For deans, chairs, and provosts
One AI decision a month. Forty-five minutes. One page.
The Dean's AI Advisor is a monthly briefing for academic leaders who have to decide, not just discuss: policy, procurement, assessment, faculty development. Each session ends with a one-page memo you can take into your next cabinet meeting.
The decisions on your desk
Most AI questions a dean gets are one of six.
Each one has a defensible answer, and each answer looks different at a public regional university than it does at a flagship. The briefings take them one at a time.
Policy
What do we tell faculty and students this term?
A one-sentence policy faculty can repeat, and what the longer version has to cover for accreditation and student conduct.
Procurement and privacy
Which tools can we approve, and how fast?
A 30-day review path for low-risk tools, the data that must stay out, and what the CSU GenAI subcommittee is learning across campuses.
Assessment
How do we know students are still learning?
Which assignments are exposed, what AI-resilient assessment looks like, and how to report it without a new committee.
Faculty development
How do we get faculty ready without a mandate?
Working labs, peer cohorts, and workload credit that make readiness a job rather than a favor.
Curriculum
What should our graduates be able to do?
Adding AI to program learning outcomes you already report, discipline by discipline.
Budget
What does readiness cost, and what can wait?
A simple model: people first, tools second, and one measure to show the provost each term.
Monthly briefing
Second Thursday, noon Pacific, on Zoom.
Forty-five minutes: fifteen on the decision, fifteen on what three campuses did, fifteen on your questions. A one-page memo follows the same day. Recordings and memos go to the archive for members.
Invitation only
Dean's briefing
Open to deans, associate deans, chairs, and provost's office staff at any college or university. First session January 2027.
On your campus
Leadership briefing
The same format, built around your campus's decision, for your cabinet or council of chairs. Ends with a one-page readiness map.
Four-week course for academic leaders
Leading AI Readiness in a Department or College
The Advanced tier of the Campus AI Ready courses, built for chairs, deans, and program directors. Each week: a 20 to 30 minute video, a Google Sheets template you complete for your own unit, and a live office hour.
- Week 1. Readiness map by program: where each program stands on policy, faculty use, and exposed assessments.
- Week 2. Learning-outcome alignment matrix: the AI column added to what you already report.
- Week 3. Faculty enablement plan: cohorts, labs, workload credit, and a calendar.
- Week 4. Procurement and privacy checklist, then your one-page readiness plan presented to your provost or dean.
$495 per person · First cohort early 2027 · All three tiers at campusaiready.com
About
Written by someone who has had your meetings.
I'm Thomas J. Norman, Ph.D., a tenured full professor of management at California State University, Dominguez Hills, past department chair and acting associate dean, faculty founder of the university's Innovation Incubator, and a member of the Academic Senate of the CSU and its GenAI subcommittee on privacy, security, and procurement.
I still teach three courses a term, so the advice here has to survive contact with real students and real faculty meetings before it reaches you.
- Full Professor of Management, CSU Dominguez Hills; tenured since 2013
- Past Department Chair and Acting Associate Dean
- Faculty founder, CSUDH Innovation Incubator
- Academic Senate of the CSU; GenAI Subcommittee on Privacy, Security, and Procurement
- Ph.D. and M.A., University of Minnesota; A.B., Harvard University
- Author, Management and Compensation (2026); Judgment Call, in press
A practical next step
Bring the decision in front of you.
Send one line about the question your cabinet is facing. I will tell you which briefing covers it, or whether it is worth a session of its own.