AIDA January Update for Faculty and Staff
AIDA January Update
Welcome back and Happy New Year! Starting later this month, AIDA is hosting a new series of insightful and educational generative AI (GenAI) events for faculty and staff. Bolster your understanding of GenAI, connect with peers, and have your questions answered in real time.
Keep reading to register for upcoming sessions and get the latest AI news around the University.
Faculty & Staff In-Studio Workshops
The Institute for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and AIDA are facilitating a series of AI In-Studio Workshops. These workshops are built to meet the needs of our faculty and staff. Whether you’d like to practice developing AI policies in your syllabi, discover effective prompting in the workplace, or explore the capabilities of TerrierGPT, register for a workshop for hands-on experience.
Upcoming In-Studio Sessions:
- For Faculty: Thurs., January 15 | 10 am–12 pm | PHO 117
- For Faculty & Staff: Mon., February 2 | 12–2 pm | Hiebert Lounge I BU Medical Campus | INS-1407 (registration details forthcoming)
- More staff in-studio sessions on the Charles River Campus will be released in February.
Special thanks to the Center for Health Data Science for co-organizing our February workshop.
Faculty & Staff Symposia
In partnership with the Institute for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, AIDA is continuing its symposium series into the spring semester. Join us to explore how GenAI is impacting teaching and learning across disciplines and in the workplace. Each event will have a theme and feature presentations, followed by a moderated discussion and a 30-minute networking session with refreshments.
Faculty AIDA Symposiums:
- Tues., February 3 | 12–2 pm | Hiebert Lounge | BU Medical Campus | INS-1407 (registration details forthcoming)
- Faculty symposiums on the Charles River Campus will resume March 2026.
Special thanks to the Center for Health Data Science for co-organizing our February symposium.
Staff AIDA Symposiums:
- Thurs., January 15 | 3–5 pm | CDS 1750
- Another symposium will be held in April 2026.
Related Symposiums:
- Wed., February 4 | 4–6 pm | CDS B62: The AI Free Classroom: Discover new strategies and discuss ideas with faculty who have elected to keep artificial intelligence tools out of their classroom. Refreshments will be served. No registration required. This event is co-sponsored by the Boston University Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum, Center for the Humanities, and AI Development Accelerator.
News
Debbie Cheng Joins as AIDA Director
AIDA is proud to welcome Debbie Cheng as a director! Debbie Cheng is the assistant dean of data science and founding executive director of the Center for Health Data Science at the Boston University School of Public Health. A professor of biostatistics and fellow of the American Statistical Association, she leads interdisciplinary initiatives that bridge data science with public health and clinical research. Her research focuses on applied statistics and the design and analysis of clinical trials, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of substance abuse and HIV. She also serves as co-director of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).
New Year: New Models
TerrierGPT has been upgraded to the latest model family, including OpenAI GPT-5, Anthropic Claude 4.5 Haiku, and Meta Llama 4.0, delivering broader capabilities and more current knowledge. We’ve also enabled GPT-5 Thinking and Claude 4.5 Sonnet to provide stronger reasoning for in-depth tasks like analysis and research. On the feature side, TerrierGPT now supports transcribing uploaded audio files to text and accepts a wider range of raw text formats—including HTML, XML, and JSON—streamlining how you bring diverse materials into your workflow.
AI at BU Student Course
As artificial intelligence reshapes how we teach, learn, and work, it is essential that all students—regardless of their field of study—develop a foundational understanding of this technology and its responsible use.
The AI at BU course is a four-hour, self-paced fully online course designed to introduce undergraduate students to the fundamentals of AI and its responsible, ethical, and effective use in academic and professional settings. Several BU instructors plan to require this course as a prerequisite for their Spring 2026 courses.
For faculty and staff interested in registering for the course, please request access through our submission form.
More News:
- Massachusetts Officials Praise Statewide AI Progress at BU Event
- 10 Ways BU Researchers Could Revolutionize Cancer Care, including AI-Guided Cancer Treatment
RESOURCES
- Getting started with TerrierGPT
- Example assignments, videos, and more that incorporate GenAI
- Frequently asked questions
The AI Development Accelerator for Academic and Administrative Excellence (AIDA) is a Boston University initiative dedicated to equipping Boston University faculty, staff, and students with the knowledge, tools, and critical frameworks to navigate the evolving landscape of generative AI. Through ethical exploration, creative experimentation, and real-world application, we empower our community to harness AI’s potential responsibly and innovatively.