Over 40 faculty and administrative staff from across all the University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium partner campuses gathered for the 9th Annual UW MBA Consortium Faculty Meeting on Thursday and Friday, January 9–10, 2025. This year’s theme was centered around humanizing the online learning environment, focusing on regular and substantive interaction (RSI), web accessibility, and generative AI.
“The annual meeting brought together relevant topics and helped me think of some different ways to utilize generative AI in my teaching,” said Andreas Eklund, assistant professor of marketing at UW-La Crosse. “AI is still in its infancy but has the potential to revolutionize the way we teach, communicate, engage, and interact with students in the UW MBA Consortium.”
On day one of the live meeting, UW MBA Consortium instructional designers Sierra Lomo and Katie Venit, along with John Bellotti, an instructional designer at UW Oshkosh, discussed various aspects of RSI and accessibility.
Following the instructional designers’ conversation, attendees broke into small groups to discuss topics they had learned, as well as how they could apply the concepts to their online teaching.
Day two opened with a presentation about AACSB teaching qualifications by Jessica Franson, managing director of the UW MBA Consortium. A panel of instructors and instructional designers followed, exploring the role of generative AI in enhancing student interaction. They shared insights and experiences on how these technologies can be leveraged to create more interactive and personalized learning experiences. The day wrapped up with small-group breakout discussions about leveraging generative AI to enhance online course engagement, followed by an announcement of the 2024 Outstanding Faculty award winner.
Prior to the live meeting, faculty engaged in a Canvas course developed by the program’s Instructional Design and Online Course Support (iDocs) team of instructional designers and other administrative staff to provide additional information on the meeting’s topics, as well as a place to network with colleagues.
The 10th Annual UW MBA Consortium Faculty Meeting will be held in January 2026.
UW MBA Consortium Faculty & Staff Meet in Zoom
