Touro University Sets Forth a New Vision for Higher Education With an Artificial Intelligence Initiative
And the Nation’s First Associate Provost for AI

Across its 36 schools in four countries, Touro lives its mission every single day: To educate, to serve, to enrich humankind. A major reason it has been able to do so—for 50+ years—is because the NYC-based non-profit University has always championed innovation and the advancement of technology.

And so today, with a new initiative and a key new hire, Touro is leading the way in shaping how institutions of higher education can use artificial intelligence to their advantage.

Dr. Shlomo Engelson Argamon

Meet Dr. Shlomo Engelson Argamon

As part of its proactive role in taking on AI, Touro has appointed American-Israeli computer scientist and forensic linguist, Dr. Argamon, as the university’s associate provost for artificial intelligence—the first of its kind in the nation.

Among his responsibilities: To lead the formation of University-wide policies and programs to integrate AI throughout all of Touro’s 30-plus undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs.

Touro’s AI Initiative

The Touro Initiative on Artificial Intelligence is a concerted effort to weave AI concepts, methods, and technologies throughout the university's academic disciplines, research efforts, operations management, and policies. Its mission is to harness AI to enhance education quality, stimulate scientific advances, and improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.

By integrating AI into the fabric of the university, the initiative will support the development of diverse innovative solutions to the complex challenges of today by encouraging multidisciplinary cross-fertilization of ideas among diverse academic fields.

Not only are we incorporating AI throughout our curricula; we will apply it in diverse ways to enhance the development of critical thinking, mental agility, creativity, and emotional intelligence across our student body. This will enable us to prepare our students for the dynamic future, where human empathy and relationships are just as important as mastery of technology.

Students smiling while working on computers
Male professor smiling at desk with computer

What it means for faculty

Touro’s new AI initiative will teach faculty about AI and its capabilities—so they can work with AI and not against it. Using AI resources, both conceptual and technical, they’ll have the opportunity to experiment with ways in which they can improve their teaching. What’s more, they’ll learn how to remove many of the bureaucratic tasks and aspects of their jobs, so they can focus on real teaching and continuing to build meaningful connections.

What it means for students

Students in all fields at Touro will learn how to use AI to augment their own intelligence and improve the quality of their work. For example:

  • In medicine, AI will enable students to practice dealing with a wider variety of situations via virtual standardized patients that simulate physician-patient interactions.
  • Business students will learn how to use AI analytics to improve situational awareness and strategic decision-making.
  • Students in education programs will learn how to use AI to improve their students’ critical analysis abilities and their creativity.
  • In social work, AI can give students practice in dealing with clients with a variety of personality types and communication issues.

Female students using laptops during class

“Touro created this initiative so that we can apply AI and data analytics comprehensively to better understand and support our students, our faculty, and our operations. In our new AI-powered university, our graduates will become critical thinkers as we will teach modes of thinking in addition to the technologies, so they’ll be prepared for the future workforce and be agile enough to adapt when the technologies change.”

Dr. Alan Kadish, President of Touro

“As one of the first universities to teach and use AI in a unified way throughout all our programs and operations, we will not only prepare our students for the new AI-powered workplace they will encounter on graduation, but to be lifelong learners who can adapt to the accelerating rate of change that AI will engender.”

Dr. Shlomo Engelson Argamon, Associate Provost for AI at Touro

AI Stats

By 2030, the AI market size is expected to reach nearly $2 trillion (Statista)

Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies had adopted ChatGPT within their business by August 2023 (OpenAI)

Existing AI technologies can automate tasks that absorb between 60% and 70% of workers’ time today (McKinsey)