2025 Schedule
Thursday, September 18
Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103
Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series: AI and Climate - Superpowers for Good or Drivers of Destruction?
A conversation with:
Tim Profeta, Senior Fellow, Duke Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability and Visiting Instructor at Middlebury College, fall 2025
Vee Syengo ‘25.5, Computer Science and English major, Climate Action Fellow.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Opening Session: AI and the Pleasure of Inventiveness
President Baucom in Conversation with Meghan O’Rourke
President Ian Baucom talks with acclaimed writer, and his former student, Meghan O’Rourke on the transformations AI is bringing to higher education. Drawing on O’Rourke’s New York Times opinion piece, and their institutional AI adoption experiences, they examine tensions between AI as enabler versus threat to human creativity and learning.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Faculty Panel: AI in the Middlebury Classroom
Facilitator: Michelle McCauley, Executive Vice President and Provost, Middlebury College
Panelists: Allison Stanger, Thor Sawin, Roberto Lint Sagarena, Michael Linderman, German Reyes
Middlebury faculty share their experiences thoughtfully integrating AI into their teaching practices, discussing implementation strategies, benefits, challenges, and broader implications for student learning and academic integrity. The panel will discuss insights from recent research on student AI use at Middlebury, offering comprehensive faculty and student perspectives on these emerging technologies.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Keynote: The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of Artificial Intelligence
Melanie Mitchell, Professor at the Santa Fe Institute
AI expert Dr. Melanie Mitchell from the Santa Fe Institute examines how current AI works, its true “intelligence,” and future prospects. From photo recognition to essay writing, she explores AI’s expanding role and what our expectations and concerns should be for near- and long-term developments.
Friday, September 19
Breakfast
Grab-and-go breakfast items available for attendees
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
AI and Global Security
Ian Stewart, Executive Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Ian Stewart will examine pathways through which advancing AI may threaten international peace and security and will explore the mitigation of these risks. This will include examination of AI in relation to strategic competition between the U.S. and China. He will also explore how AI may be leveraged as a tool to support rather than undermine international peace and security.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Building the Future Workforce: An Industry Perspective on AI and Human Potential
Parker Harris, CTO of Slack and Cofounder of Salesforce
Parker Harris ’89 shares insights from leading a major cloud computing company through the AI revolution. He explores workforce displacement, skill development, and the evolving relationship between human creativity and machine intelligence, examining opportunities and responsibilities of large-scale AI adoption. Professor Sunder Ramaswamy will facilitate questions and discussion with Parker Harris.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Lunch Session: Alumni Panel
Join Middlebury alumni for lunch while hearing about their professional and personal AI experiences. Facilitated by Professor Hector Vila, hear from Mario Ariza ’09, Mike Berkley ’95, Mohan Renganathan ’96, Julisa Salas ’10, and David Ellis ’09 as they share diverse perspectives on AI in practice.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
AI and Art: Facets of Humanity
Laura Splan in conversation with Natasha Chuk
Media theorist and curator Natasha Chuk joins artist Laura Splan to explore human-AI coexistence throughout the trajectory of Splan’s interdisciplinary artistic practice. Working at the intersection of science, technology, and culture, Splan employs AI tools to play with images, sound, movement, and interpretation of data, mixing conceptual and material representations of artificial and biological matter. Chuk and Splan will discuss the ways art converges with humanity across flesh, code, and daily patterns while using AI as a tool for collaboration, provocation, and discovery.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
From Words to Numbers and Back Again: A Gentle Introduction to Language Model Internals
Professor Laura Biester (Computer Science) provides an accessible technical introduction to language modeling without requiring extensive math or computer science background. She covers language modeling history, explains how today’s models generate text, and connects technical processes to responsible AI use questions.
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Keynote: Coexisting with AI
Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory
AI ethicist Kay Firth-Butterfield discusses how humans and AI can coexist amid widespread hype. From enhanced work to job displacement concerns, she explores what humans must do now to ensure AI serves us—shifting from “what AI will do” to “what humans want AI to do.”
Wilson Hall, McCullough Student Center
Closing dinner: Coexisting with AI at Middlebury
Lead: Matt Lawrence, Associate Professor of Sociology, Middlebury College
Facilitators: Phil Chodrow, Amy Collier, Zara Contractor, Isabelle Langrock, Michelle Leftheris, Obie Porteous, German Reyes, Andrea Vaccari, Hector Vila, and Sarah Lohnes Watulak
Discuss how AI may transform our collective living and working. Join dinner conversations about AI possibilities and challenges we need to engage personally, in teaching and learning, and institutionally. Sponsored by the Collaborative in Conflict Transformation. Please RSVP here for this dinner
A virtual option for this conversation will be offered via Zoom for Middlebury community members who are not located in Vermont. This conversation will be facilitated by Netta Avineri and Bob Cole. Click here to RSVP for the virtual conversation.
Middlebury faculty, staff, and students at the Institute, Language Schools, Schools Abroad, or Bread Loaf School of English may attend these sessions via Zoom.
A warm thank you to the 2025 Clifford Symposium Planning Committee: Minna Brown, Amy Collier, Zara Contractor, Michelle Leftheris, Michael Linderman, Alex Lyford, Amy Morsman, Jen Nuceder, Sunder Ramaswamy, German Reyes, Allison Stanger, and Hector Vila. Special thanks to Michelle Leftheris for designing this year’s artwork!
Thank you also to the incredible operations team that is supporting the event, including staff from Communications, Events Management, ITS, and Dining Services.