Every liberal arts college requires students to write in every discipline, because writing is how an educated person thinks on paper. Artificial intelligence belongs in the same category. I believe AI should be a core competency for every college student, and I believe it should wrap around every liberal arts major. Colleges that delay, particularly small liberal arts colleges, will fall behind.
Colby saw this coming
In January 2021, Colby College opened the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence with a $30 million gift. It was the first major AI program at a liberal arts college. President David A. Greene refused to confine AI to computer science. He told Marketplace he sees AI “organically integrated across our courses” and predicted that AI experience for graduates is “not going to be a plus factor, it’s going to be an absolute expectation.”
Courses now span fields as far apart as data science and choreography, and this fall first-year orientation added an AI module built in part by the writing program.
The prediction has arrived
NACE’s Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update found that more than one-third of entry-level jobs now require AI skills, nearly triple the share six months earlier. Yet half of graduating seniors in NACE’s 2026 student survey said they are not building those skills.
Wrap it around every major
One required AI course is not enough. Writing instruction works because it continues past the first year, and each major teaches students to write the way its field thinks. A history major should test AI against primary sources. A biology major should use it to analyze data and know when to question the results. An art history major should examine what AI-generated images mean for authorship. Every department should define what AI fluency looks like in its field, built on a first-year foundation and graduation outcomes that require students to show judgment.
The liberal arts are built for this. AI rewards people who frame good questions, weigh evidence, recognize bias, and write clearly. Without that foundation, students become confident users who cannot tell when the machine is wrong.
Small colleges cannot wait
Small liberal arts colleges compete on outcomes. When a third of entry-level jobs ask for AI skills, a college that cannot show its graduates have them makes a weaker promise to every family. Small colleges also move faster, and a committed board can put a new direction into the classroom within a year.
As a trustee, I believe boards should ask now where AI appears in the curriculum and whether faculty can teach it. Colleges that act this year will help define how AI is taught. Colleges that wait will spend the next decade catching up.
Sources: Colby News (January 29, 2021); Marketplace, “Should every B.A. include some AI?” (February 16, 2021); Boston Globe (September 30, 2025); The Colby Echo (October 1, 2026); NACE, “Ready or Reluctant?” (July 22, 2026).