About This Session
Liberal arts colleges run lean IT shops. A handful of people cover everything from core infrastructure and cybersecurity to ERP systems, identity management, and end-user support — all while keeping pace with an accelerating technology landscape. Agentic AI poses a deceptively simple question: can a small team use it to do more, without cutting corners on quality, security, or judgment?
This session is a candid, ground-level account from Lafayette College and Davidson College. Not a roadmap. A field report — with enough specifics to help peers figure out where agentic AI fits in their own shops, practical advice on getting started, and an honest look at where things might head from here.
What You'll Hear
What's Actually Working
Specific agentic AI deployments across infrastructure, operations, security workflows, and IT service management — what delivered value and what's now part of regular operations.
What Failed
An honest account of what didn't work — including pilots that were abandoned, workflows that created new problems, and places where AI made things worse rather than better.
Governance & Responsibility
The questions that don't have clean answers yet: who owns an AI-assisted workflow? How do you audit it? What does responsible, secure deployment look like in a resource-constrained environment?
Team Adaptation
How teams have adapted — the role changes, the new skills, the anxieties, and the moments where agentic AI genuinely freed people for higher-value work.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify practical, high-value agentic AI use cases for small liberal arts IT operations teams — including what's working now and what's still speculative.
- Understand approaches to responsible, secure agentic AI deployment in higher ed IT, including governance considerations, risk management, and human-in-the-loop design.
- Think through how agentic AI reshapes team roles and responsibilities — and how to lead that transition without losing people or institutional trust.