To help students prepare for careers shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), Hofstra University has launched a certification program aimed at teaching the fundamentals, real-world applications, and ethical implications of AI. This program begins this fall.
The nine-credit AI Fundamentals, Ethics, and Applications certificate program was created by Hofstra’s AI Literacy Task Force, an interdisciplinary team comprised of faculty from engineering, computer science, philosophy, communication, psychology, and writing studies fields. This program is open to all undergraduate students and is designed to help you focus on your degree without adding time or cost.
“With this new certificate program, Hofstra is ensuring that all interested students, regardless of their field of study, have the opportunity to learn about various aspects of artificial intelligence,” Hofstra President Susan Poser said in a news release about the certificate program. “Students will address ethical and social issues related to AI while considering its usefulness in academia and their chosen careers.”
There are two course requirements: “Introduction to AI and Computer Science” and “Artificial Intelligence in Society: Emerging Challenges, Ethical Futures.” Students then complete a field-specific final project aligned with their major.
The university says the program was designed with broad accessibility in mind.
“It is intentionally designed with no prerequisites, so first-semester freshmen can immediately engage with how generative learning can impact their academic interests and career journeys,” Charlie Riordan, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said in a news release.
As the speed of AI continues to increase, the need for creativity and critical thinking will only increase, experts say.
“AI is particularly good at replacing process-based things, as we’re already seeing with coding,” said Eva Badowska, dean of Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “We must support students to develop their creativity and think outside the box. But this requires careful preparation to work with AI productively and critically. Otherwise, what does it mean to be human?”
This certificate responds to the growing demand by employers for university graduates who understand AI technology.
“AI is transforming the economic, political, and cultural realms,” Sheena Rabbani, dean of the DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said in a news release.
“These LLMs [large language models] “It was born three years ago and has caused a lot of disruption. We talked about how to create a program that is open to all majors so that all majors can lead in an AI-enabled workforce,” he said.
Ethics is at the heart of the program, with a focus on the unintended consequences of emerging AI technologies.
“We need to fully understand the impacts and challenges it may cause,” Rabbani said. “As a scientist, I’ve always been conscious of the work I’m doing. I have to worry about what problems I might cause.”
Last October, Hofstra introduced campus-wide access to ChatGPT Edu. ChatGPT Edu is a secure, private, institution-managed platform that implements no user data for training large-scale language models. To date, an estimated 4,000 students, 500 faculty, and 500 administrators have signed up for access.
