AI Integration by Committee: Team Guides AI Research, Discussion, and Decision-making

In 2023, staff from UConn’s Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills started exploring how they could use AI in their operations after attending NACE’s AI Summer Learning Showcase.

“Our staff who attended developed a blog post summarizing our learning and introducing best practice guidelines for students using AI in their job search, interview preparation, and resume and cover letter writing,” recalls Mary Catherine Decoteau, career consultant in UConn’s Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills.

“We recognized then that we had to proactively address AI’s role in career development to ensure students build competencies rather than rely on AI in ways that undermine career readiness.”

Center staff created an AI Committee with a primary objective to develop a sustainable, intentional strategy for integrating AI into career services in ways that support student learning, staff confidence, and employer/alumni engagement. Decoteau chairs the AI Committee, which has benefitted from the contributions of center staff members Wiley Dawson, Olufemi Fagun, Kay Gruder, Steve Kligerman, Theo Menounos, and Chrys Tsilibes.

“Rather than approaching AI through isolated initiatives, we established the cross-functional committee to guide research, discussion, and decision-making related to integrating AI within our work,” Decoteau explains.

“We first formed as a committee in summer 2024 and have been meeting regularly since then to discuss department priorities and develop recommendations for integrating AI in a meaningful and manageable way.”

The AI Committee’s focus areas have included:

• Increasing staff knowledge and confidence in discussing AI tools, ethics, and best practices with students.
• Providing students with accessible, practical guidance on using AI responsibly to support career exploration, application materials, and professional skill development.
• Engaging employers and alumni to better understand how AI is being used in the workforce and to inform resource development.
• Creating scalable, adaptable resources and programming that could evolve alongside AI technologies.
• Contributing to broader professional conversations through participation in research and conference presentations.

So far, some of the outcomes of the effort include:

• The creation of a student-facing AI web resource hub offering guidance on responsible and effective AI use.
• The creation of a signature AI presentation and integration of AI content into existing classroom and workshop programming.
• Leveraging employer and alumni networks to gather industry perspectives and inform resource development.
• The development of an internal staff AI website with guidelines, training materials, and shared resources.
• The completion of AI fundamentals training by the full career staff.
• Strategic collaborations with campus partners to embed AI-related career education across departments.

“Overall, our work has focused on creating an adaptable foundation that allows our staff and students to meaningfully engage with AI as technologies and workplace expectations continue to evolve,” Decoteau says.

She notes that the impact of AI varies so far, but UConn’s career coaching, programming, and corporate partner relations staff have been the most directly impacted as they need to understand and communicate AI practices, expectations around AI in the career space, and ethical concerns to student-facing staff, students, and employer partners.

“One of the biggest impacts of our efforts has been increased staff confidence and consistency in discussing AI with students. Additionally, conversations around AI are now much more integrated into our everyday coaching and programming rather than treated as a separate topic,” Decoteau says.

The initiative faced several challenges, including:

• Understanding the scope of our responsibility when learning about and integrating AI into our work—One of the most important mindset shifts for staff was recognizing that they do not need to become technical AI experts in order to effectively support students. “We constantly remind ourselves that our responsibility is to understand enough to help students think critically, ethically, and strategically about how these tools intersect with their career development,” Decoteau points out.
• Accommodating and responding to differing attitudes toward AI, both among our staff and the students we serve—The AI Committee addressed this challenge by surveying staff on their familiarity and comfort level with AI to identify relevant and helpful training opportunities, and by encouraging UConn students to participate in a national study by Mary Scott to share their perceptions around AI and using the resulting data to evaluate how the center’s resources and services align.
• Navigating an environment where formal AI guidance is still evolving—Various campus entities have done their best to establish guidelines for appropriate AI use within their area. The Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills uses UConn’s FERPA and Data Classification policies as well as Applying NACE’s Principles for Ethical Professional Practice to AI to inform its work and the guidance it provides to students.
• Not always knowing which other departments/individuals on campus are engaging in this work—Identifying and connecting with other campus departments engaged in similar AI-related initiatives has been challenging, as these efforts are often developed independently across the institution. It has been helpful for center staff to keep a close eye on staff listservs/campus news to identify the people who are active in this space and find opportunities to connect, learn from, and share with them.

Based on her experiences and those of her colleagues, Decoteau offers a host of tips to other career services professionals for integrating AI into their work. She recommends that they:

• Start small. Begin with manageable goals and pilot efforts rather than trying to create a comprehensive AI strategy immediately.
• Benchmark and research. See what other institutions are doing related to AI integration. This helped UConn’s Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills get started.
• Emphasize critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and professional judgment when discussing AI with students rather than focusing only on tool functionality.
• Encourage staff to experiment with and learn about AI tools in low-stakes ways so they can better understand both the possibilities and limitations before discussing them with students.
• Establish shared language, guiding principles, and consistent messaging across staff to help ensure students receive clear and aligned guidance regarding AI use.

“This work has been complex and challenging. We see this as an evolving area of practice rather than a completed initiative,” Decoteau says.

She says that one of the biggest lessons she and her colleagues have learned is that successful AI integration is less about adopting specific tools and more about building a culture of ongoing learning, collaboration, and adaptability.

“We learned that it is helpful and important to be transparent and communicative about our questions, concerns, and ideas related to AI both among our staff and with our students and our employer, alumni, and campus partners,” she notes.

“The dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of AI has created feelings of uncertainty and anxiety among students and staff regarding workforce implications, ethical concerns, and the future of professional skill development.”

Another key development has been recognizing the value of creating space for open dialogue around those concerns rather than avoiding them.

“Many of the most meaningful conversations have been less about the technology itself and more about ‘human’ topics like communication, ethics, equity, and critical thinking,” Decoteau adds.

“Within the AI Committee, and more broadly within the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills, we have learned the value of cultivating an environment that allows individuals to share their unique perspectives related to AI and encourages learning and exploration.

“We have learned that it is better to begin with thoughtful experimentation and learning rather than waiting for perfect expertise or fully developed institutional frameworks.”

Mary Catherine Decoteau will present “Lessons in AI Integration: Successes, Challenges, and Replicable Strategies” during NACE26.