The need to add agentic AI to the university syllabus

Although his career spans over three decades, Frank Feagans, VP of IT and CIO at UT Dallas, has the enthusiasm of someone just getting started. “I think of myself as Gen Z at heart, although the mirror doesn’t tell me so,” he says. That aside, he does recognize how aligning gen AI with the needs of students and their research is vitally important to future careers and the longevity of the university.

Through partnerships with corporations, a culture promoting the benefits of emerging tech is evolving through speaking with students about what they understand gen AI to be, where it’s going, and the skills people need to advance its value. Research is also advancing investment and the broader impacts that come out of it.

“There’s enrollment and retention, outreach, and other things that fall into play,” he says. “And you can’t do that without those partnerships. Agentic AI isn’t aspirational. It’s something we have to do.”

Other sources of inspiration come from disruption out of left field, like what China achieved with DeepSeek. “They have the usual hardware but not a massive, bloated operating system,” he says. “When we do that, think how much more we can get out of the same hardware. It’s going to be incredible.”

With the way things are going, Feagans believes advancements will continue to outpace expectations, so getting more into gen AI is a key requirement to cope with the acceleration and pivots. “Plus, the R in ROI isn’t just about dollar signs,” he says. “Returns come in other forms that are aren’t so quantitative.”

Feagans also discusses his calling into higher ed and developing agentic AI-based mission-critical partnerships to advance research funding. Watch the full video below for more insights.

On rolling out agentic AI: I can share the success formula that we’re following, which I think is relevant pretty much anywhere. It’s not easy, but it’s important, and it starts with the commitment. You can have a leader, and I’ll use a higher ed example: Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University, says let’s make this happen. People get in line and get it done. But that’s not very common. A lot of times it has to grow from a line of business leader in corporate America, or from within higher ed. And you need to make sure there’s buy in at that level. Then it has to be linked to the cause. And with agentic AI, because you’re using it to make what you’re doing more productive, you’ll find the way to do it right as the cause morphs over time. But you need to really think about your business. This should be an evolution for what you do. Don’t just do the things you do today faster or with more information. You should be doing something different or broader with it because it gives you that opportunity. So that’s where the execution phase comes in.

On AI governance: It’s critical, of course, because when I see AI governance under the data management office, I shudder because it’s really about the human experience. I’m not saying to put it under HR either, but it needs to report up at the level where you’re understanding the impacts to the human side of things. And humans can be the customers, employees, your stakeholders, or partners. It’s not about saving jobs. It’s about the human element and doing it right. All those pieces fall into that so you’d want the governance to be that way. That’s the model we’re following and we’re seeing success with it.

On attitudes to AI in higher ed: I like the maturity model that’s in place, and with a few tweaks, it could fit well in higher education. Another component of culture is needed, though, because the people piece is mostly around workforce development, which is critical. From my experience at corporate America, cultures change more flexibly in a positive way than in higher ed due to an attitude of preserving how things have always been taught, and how they want to do things. When I started teaching my class, I asked how many were using some form of gen AI or a copilot provided on campus, and I think two people raised their hands. But people were using DeepSeek underground because they’ve got other professors saying you’re not allowed to use it. But I say please use it. You need to learn to teach differently. That’s what instructors need to think about, and not just in higher ed. Anybody who’s growing, training, and leading staff needs to think about it in that way. Use it as a gift and not as a barrier.

On being inspired: I spent the first three plus decades of my career in private industry, and I went up through the IT ranks, first starting as a developer and then getting into VP roles, but I just felt like there was more than shareholder value and quarterly earnings, so I decided to look into higher ed. I was recommended by many not to, but I did for three reasons. One was workforce development. When I was in corporate America, the workforce development was my team, and in higher education, I have all these student workers. I teach a class where I can grow the next generation of the workforce. So that meant a lot to me. The second was research. My parents passed away young so anything I could do with high performance computing to help advance research for people’s grandchildren I wanted to do. And the third was to bring IT best practices from private industry into higher ed, not just the technical aspects but the leadership. I’ve been doing this now for 13 years and I love what I’m doing.