Philosophy professor Mark Collier has been named the 12th UMN Morris Founders Scholar of the Liberal Arts. Collier’s proposal, “The Future of the Liberal Arts in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” will examine one of the challenges to the liberal arts in the 21st century, namely, the rapid explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
Collier plans to address several questions, including, “What impact will artificial intelligence have on the mission of liberal arts colleges such as UMN Morris?” and “Should public liberal arts colleges such as ours embrace these new technologies or restrict their usage?” Collier’s goal is to provide information about the most plausible reasons for and against the inclusion of AI tools on the Morris campus, and to provoke a campus-wide discussion and series of reflections about the future of the liberal arts more generally and of UMN Morris more specifically.
Founders Scholars and Projects
Since its establishment in 1960, UMN Morris has fostered a spirit of self discovery and thoughtful inquiry. Today that spirit is celebrated through the campus’s Founders’ Fund, which supports research that increases knowledge of the campus mission.