I truly believe this initiative will position our college in a way that will surprise our community partners, our stakeholders and our students. No other college in Wisconsin is currently deploying an AI service to every employee and student, regardless of their class enrollment.
Milwaukee Area Technical College is on the sharpest cutting edge of artificial intelligence technology.
MATC is the first college in Wisconsin, and one of the few in the Midwest, to make AI accessible to all students, faculty and staff.
Simply by logging on to their MATC Google account, everyone at the college can access Google’s Gemini app and NotebookLM, two key AI tools. Critically important, both are FERPA compliant,said Donald Kasprzak, the college’s director of information security.
“I truly believe this initiative will position our college in a way that will surprise our community partners, our stakeholders and our students,” Kasprzak said. “No other college in Wisconsin is currently deploying an AI service to every employee and student, regardless of their class enrollment.
“This is truly transformational technology that, in my honest opinion, can be the cornerstone of a remarkable opportunity for MATC,” he said. “This will allow us to plant a flag in the ground. Enroll at MATC, and you’ll have access to an industry standard AI service right now.”
MATC administrators began researching and reviewing the capabilities of AI in 2023. The college formed an AI Strategic Planning team, and held informational sessions about AI at the annual, college-wide MATC Day. In February 2024, MATC ordered 40 user licenses for Gemini.
As the team experimented with Google’s AI tool, MATC created the IT Network Specialist (AI, Cloud and Virtualization) associate degree program. Launched in June of 2024, the program prepares students for entry-level positions in information technology careers that use AI.
MATC’s exploration of AI continued this spring. Seven students volunteered for the AI mentor program and were trained on various AI tools, including Gemini, ChatGPT, DALL-E and GitHub Copilot. The aim was to have these students then serve as mentors on AI for other students.
The student mentors discovered that AI could be a wondrous tool to create content and images, to brainstorm ideas and concepts, to find data and research, and perhaps provide employment opportunities for students and current IT professionals.
“We’re seeing a real demand for AI,” said Samantha Burgos, an MATC retention coach who helped plan the AI mentor program. “This was a cool opportunity to learn about AI and have students pass on what they learned to other students.”
Faculty members have started using AI to help develop lesson plans, quizzes, test reviews, rubrics, assessments and hand-on classroom activities.
According to Google, AI can never replace the expertise, knowledge or creativity of an educator, but it can be a helpful tool to enhance and enrich teaching and learning experiences.
“AI can help educators boost their creativity and productivity, giving them time back to invest in themselves and their students,” the company stated on its website.
A critical part of the Gemini AI app is that it is compliant with FERPA, which protects college and employee data, Kasprzak said.
“A key advantage is that Google does not train its models using our data, and all user prompts are private,” he said. “This is fundamentally different from ChatGPT and Copilot, which ingest all user prompts to train their models. We’ve learned that faculty coursework entered into ChatGPT has now become part of OpenAI’s training module. Understand that when you use any free AI tool, you forfeit control and ownership of your intellectual property and academic work.”
Google is also aggressively delivering AI to high schools, middle schools and even elementary schools, Kasprzak said. If high school students are using Gemini, they might consider a place like MATC, where they use the same kind of technology, he said.
“That could be a very compelling statement to some potential students and a real competitive advantage for us,” he said.
Google has invited MATC to its Gemini Higher Education Leader Series, being held at their New York City offices in July. This series will explore strategies for technology-driven AI transformation in higher education.
Kasprzak will attend the conference to network with other community colleges and share experiences with AI.
“We will be able to take our organization a step forward,” Kasprzak. “My priority is equipping our college and students with the critical AI proficiency needed for tomorrow’s job market.”
About MATC: As Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. Nearly 30,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs; and transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 40 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.