Thinking Out Loud is a podcast about AI and higher education, hosted by Sam Jay and Larry Sampler from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Each episode is a real-time conversation about what generative AI is doing to universities, what it is asking of faculty and staff, and what the work of leading through it actually looks like from the inside.This is not a show about AI hype or AI fear. It is a show about figuring it out. Sam and Larry lead MSU Denver&#39;s AI strategy and serve as advisors to the university&#39;s senior leadership team. Together they walk through the conversations, decisions, and unresolved questions that come with building AI capacity at a public, open-access university.If you work in higher education, lead an AI initiative, or are trying to make sense of where this is all going, subscribe and <a href="mailto:ai@msudenver.edu" rel="nofollow">send us the questions</a> you are stuck on.

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In this episode of Thinking Out Loud, recorded on-site at the Ai4 Conference in Las Vegas, Sam and Larry sit down with Kevin Taylor, Chief Information Officer, and Mike Hart, Chief Information Security Officer, at MSU Denver. Together, we explore what it means to lead institutional IT and cybersecurity at a moment when advanced AI has moved out of the labs and into daily campus life. Kevin and Mike share how their thinking has shifted, where the real tensions sit between innovation and governance, and what it takes to balance faculty, staff, and student demand for AI access with the realities of maintaining a complex enterprise environment. Links mentioned during the interview:<ul><li><a href="https://www.checoweb.org/" rel="nofollow">Colorado Higher Ed Computing Organization</a> (CHECO)</li><li><a href="https://tosdr.org/en/" rel="nofollow">Terms of Service, Didn&#39;t Read</a></li></ul>

We're Excited... And Exhausted

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In episode three of Thinking Out Loud, Sam Jay and Larry Sampler recap their presentation to the MSU Denver Board of Trustees, subsequent discussion, and the work to be done over the summer as faculty, staff, and students prepare for a new academic year. Have any question, comments, ideas, or feedback? Email us at <a href="mailto:ai@msudenver.edu" rel="nofollow">ai@msudenver.edu</a>.

How To Eat an Elephant

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In episode two of Thinking Out Loud, Sam Jay and Larry Sampler work through how they are preparing to brief the MSU Denver Board of Trustees on the university&#39;s AI readiness work.They open with a round of fact or fiction, testing each other on a set of recent AI stories that range from useful to alarming to flat-out strange. The point is not the trivia. It is the reality that President Davidson and every senior leader now has to make decisions inside an environment this noisy and this fast-moving.From there the conversation turns to the work itself. How do you build a governance structure that is flexible enough to keep up with AI without smothering the curiosity of a university full of smart people? Sam and Larry make the case for a task force model over a standing committee, walk through the four areas of emphasis shaping their plan (student readiness, faculty readiness and curriculum, operational innovation, and special projects), and get honest about the unglamorous truth that most of this work starts with documentation, not deployment.Along the way: why they are not flipping every switch in Workday yet, what the controller&#39;s office taught them about where AI agents actually add value, the difference between training and education, and why keeping a human in the loop is the whole game.Recorded as the team heads into board preparation and the summer planning stretch.Have a question you are stuck on? Email us at <a href="mailto:ai@msudenver.edu" rel="nofollow">ai@msudenver.edu</a>.Links and sources mentioned in this episode: <ul><li><a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/i-guessed-instead-of-verifying-claude-ai-agent-wipes-companys-entire-database-in-9-seconds-then-apologizes" rel="nofollow">The autonomous database deletion story</a></li><li><a href="https://www.emergence.ai/blog/emergence-world-a-laboratory-for-evaluating-long-horizon-agent-autonomy" rel="nofollow">Emergence World multi-agent simulation</a></li></ul>

Briefing the Board

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In the inaugural episode of Thinking Out Loud, Sam Jay, Executive Director of Digital Learning and AI Strategy, and Larry Sampler, former COO and now Special Advisor to the President, sit down to introduce the show and the work behind it.Sam and Larry trace the backstory that brought each of them to leading AI at Metropolitan State University of Denver, a public, open-access university serving 18,000 students in downtown Denver. They talk about what got them into this work, what they have learned so far, and why they decided a podcast was the right way to think about it in public.The conversation then turns to the areas of emphasis that will shape their work in the months ahead. Faculty readiness and pedagogical excellence. Student readiness and curriculum development. Operational innovation across the university. The shared thread is a commitment to using AI in a way that enriches the university&#39;s mission rather than competes with it.This episode sets the foundation for everything that follows. Future episodes will go deep on the specific decisions, pilots, and unresolved questions that come with building AI capacity at a public university.If you work in higher education, lead an AI initiative, or are trying to make sense of where this is all going, this is the place to start.Subscribe and send us the questions you are stuck on.Music: Space Cadet Training Montage by Zane Little (CC0 1.0 Universal).

Getting Started

*Thinking Out Loud* is a podcast about AI and higher education, hosted by Sam Jay and Larry Sampler from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Each episode is a real-time conversation about what generative AI is doing to universities, what it is asking of faculty and staff, and what the work of leading through it actually looks like from the inside.

This is not a show about AI hype or AI fear. It is a show about figuring it out. Sam and Larry lead MSU Denver's AI strategy and serve as advisors to the university's senior leadership team. Together they walk through the conversations, decisions, and unresolved questions that come with building AI capacity at a public, open-access university.

If you work in higher education, lead an AI initiative, or are trying to make sense of where this is all going, subscribe and send us the questions ( ai@msudenver.edu ) you are stuck on.