Gonzaga University Centers Human Formation in AI Conference

The second annual Value and Responsibility in AI Technologies Conference brought nearly 300 educators, students, business leaders and community partners to Gonzaga University on April 23 and 24, 2026. The event, hosted by the Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology, deliberately shifted focus from computational scale toward human formation. Attendance increased from roughly 180 participants in 2025 to nearly 300 this year.

What emerged was shared conversation that followed the thread from elementary education to retirement. Across a full day of programming, the conference traced that living continuum. This thread, which could be traced as a pipeline to be optimized, was instead followed as a human journey shaped by relationships, decisions and moments of transition.

Gonzaga University's official announcement details the composition of attendees: K–12 teachers and administrators from across Washington state, university faculty, staff and researchers, students, entrepreneurs and regional business leaders. Each group arrived with its own curiosities.

This is about building a continuum of purposeful engagement with AI that spans a lifetime, says Reisenauer Family Director of the Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology Jay Yang, Ph.D. By connecting university learning with K-12 education and industry empowerment, Gonzaga is creating a model where individuals develop technical literacy and skills, confidence and capacity to navigate changes, so as to lead with intention and meaningful contributions over time.

The conference opened with a panel of Jesuit scholars exploring a question rarely centered in conversations about artificial intelligence: how does this technology shape the formation of the human person? Panelists examined how AI challenges assumptions about identity, agency and moral responsibility, while also offering new opportunities for reflection and growth.

One speaker, working directly with leading AI developers, offered insight into ongoing efforts to embed ethical reasoning within emerging models. What might have been expected as a niche conversation became a truly compelling moment because it named what many were already sensing—that the most urgent questions about AI are actually not technical, they are deeply human.

During a student panel and research showcase, participants presented projects, prototypes and perspectives that reflected both technical fluency and thoughtful engagement with AI's broader implications. Their work drew sustained attention for its curiosity, reflection and grounded nature. The showcase featured more than two dozen research and demonstration projects, creating space for interaction between students, faculty and industry partners.

Conversations extended beyond presentations, becoming points of connection between disciplines, experience levels and ideas and application. (The physical reality of this: people actually talking, not just scrolling through slides on their phones.)

In the afternoon, the conversation turned toward the workforce to examine what organizations are actually seeking in a time of rapid change. The answer was clear—and consistent: expertise and AI skills matter, but they are not the differentiator. What organizations need are individuals who can navigate complexity, lead through uncertainty and support others as they adapt.

People who understand how systems work and how people experience them. In other words, industries are looking for critical thinking, ethical discernment and care for the whole person—Jesuit principles Gonzaga has always prioritized. As AI continues to evolve, those capacities are not becoming less relevant; they are becoming essential.

The conference marked a significant expansion in community engagement. Approximately one-third of attendees represented Spokane-area businesses, reflecting a growing interest in how AI intersects with regional industry and economic development. At the same time, nearly 50 K–12 educators participated through a program supported by the Gates Foundation, which has committed continued investment in Gonzaga's "Navigating AI" initiative.

Together, these partnerships point toward a broader vision, in which education is not isolated within institutional boundaries, but connected—intentionally and continuously—to the communities it serves. If the conference clarified anything, it is that no single group holds the answers to AI's most pressing questions, rather, progress will depend on connection.

The Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology at Gonzaga is advancing that work by expanding opportunities for students, educators and industry partners to collaborate on real-world challenges—developing innovations that bridge disciplines and sectors. At the same time, Gonzaga is investing in faculty development to ensure that teaching and research across disciplines continue to evolve thoughtfully alongside emerging technologies.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world at a pace no single institution can navigate alone, says Gonzaga University President Katia Passerini, Ph.D. Gonzaga is leading through partnership—aligning education, industry and community to ensure that innovation is guided by purpose and responsibility.

Documentation from the university's AI in Higher Education page reveals additional infrastructure supporting this approach. Foley Library supports students, faculty, and staff in developing the critical skills needed to engage generative AI responsibly. Through classroom instruction, workshops, and individualized research support, librarians help the community understand how AI systems produce information, recognize sources of bias, and navigate the intellectual property, copyright, and data-ethics issues connected to these tools.

In the Digital Scholarship Lab, students and faculty can experiment with emerging technologies, test AI-supported research approaches, and receive tailored guidance for digital projects. The Lab provides an exploratory space grounded in critical inquiry and collaborative learning. Librarians teach users to question AI outputs, verify evidence, and integrate technology thoughtfully into scholarly work.

Information Technology Services (ITS) provides the secure, reliable infrastructure that enables responsible AI adoption across Gonzaga. Serving students, alumni, faculty, and staff, ITS ensures access to enterprise-approved generative and agentic AI tools that meet rigorous information security and data-protection standards. ITS evaluates requests for new AI platforms and infrastructure, helping campus partners select technologies that support development, research, and administrative work while maintaining institutional security.

Instructional Design & Delivery (IDD) leads the thoughtful integration of AI into teaching, learning, and course design at Gonzaga. Supporting faculty, students, and university partners, IDD helps the community navigate AI's impact on in-person and remote learning, assessment, and learning experiences with clarity and ethical awareness. The department also develops university-wide guidelines for appropriate AI use, promoting academic integrity and consistent expectations across programs.

Faculty members teaching core curriculum courses now must infuse discussions of artificial intelligence. Kris Morehouse, Communication Studies, notes that AI answers provide clear insights into how power works, what stories or explanations are being told and by whom, and who is represented in the answers and how they are being represented. Anthony Fisher, Philosophy, introduces an AI chatbot as the ultimate reasoner that knows everything, then encourages students to critique its outputs and thereby strengthen their own reasoning and critical thinking skills.

The challenge is that students sometimes use AI to do their work for them. Reading, writing, and notetaking are important components of learning; offloading our learning to AI means students are not firing up—and growing—those beautiful neurons in their brains, expanding their own understandings of and to develop an engaged orientation to our world.

Whether this human-centered approach actually scales beyond a Jesuit university in Spokane remains the real question. The model works in controlled environments with committed faculty and institutional support. Whether it translates to institutions without similar resources or philosophical foundations is another matter entirely.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn