MacEwan School of Continuing Education wants to make AI skills accessible and relevant for all professions.

Nian Minten

This summer, MacEwan’s School of Continuing Education (SCE) announced the launch of its new AI-aligned programs. As AI continues to evolve and rapidly transform industries, some questions come to mind: What are these AI-aligned programs exactly, and for whom? How is MacEwan planning on implementing AI into their educational systems? What will this AI-integrated learning look like? Looking more into the future, what will this development mean for the future of AI use in the classroom? These are some of the questions that came to mind when I heard about the AI-aligned program at the SCE. To learn more, I had the opportunity to interview Avi Sheshachalam, senior business development officer at the SCE.  According to Sheshachalam, the SCE’s mandate is to serve its community by assisting the workforce, not just locally but all over Canada, from non-profits, for-profits, and even governmental organisations. “Everybody from associates all the way to the leaders are using AI for various purposes, whether it’s summarizing notes or making decisions in an organization,” said Sheshachalam. 

“So we decided that the School of Continuing Education should respond to these needs of the community to help them with appropriate education and reminding them that they are still in control and that AI is a tool that they can use in the process.” 

The goal of SCE with AI-aligned courses is to bridge the gap between knowing about AI and applying it. The SCE’s AI-aligned courses are open to everyone, whether they are in the workforce, are currently in the workforce, or have an interest in learning more about AI. The AI-aligned courses take a three-pronged approach: AI and data education, ethics, and governance principles — all alongside durable skills like teamwork, adaptive thinking, and leadership. Integrating durable skills within the AI-aligned courses helps everyone who is entering the program to apply what they have learned at their workplace immediately. 

 “Everybody from associates all the way to the leaders are using AI for various purposes, whether it’s summarizing notes or making decisions in an organization. So we decided that the School of Continuing Education should respond to these needs of the community to help them with appropriate education and reminding them that they are still in control and that AI is a tool that they can use in the process.”

— Avi Sheshachalam, MacEwan School of Continuing Education

Looking ahead to the future of AI, Sheshachalam noted that even the concept of AI literacy means something different today than it did two years ago. “Even in the last year, year and a half, you’ve seen LLM models go from just using words to pictures and now videos and now videos with sound as well,” he said. “So what we have in the continuing education space is sort of a development engine that’s constantly pumping out learning opportunities for people.” They are constantly researching developments, consulting industry partners, and talking with alumni about what they need, integrating subject matter expertise. 

Unfortunately, the integration of the AI-aligned education into credited space requires the school to go through regulatory mechanisms, ministry approval systems, and processes that SCE is not mandated to do. However, these non-credited AI-aligned courses can still be taken complimentary to the credited courses, and are still available not just for MacEwan students, but also all other students across Alberta and Canada. 

In my opinion, it is odd that MacEwan University is not yet teaching its students about AI literacy in the credited programs, since many European universities, such as HAN University of Applied Sciences, have integrated AI into their education and teachings. Their opinion on the use of AI is that you need to be able to use it since the market is competitive and others also use it. As Sheshachalam said, AI is a tool—but people are still in control. That is, if they know how to use AI responsibly and ethically. SCE is leading in the non-credit space, but the integration of AI literacy into the broader university curriculum may be the next step for MacEwan.