to answer these questions, we, as humans, continue to be key in shaping our teaching and learning environments.

This year’s theme, Humans, Humanity, and the Humanities: Shaping Our Teaching and Learning Environments, invites participants to focus on the unique role of human thought, creativity, and moral reasoning, as AI changes the higher education landscape. We envision presentations that explore how we are maintaining the integral social learning environment in the age of AI and centralizing the importance of critical thinking, self-reflection, and the ethical application (and implications) of AI usage.

Through a variety of presentation formats, CoTL is a space to share your scholarly work in an inviting, supportive, yet peer-reviewed conference tailored to the needs of instructors along the Gulf Coast. Through a partnership between several area colleges and universities, this conference reaches a diverse audience, all of whom are engaged in a variety of ways of supporting students.