Smarter Campus Podcast

Zach Kinzler

Changing education one conversation at a time. The Smarter Campus Podcast dives into the future of learning, spotlighting how students, educators, and innovators around the world are using AI to reshape education. Hosted by Zach, Head of Academic Sales Strategies at BoodleBox.ai, each episode features real conversations with passionate voices—from student leaders to professors—about what’s working, what’s changing, and what’s next. Whether you're curious about AI in the classroom, how schools are adapting, or what students actually want from their education, this podcast keeps it honest, inspiring, and practical. Tune in weekly for powerful ideas, global perspectives, and a smarter take on the campus experience.

  1. 4d ago

    Going All In on AI: How Pikes Peak State College Rolled Out AI Campus-Wide

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with a leader from Pikes Peak State College to talk about what it actually looks like to move from experimenting with AI to making it available across an entire institution. Pikes Peak initially began with a small pilot group evaluating different tools and approaches. But when the team brought a limited rollout proposal to college leadership, the response was much bigger: go all in. The result was campus-wide access for students, faculty, and staff, with collaboration and shared learning at the center of the strategy. The conversation also explores why community colleges require especially thoughtful approaches to AI adoption. Different states structure technical education, transfer pathways, and workforce programs very differently, meaning there is no single model that works everywhere. For educators who are still figuring out where to begin, the advice is simple: start small, understand what people are actually afraid of, and use AI as a starting point rather than a finished product. The episode is a practical look at what institutional AI adoption can look like when access, experimentation, and human judgment are built into the rollout from the beginning.

    Going All In on AI: How Pikes Peak State College Rolled Out AI Campus-Wide

  2. Sep 28

    Your Research Deserves an Audience: Kevin Anselmo on AI and Strategic Communication

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Kevin Anselmo, strategic communications consultant and founder of Experiential Communications, to explore an overlooked side of the AI conversation in higher education: communication and research impact. While much of higher education’s AI conversation has focused on cheating, grading, and classroom policies, Kevin argues there is a massive opportunity for researchers, faculty, and academic leaders to use AI as a kind of personal PR assistant. The technology can help translate complex ideas, prepare for interviews, repurpose research, and communicate important work to audiences far beyond academia. Kevin also breaks down his Clarity, Capability, and Momentum framework for AI adoption. The key is starting with your goals, audience, and message—not the technology. From there, customized AI workflows can dramatically reduce the time spent on communication while still keeping human strategy and judgment at the center. The conversation also explores “AI slop,” why dismissing AI because of poor outputs misses the larger opportunity, and why higher education may need to rethink everything from slow-moving AI policies to traditional four-year credentials. For researchers in particular, Kevin leaves listeners with a challenge: great research only creates impact if people actually understand it.

    Your Research Deserves an Audience: Kevin Anselmo on AI and Strategic Communication

  3. Sep 21

    Make Students Think Harder, Not Less: Dave McCool on AI and Experiential Learning

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dave McCool, President & CEO of Muzzy Lane, to explore how AI can help higher education move beyond traditional assignments and create more experiential, authentic learning. Dave argues that some of the most promising uses of AI aren’t about inventing entirely new approaches to education. Instead, AI can make proven methods—simulations, role-playing, authentic problem-solving, and skills-based assessment—dramatically easier for faculty and instructional designers to build and scale. He shares how Muzzy Lane has used AI to reduce the creation time for simulation-based assessments from weeks to minutes while keeping humans in the loop. The conversation also tackles AI detection, the return to blue books, “experience inflation” in the job market, and why students often cheat when coursework feels disconnected from their lives. Dave shares examples of virtual internships and scenario-based assessments that allow students to demonstrate durable skills like critical thinking while gaining experiences they can actually talk about with employers. For educators and higher education leaders, the episode raises an important challenge: AI shouldn’t make learning easier by removing the thinking—it should help us design experiences that make students think harder.

    Make Students Think Harder, Not Less: Dave McCool on AI and Experiential Learning

  4. Sep 14

    AI Is a Human Problem: Chad Okrusch on Integrity, Ethics, and Leading Through Change

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Chad Okrusch, a tenured Professor of Philosophy and Communication and Montana Tech’s first Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer—the first role of its kind within the Montana University System. Chad brings an unusually human perspective to AI leadership. With roots in IT and more than two decades of work across philosophy, ethics, environmental studies, and communication, he argues that AI shouldn’t simply be treated as another technology problem. It is a social disruption that forces institutions to think deeply about human agency, integrity, and what they are ultimately trying to preserve. The conversation explores Chad’s concept of systems integrity, why campus AI leaders should spend more time listening to skeptics, and how AI can actually give people time back for the parts of their jobs that are most human. He also explains why “soft skills” like communication, critical thinking, ethics, and character are becoming increasingly durable skills in an AI-driven world. For higher education leaders navigating AI adoption, Chad offers a refreshingly simple starting point: listen first. Understand the system, the people within it, and their fears before prescribing solutions. AI leadership isn’t about being the AI police or blindly championing every new tool—it’s about helping institutions adapt without losing sight of human flourishing.

    AI Is a Human Problem: Chad Okrusch on Integrity, Ethics, and Leading Through Change

  5. Sep 8

    AI Should Think With Us, Not For Us: Coty Gonzalez on Human Decision-Making

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Cleotilde “Coty” Gonzalez, Research Professor of Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, founding director of the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory, and Research Co-Director of the NSF National AI Institute for Societal Decision Making. Drawing on more than two decades of work across cognitive science, decision-making, and artificial intelligence, Coty explores an important distinction between machine AI and Cognitive AI. Rather than simply recognizing patterns across massive datasets, Cognitive AI seeks to model how humans actually learn from experience, adapt to uncertainty, and make decisions in changing environments. The conversation dives into human-AI teaming, automation bias, cognitive offloading, and the idea of complementary intelligence—designing AI to strengthen human judgment rather than replace it. Coty also explains why these questions become especially important when AI is involved in high-stakes decisions ranging from emergency response to public health. For educators and higher education leaders, the conversation raises an essential question: as AI becomes more capable, how do we make sure students continue developing their own ability to think, question, evaluate, and make decisions?

    AI Should Think With Us, Not For Us: Coty Gonzalez on Human Decision-Making

  6. Aug 31

    Is the Traditional College Paper Broken? Jason Bock on Rethinking Assessment with AI

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Dr. Jason Bock, Director of Online Education at the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, instructional designer, learning engineer, and AI EdTech founder. Jason brings a fascinating perspective to the AI conversation by connecting it to higher education’s previous shift toward online learning. While COVID forced institutions to adapt quickly, generative AI presents a very different challenge: it isn’t going away, and the technology continues to improve. That reality is forcing educators to reconsider not just how students complete assignments, but what those assignments were actually designed to measure in the first place. A major focus of the conversation is higher education’s reliance on writing as the default form of assessment. Jason explores alternatives like AI-assisted oral exams, role-play agents, and even evaluating students’ AI conversations to better understand how they ask questions, iterate, and think through problems. The conversation also tackles transparency around AI grading and why students deserve to know when AI is being used to evaluate their work. For educators and higher education leaders, this episode offers a practical look at moving beyond the question of whether students are using AI and toward a more important one: How do we redesign learning and assessment for a world where AI is here to stay?

    Is the Traditional College Paper Broken? Jason Bock on Rethinking Assessment with AI

  7. Aug 24

    What AI Should—and Shouldn’t—Do in Education with Matthew Rascoff

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Matthew Rascoff, Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University, lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and education advisor to Anthropic. With a rare vantage point spanning both a leading university and one of the world’s frontier AI labs, Matthew brings a uniquely informed perspective on what AI can—and cannot—do for education. The conversation tackles one of the most important questions facing higher education: does using AI actually improve learning? Matthew warns against “cognitive surrender,” where students offload too much of the thinking process, and argues that institutions need more rigorous evidence about which AI-supported practices genuinely strengthen learning. He also challenges the idea that increasingly intelligent AI will automatically become a great teacher. Teaching requires more than knowledge—it requires empathy, pedagogy, context, and an understanding of how people learn. Rather than waiting for frontier labs to build education for them, Matthew believes educators and students should become active builders, creating domain-specific tools that address real academic problems. The episode explores open-source educational AI, new forms of student assessment, and a future where papers may evolve into interactive agents and shareable digital artifacts. For higher education leaders, this is a thoughtful conversation about preserving meaningful cognitive work while taking full advantage of what AI makes possible.

    What AI Should—and Shouldn’t—Do in Education with Matthew Rascoff

  8. Aug 17

    AI in Law School: Corbin Winward on Learning the Fundamentals Before Using the Shortcut

    In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Corbin Winward, a 3L at Baylor University School of Law and President of the Baylor Plaintiff’s Law Association, to explore how the next generation of lawyers is navigating AI in real time. Corbin offers a student perspective on one of the biggest tensions facing legal education: students need to understand how to use AI, but they also need enough foundational knowledge to recognize when it is wrong. He explains why learning to research cases, analyze precedent, and draft legal arguments manually still matters—even when AI can dramatically accelerate those same tasks. The conversation also explores AI as a force multiplier in plaintiff’s law, where smaller teams often face opponents with far greater resources. Corbin makes the case that responsible AI use can help level that playing field, while also creating a new ethical responsibility for lawyers to balance efficiency with verification and professional judgment. For law professors, students, and legal professionals, this episode offers a grounded look at what AI literacy should actually mean: not outsourcing the work, but understanding the work well enough to use AI intelligently.

    AI in Law School: Corbin Winward on Learning the Fundamentals Before Using the Shortcut
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About

Changing education one conversation at a time. The Smarter Campus Podcast dives into the future of learning, spotlighting how students, educators, and innovators around the world are using AI to reshape education. Hosted by Zach, Head of Academic Sales Strategies at BoodleBox.ai, each episode features real conversations with passionate voices—from student leaders to professors—about what’s working, what’s changing, and what’s next. Whether you're curious about AI in the classroom, how schools are adapting, or what students actually want from their education, this podcast keeps it honest, inspiring, and practical. Tune in weekly for powerful ideas, global perspectives, and a smarter take on the campus experience.

Information

  • Creator
    Zach Kinzler
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    78
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Zach Kinzler
  • Show Website
    Smarter Campus Podcast