Oakdale Area Chamber of Commerce February 2026 Meeting
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
AI in higher education curriculum
Workforce readiness and AI skills
Generative AI adoption in organizations
Ethics and responsibility in AI usage
Developing AI usage policies
Prompt engineering techniques (Tree of Thought, Chain of Thought)
Critical thinking and human-AI collaboration
Data privacy and security risks
AI accuracy and hallucinations
Areas of Interest (4)
- St. Paul College faculty warns that over-reliance on AI without foundational knowledge risks infrastructure failure.
- Higher education institutions are shifting curriculum to focus on critical thinking to combat AI-driven cognitive offloading.
- Businesses are advised to establish formal AI usage policies to mitigate data privacy risks and potential lawsuits.
- Panelists argue that creativity and relationship-building will be the most resilient job skills in the AI era.
Notable Quotes (3)
If you just plug something in, it's going to give you something back. So the more that you can kind of direct it to give you meaningful information, the better.
AI is great, but if we don't know the history and if we don't know how to do things by scratch, AI is not a great tool.
I tend to use it for things that are less meaningful to me and the organization, but that I already know how to do.
People (3)
Mindy TraversBusiness Department FacultyHas taught at St. Paul College for 18 years; focuses on curriculum adjustment and ethical AI use.
1 quote
Has taught at St. Paul College for 18 years; focuses on curriculum adjustment and ethical AI use.
“How can I change this question so that AI can't answer it and my students really need to be the ones answering it”
Describing how she uses AI to design curriculum.
SoniaIT Group ManagerManages IT service desk, data center, and network teams; emphasizes foundational knowledge.
1 quote
Manages IT service desk, data center, and network teams; emphasizes foundational knowledge.
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
Referring to the ethical use of AI.
ClaireHigher Education ProfessionalHas 20+ years in higher ed; focuses on faculty development and AI skepticism.
1 quote
Has 20+ years in higher ed; focuses on faculty development and AI skepticism.
“The impact of AI usage especially on your relationships... you don't want to end up on the news in a bad way.”
Warning about the risks of AI integration in business.
Places Mentioned
Events & Meetings (2)
- Midway Chamber of Commerce panel at St. Paul College (previous event)
- Chamber of Commerce meeting (current event)