Grant Launches Student Training in AI

The Fletcher Jones Foundation has awarded Westmont College $500,000 to provide students with education, training, and industry readiness for the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI). The funds will expand the scope of the Center for Applied Technology Lab (CATLab) to include AI, adding state-of-the-art hardware and software infrastructure to facilitate students’ hands-on learning and experimentation.

“This is a critical time to have our Westmont students, armed with a Christian, liberal arts education, working on AI to ensure that it serves society instead of harming it,” says Reed Sheard, CIO and vice president for advancement.

The grant is enabling Westmont’s CATLab, which is part of the Center for Technology, Creativity and Moral Imagination, to recruit and hire up to five full-time Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellows this summer. The fellows will be guided by a manager with AI expertise and will work to create new AI services. 

The first student AI project will create an interactive chatbot powered by AI to assist Westmont students, including first-generation and transfer students, in finding information and answers for how to navigate all aspects of attending college. The chatbot will replace static FAQ pages which are limited and often don’t provide enough useful information for students, especially those new to a college academic environment. 

Students involved in CATLab combine their liberal arts education with relevant internships and hands-on experience that yields exceptional job-readiness. CATLab students supercharge their experience and connections by hosting industry leaders for an annual Impact conference in Santa Barbara. This year’s conference, July 22-24, will feature both Salesforce and AI.

CATLab stands out among liberal arts institutions for engaging undergraduate students from a range of majors to develop solutions that support the college’s business operations. Now in its sixth year, the CATLab hires approximately 28 students each summer to work both in the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) incubator and at area businesses as interns. CATLab provides students with an opportunity to learn programming, business process redesign, marketing, data analytics and decision science. 

Beginning this summer, the new dedicated team of Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellows will develop as AI innovators within CATLab. Students will access AI development tools, datasets and cloud computing resources to pursue practical application development. 

The generous grant also provides for a future collaborative workspace at the Westmont Downtown | Keith Center at 29 W. Anapamu St., and enables the college to recruit and launch an AI advisory board. The board will convene the industry leaders twice a year and provide crucial input for a program in a dynamic, rapidly changing field.

Westmont has been a grateful recipient of past funding from the Fletcher Jones Foundation. Most recently, in 2020 the Foundation made possible construction and equipment for The Fletcher Jones Foundation Center for Engineering.

Westmont seeks to equip students for a range of vocations and a capacity to step into jobs that do not yet exist, including those at the forefront of AI technology, by a thorough grounding in a Christian liberal arts education. With this combination Westmont graduates will offer not just technical prowess, but a capacity for moral discernment and to articulate ethical considerations that industry leaders are urging upon the rapidly emerging field of AI.