The topic of the annual Olin Lecture at Reunion 2026 was “The Future of the American University,” but the three panelists – all Cornell alumni who are leaders in higher education – kept returning to essential themes explored in a recent religious treatise: the encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIV.

The encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” is subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” and the impact of that technology was woven throughout the panel discussion, held June 5 in Bailey Hall.

Moderated by Provost Kavita Bala, the discussion tapped the expertise of three graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences: Steven Knapp, M.A. ’77, Ph.D. ’81, who served as president of George Washington University from 2007-17 and is now president and CEO of Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh; Eduardo Peñalver ’94, former dean of Cornell Law School, outgoing president of Seattle University and incoming president of Georgetown University; and Wendy Raymond ’82, president of Haverford College.

As Bala explained in her introduction, the event was designed to explore some of the same issues currently being addressed by Cornell’s own Committee on the Future of the American University, launched in September 2025.

“I’ve charged the committee – and I see several members here – with thinking about the next 50 years of our system of American universities, thinking about our mission of learning, discovery and engagement,” Bala said. Even if we can’t predict tomorrow, we need to think long-term about our future, she said.

Bala asked the panelists to consider three key issues facing colleges and universities today: rapidly advancing technology; an altered relationship with the federal government; and an erosion of public trust in higher education. Of those, the immense impact of artificial intelligence dominated the conversation.

“Unlike most of the transformative technologies of the last century – which were created at universities, often with government funding – AI is being created exclusively by private corporations that own the technology and are selling us the technology,” Peñalver said. “So trying to find out what’s true about it is hard, because there’s a lot of hype around AI and not a lot of shared knowledge.” 

AI is already impacting teaching and learning, the panelists said, from impeding critical thinking to making it difficult for faculty to assess students’ work.

“What are our students learning? How are we at colleges and universities sure that our students are learning?” Raymond asked. She shared an anecdote about a Haverford faculty member who, she recalled, “told us, ‘My students are doing amazing in Spanish in their written responses, just perfect – and then when we’re talking in class, they can hardly speak.’ So there’s a great example of how the AI world is not working for those students.”

A discussion of how AI is disrupting the world of work – and thereby students’ future employment prospects, raising questions about the potential “return on investment” of college tuition – sparked conversation about the essential role of the humanities in an increasingly technologized world.

“The answer … is to look at ways in which humanities are now probably more relevant and useful than ever, because the technical capacities of AI are going to call attention to those human elements that can be brought to bear in terms of judgment and creativity and wisdom,” Knapp said. “These kinds of skills and attitudes are the purview of the humanities, if the humanities embrace them.”

Raymond agreed: “I think the humanities and the arts will save us. They always will. They are bringing us back to who we are.”

Toward the end of the discussion, the conversation returned to “Magnifica Humanitas,” which, Peñalver noted, translates from the Latin as “magnificent humanity.”

“At the root is a conception of the person and how it’s different from AI – this technology that can kind of simulate a person, but isn’t a human being,” Peñalver said. “But that forces us to reflect on that question … What is it that makes human beings different? What gives us dignity, and what is it that we all share as human beings that is not shared by large language models that are pattern-recognition and mimicking devices?

“The document, what the Pope talks about,” he said, “is that we are embodied beings who have experiences and who form ideas, not just spew out content. And that is really at the core, I think, of what the humanities exist to study.”

Beth Saulnier is editor-in-chief of Cornellians.