The AI Degree Built to Solve Real-World Problems - Dr. John Walz, President of MSOE

What does it take to be a true pioneer in artificial intelligence education?

The Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) didn’t just see AI coming—they got out in front of it. Dr. John Walz, President of MSOE, joins The TechEd Podcast to discuss how his institution became one of the first in the nation to offer a baccalaureate degree in AI and how it continues to lead in engineering, computing, and applied AI technology.

MSOE’s AI degree isn’t just about theory—it’s about application. Students get hands-on experience with Rosie, the university’s supercomputer, tackling real-world projects in machine learning, computer vision, and AI-driven problem-solving. With deep ties to industry leaders like NVIDIA and a thriving AI Club that has grown into MSOE’s largest student organization, the university is shaping a new generation of engineers who know how to apply AI to fields like healthcare, manufacturing, and finance.

Listen to learn:

• How MSOE launched the one of the first undergraduate AI degrees in just 4 months—by staying agile and industry-driven
• Why Rosie the Supercomputer has processed over 150,000 AI jobs, from optimizing race cars to predicting global food shortages
• How MSOE’s AI Club grew to 200+ members, bringing AI beyond computer science into business, nursing, and engineering
• Why MSOE appointed a Director of Applied AI Education & how they're embedding AI into academics, student success, and university operations
• How MSOE’s partnership with NVIDIA and Dwight Diercks is giving students hands-on experience with real-world AI applications

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Agility is key to staying ahead in AI education. MSOE launched its AI degree in just four months by listening to industry needs, leveraging existing strengths, and moving quickly—showing that institutions willing to adapt can lead in emerging fields.
2. Applied learning makes AI education more impactful. Giving students hands-on experience with real-world projects—like MSOE’s use of Rosie the Supercomputer and interdisciplinary AI applications—ensures graduates are job-ready and valuable to employers.
3. AI should be embedded across the entire institution. Beyond coursework, AI can enhance university operations, student success, and recruitment. A dedicated leader, like MSOE’s Director of Applied AI Education, can drive institution-wide integration

Instagram - Facebook - YouTube - TikTok - Twitter - LinkedIn

Transcript

Matt Kirchner: 0:00

Matt, welcome into The TechEd Podcast. It is Matt Kirchner, and it is another week talking about higher education in this case, but also about artificial intelligence, which is a topic that comes up regularly on The TechEd Podcast, however, not often with somebody who's been an absolute pioneer in the world of artificial intelligence education. I can say that about today's guest. He is an individual who has been so far out in front he and his team on AI working on talking about artificial intelligence before many of us even knew it was a thing. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what it's like to lead an iconic engineering and technical university in the form of the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and we are doing that with that organization's president. His name is Dr John walls. I've gotten to know him over the course of the last year, fascinating, brilliant person. So proud and happy to have you in person in the studio here at The TechEd Podcast. John,

John Walz: 1:07

thanks for being with us. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate the comments. Thank you absolutely. And

Matt Kirchner: 1:10

I meet every one of them. I mean, we think about being early, early on and an early adopter of artificial intelligence learning in the field of higher education, and you just can't say enough about the leadership position that Ms OE has had in that regard. You joined Carnegie Mellon, a pretty good, pretty good company, right?

John Walz: 1:27

Yeah, I went to grad school as well as a special meeting for me,

Matt Kirchner: 1:32

absolutely. So join them. Join them as one of the first two universities in the nation to offer an undergraduate degree focused on artificial intelligence. So tell us a little bit about that. What did you say? That. What did you see in this market? John, that nobody else was seeing at the time you started

John Walz: 1:46

this. So what we we had is, I describe it as a mix, a great mix of opportunity meets need. And a lot of our corporate partners at the time were telling us we would like MS, we to offer a degree in computer science. We did not have a computer science degree. We had something called software engineering, which is a little bit different, but somewhat related, but not computer science. Pretty much around the same time, we had this magnificent opportunity presented to us by Dwight derricks and his wife, Diane, to provide a building to us and a super computer, which is great for artificial intelligence work. And that is when we said, we can do something distinctive here. We can make a computer science degree, not a vanilla computer science degree, but one that is focused on artificial intelligence. So that is when students come out, they know that, and that's what we decided to do, and that has been an enormous success, and so we could have done it anyway, but what Dwight did for us, it would have been that much harder to do. Just to get that level of resources from US has made a difference, but we could also meet the needs of our industrial partners at the same time. And we're

Matt Kirchner: 2:55

going to get into the whole partnership with Dwight Dirks and his wife, Diane, and the great things that they're doing for for the benefit of your students, for the benefit of our community here in southeast Wisconsin, before we do that, though, John would be curious to know this as you're getting this thing stood up, as you're you have this incredible vision. What is the trick to getting so far ahead of everybody else? I

John Walz: 3:14

think there are three things that happen. Number one, like we said, we had this great gift from Dwight and his wife, Diane, that gave us the machine. That gave us some building. We had a software engineering degree so, and like I said, there are some similarities there. So we didn't have to go out and hire a dozen new faculty. We had people that could start teaching the courses while we hire. We did have to do some hiring, sure. And the other advantage is, there's a certain advantage to being a small private school, you can be nimble, right? And I've worked nothing against large public schools. I've worked with them, but we could basically envision a computer science degree, a new degree, and get it approved and get it ready within four months. And that being small and private allowed us to do that. So all of those things came together and allow us to get out ahead of this stuff.

Matt Kirchner: 4:03

And as somebody who spends a lot of time in higher education and even innovating, you know, in a public setting, in a large university, sometimes even in a private university, you know, can take years. I mean, you think about some of the things that happen to get whether we're creating a new degree program and maybe different state universities arguing about who gets to have that, how we're going to get it funded, you know, in some cases, even going to a Board of Regents on a statewide basis, these kind of things. And here you are in this you say, you say small private university, number of students at MSO we so if you

John Walz: 4:34

count everybody we graduate, we have some, mainly undergraduate, some graduates, I'd say 2700 2800 that's pretty much where we are,

Matt Kirchner: 4:41

absolutely and allows you to be incredibly nimble. I can tell is somebody that's been involved with MSO we for several decades. As a matter of fact, first of all, very, very nimble, very, very flexible, incredibly responsible to your corporate citizens and your partners, in a way that I think a lot of times in higher education, not that that gets lost, but you tend to sort. Of a lot of different masters, if you will, in your particular case, so responsive to the needs of your your corporate partners, which is really, really important. As you stand up this degree program, you create these opportunities for your students. Now we've got a lot of folks in higher education, whether it's technical community colleges, universities, you know, graduate programs, PhD programs and so on, trying to figure out what to teach when it comes to artificial intelligence. So let's talk about that. If I'm a student, that's part of this program, what specifically am I learning? Yeah,

John Walz: 5:28

so one of the distinctive things about MSO we and it was that way, since we were founded in 1903 it's, it's an application focused degree. Our students learn by doing. So with all of our degrees, our students probably spend more time in laboratories and hands on work than you will find at any other type of institution, but they still have to know the fundamentals. Right. If you're going to use and be a computer science graduate with a focus in AI, you have to understand what AI and machine learning is. But what sets us apart is it's the application of it. Not simply know what it is, but how do I use it? So our students in all of their classes, how do I take that tool and apply it to different areas, what it can do with it? And that's really what sets our graduates apart, and why companies love to hire from MS OE, because when they come out, they're like, they're ready to go. They know how to use that.

Matt Kirchner: 6:20

So it's certainly the theory, it's the coding, it's the programming, but more important, it's like, okay, what am I going to do with this now that I know it? We talk so often about what I call the edge to cloud continuum, this whole idea that we've got smart sensors and devices on the edge, we've got cloud computing, and then that continuum really repeats itself over and over, whether it's our smartphone, whether it's manufacturing, healthcare, defense, retail, hospitality, every single market space has these applications for artificial intelligence. And so as I'm hearing, your students are learning not just the theory behind it, not just the technical side of AI, which is important. But then how am I going to apply this in the marketplace, which makes them incredibly valuable to your corporate partners? Correct? Exactly,

John Walz: 7:00

right. And we see that with the number of companies, not a type of companies that are hiring our students. It's just getting students in that area in particular, you know, they're not just going to, you know, maybe you're traditional, the ones that you would think of that's going to hire computer science graduates or students with that we're seeing manufacturing companies, we're seeing healthcare companies, we're seeing construction companies, financial services companies, all need people with that skill, and I think that's going to continue to grow. It's really a great market for these students, whether they want to stay here in Wisconsin, which is great, or sometimes, you know, the appeal of going off to the coast is there a bit as well. And I'm like, go for it, right? Absolutely,

Matt Kirchner: 7:37

our big believers and show them the world, but show them what's here as well, and let them make the best possible decision for themselves, in terms of making great decisions, even specific to your students, as I think you know, I know several of your vice presidents, Eric and Saj are both both great friends, yeah. And both of them have talked to me about students going off and kind of starting their own AI club. Is that something that that should be?

John Walz: 7:59

Yeah. So we, a group of our students, got together a few years ago and formed an AI club. Yeah, it is open to any student, right? Not just computer science majors. It's it is has over 200 members. It is the largest club at our university that didn't exist five or six years ago. And it's really to do things people that have an interest in this field. They work on projects together. They meet. They just do some of them do research for the faculty. So that is really one of the things that we're very excited about. Is interest in that field is really broadening beyond just the computer folks, right? It's the other engineers we love, eventually, to get our nursing students, our business students, more involved than that. So the AI Club is a very significant club on our campus, and that's

Matt Kirchner: 8:44

that's when you know you're hitting the right spot, when the students take it upon themselves to create this opportunity, when you know we've got probably, maybe, a certain paradigm about data science, computer programmers, those students, and then opening it up beyond that to a it's not just about the coding and the programming, it's all these applications. It's in every single market space. In as much as your school is the Milwaukee School of Engineering. It's not just engineers, as you touched on, right? What are their academic programs or students?

John Walz: 9:11

That is correct? So we're about 80% engineering, okay? 10% business, 10% nursing, and in engineering, you know, computer science, construction management, I kind of lump all those in together, but all that focus. But I named beliza A little bit. We're not strictly an engineering school. We're as saj. You mentioned Saj sometimes he says, Milwaukee School of more than just engineering. I love that term, right? A

Unknown: 9:33

little bit too many letters to stick into the MSO doesn't work on a sweatshirt very well. Exactly right?

Matt Kirchner: 9:39

You're recruiting students into the programs, obviously the academic rigor, the opportunity for, you know, for a really lively campus life, the opportunity to join clubs like the AI club, and then what comes after undergraduate education, as you're recruiting students and talking about the career programs and opportunities, particularly the flow out of this AI world. You touched on some of them. You talked about finance, you talked about healthcare. Yeah, wait, what's the message to those students? Where can they go with

John Walz: 10:05

a degree like this? They can go almost anywhere now. And if it's not there now, it will be in the future. I mean, this is a field that it is the transformative technology. It is what digital computers were, you know, when we were in school, when I was in school, and the computers came out, I think it's just getting adopted more and more by a broader range of companies. But like I said, Well, you know what we're seeing now is every type of industry that typically recruits students will be recruiting people who have that skill. One of our goals is that it's not just the computer scientists who know how to use that. We'd love to be able to get to the point that, yes, my degree is in electrical engineering, but I know how to use AI. My degree is in civil engineering, but I know how to use AI, because I think eventually that's what company is going to want, even in nursing, right? I mean, the idea that you have a nursing student or business person who says, Yes, I know the fundamentals, but I can apply that technology to my field, I think that's where eventually it's going to get to the major industries. They all recruit students from us who know how to use that. And I think that's going

Matt Kirchner: 11:06

to get to you. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And we're seeing it, you know, not just eventually, but I think we're even seeing that now. Where, where employers. If we think about here in southeast Wisconsin, some of the great companies, you know, really, really well known companies, we've got tons of small to mid sized businesses, but then we've got companies like a Harley Davidson or C Johnson or or Northwestern Mutual or Baird, or, you know, one of our great health care providers, like freighter, I mean, so many of these different institutions that are looking for people that understand how to apply AI. And then we've got huge companies. So let's talk about, maybe Nvidia is a good way of getting into our next topic. Okay, you mentioned Dwight Dirks name earlier in the discussion. Who's that person? I know who it is, but

John Walz: 11:45

okay, so Dwight is a 1990 graduate of MS OE. His degree was in computer engineering. He started out working for a company down in Texas called Compaq, sure. And those of you remember compact made the first portable computer I had one which is about the size of the suitcase, right? Yeah. So portable was a different name then, but that's where he started. And he worked for them for a number of years, and then he moved on. He had a another company, but then he ended up working with a small startup out in the bay area called Nvidia. He was employee number 22 Wow, from Nvidia at the time. I mean, it was not clear they were going to make it Nvidia. Their big product was graphics cards for computer games. They were a gaming company, right? And they could do that really well, and that's where there's their business. And so when, you know, when we first met white and when this came on the scene, gaming was still their biggest product at the time, yeah. And then at some point, somebody realized that these cards, which can work so well with computer graphics, can also be applied to artificial intelligence and specifically a type of it called machine learning. And that's when the world just took off for them. And so you know, if you if you followed Nvidia stock, it is just blown up. And it was really that discovery that these cards, so I think they still probably are into gaming to a degree, but clearly this application on machine learning and AI is really what's driven that company. So we were very Dwight's a tremendous person. He and his wife, Diane. He grew up in Red Wing, Minnesota. His father was a farmer. I think he raised pigs, but he's a very humble guy, and he loves MSO we and we're just very proud of him. Yeah, by

Matt Kirchner: 13:21

coincidence, the second conversation I've had already this morning on Red Wing, Minnesota, because I had a meeting this morning with Ron wanick, who's the founder and chairman of Ashley Furniture industries. I grew up in Winona. Okay, we were talking about Red Wing, so, so that's a great area just south of Minneapolis, of the red cities. And what a blessing for MS OE to be in this relationship with a former student who's on the ground floor of what's been the, you know, certainly, from a market cap standpoint, the fastest growing company in the world here for the last several years, and truly the backbone and the infrastructure of everything and so much that's happening in artificial intelligence, and all the data centers are using Nvidia technology as we're as we're just computing and processing tremendous amounts of data. And here you've got this former student who's on the ground floor in this organization and has done so much for the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Now, I was actually in attendance when you open Dwight and Diane Dirks Computational Science Hall. Oh, really, yeah, you had a big open house, yeah? And it was pre COVID, of course. And so we kind of remember everything about, you know, everything in the last several years, when, when it happened, relative to COVID. But I had the opportunity to be there, and I was just blown away. Oh, it was great, incredible five year anniversary. I mean, yeah, it's hard

John Walz: 14:36

to believe it was 2019 when we opened that building. And it was a full day celebration. Dwight was there with his family. Jensen Wong, the president of invisio, of Nvidia, came by for that. Yeah, I'll tell you a little anecdote about it. So at the end of the day, Dwight and Jensen, they're in Derrick Hall, and they were going to sign autographs for the students. And what a great opportunity for sure. And Ms, we students being who they are, what they were doing, many of them would go back to. Their dorm room, they would open up their computer, they would take out their Nvidia graphics card, and it would bring it back and have Dwight and Jensen sign their Nvidia graphics card. Jensen just loved that. So that was a it was a great day. Yeah, so tell

Matt Kirchner: 15:13

us about everything that's going on there. I mean, it's right for the people who don't know pretty much, right in downtown Milwaukee, just north of, kind of the center of downtown. It's a focal piece, a show piece, for the marquis School of Engineering. So tell us a little bit about it. Yeah. So

John Walz: 15:25

it's a great building. It is the home of our departments, of our programs in computer science and software engineering. It has a super computer in it called Rosie and video supercomputer. It's really the jewel box of that. I mean, we love that machine. It sits behind these big windows, behind this big window with the name Rosie on it. Yep, it's built to be a very student friendly building. So there's a lot of study space, whether a student wants to just study on their own, whether they want to study with a partner. There was whether they want to have a group. There's little rooms that they can reserve and go in there and study. So it's a place that students want to be and faculty want to be. In fact, we've had some of our students who've said, I came to you because I really love that building, yeah, and so, and that's great for us, and companies use it. We have corporate events. There's a company in town called sis logic, which, every year holds their cyber security company. They hold their meeting there. So it's really been, it is really a great example, in my opinion, of what a great facility can do for an institution, not just attracting students and faculty and staff, but also just having industrial relationships and supporting our students. So we it's a great building. We're very proud of it,

Matt Kirchner: 16:32

and I can attest to everything you're saying, having spent a fair amount of time there, number one, walking in there huge open spaces. It really is when you think about the future of higher education and the the opportunity for students to interact and to learn from each other. And we're not, you know, we're not sitting in little cubicles, nice, big, beautiful, open area, well lit, gigantic windows on the outside. It's really stunning. I had the opportunity last summer to serve on a panel during Summer Fest tech, which is something that happens here in Wisconsin every summer around technology. And you hosted that particular event at Dirks Hall as well. So just absolutely, absolutely amazing. And then you mentioned Rosie the super computer, yeah, candidate, you can't miss it. I mean, it's just it is, when you think about super computer, not just in terms of processing power, but in terms of the size of that, right? And looking through these beautiful windows, tell us a little bit more about Rosie. I read recently that it's processed 150,000

John Walz: 17:22

jobs. Yeah, that's very possible. I didn't know that, and that's a great number to hear. First of all, I want to say, you know why she's named Rosie, which is a question we get a lot. For sure, there's two reasons. There's the formal reason, which is, the first computer programmers in this country were women, and it was during World War Two, and they were doing calculations of missile trajectories for the war. And men were at the war. And somebody wrote an article about that group of Rosies, like Rosie the river, right? But these are Rosie, Rosie the programmers. And there's an image that we have that we show in the building of those early programmers. And so Rosie is named in honor of those. And the second reason, which is not such a formal reason, is Rosie was the name of Dwight's mother, ah, so for that, and he's very proud of that. So Rosie has done a lot of work, a lot of jobs, a lot of it has been classroom projects. And so all the students who take, you know, courses, they're using Rosie. The other thing that we do, which we're very happy about and proud is, once a year, we run what is called the Rosie challenge. And the Rosie challenge is open to all students at university, and students basically have to come up with a project that they work on, and that must use Rosie to solve that, okay? And Dwight comes over every year. He's one of the judges. He puts up all the prizes for it, right? And it is the NVIDIA auditorium, which is in the building, is full, and the finalists are presenting their projects, and it's really incredible, Matt, they see the types of projects that the students are doing, and they're everything from this group of students. And the other thing, it's not just computer science students. There are other engineering students. They're involved in this. And you know, one group is saying, we're going to design reduced air friction on a race car. Another group is maybe looking at how to read CAT scans or X rays better. There was a great group last year that did a project on being able to predict food scarcity around the world, saying, look at different things that are happening, weather patterns and all that. And saying, hey, this country over here, in a couple of years, may experience a food scarcity. So it's impressive what people are doing. And so those are the types of things that Rosie is being used for that you could could you do them on other computers, perhaps, but it would take, you know, months, if not years, to do that. What Rosie can do very, very quickly, well.

Matt Kirchner: 19:33

And what a great testament to where AI can add value to just human life here on the planet Earth, right? Whether we're talking about the race car, that's really cool. Improving transportation, you know, anytime we can improve scanning capabilities, CAT scans, MRIs, whatever, whatever it is in that particular space, solving for food scarcity, really, you know, credit to your students as well. For I'm sure they're coming up with these types of programs and these types of projects on their own. So it really kind of shows the breadth of different applications. Applications for artificial intelligence, the creativity of the students who are studying at the university, and then to have your work judged by Dwight. Is he the CTO? Is he the Chief Technology Officer? He's the

John Walz: 20:11

Executive Vice President of Software Engineering, okay, at Nydia, yeah.

Matt Kirchner: 20:15

So have that individual coming in and saying and actually doing the judging of those students projects, and what a great story. That's right? And then when you're when you're moving on, think about that, when you're moving on from the university and looking at what comes next in your career, whether that's more education, whether that's going into the workforce, being able to tell a story like that. I mean, what a great message. And he loves

John Walz: 20:38

it, and he loves to put he brings the prize money, and it's just he gets a big kick

Matt Kirchner: 20:42

out of it. Yeah. Terrific, terrific. So talk a little bit about any other major highlights you see flowing out of this AI program. And I know AI and the whole technology has changed significantly in the last five years. Anything else that that program should be taken credit for that you want to share with our audience, I think what's

John Walz: 20:57

happened too, is it's expanded so much. I mean, in a couple of ways. Number one is we're seeing AI get to more and more of our degree programs, especially our engineering degree programs. We're seeing faculty notes programs use it. But we've also expanded the offerings that we've had. So initially, like I said, it was a undergraduate BS degree in computer science. We now offer undergraduate minors. We have graduate degree programs, we have a master's degree, we have graduate certificate programs, which have been offered, and now we're really getting into professional education programs. So, you know, it's non degree bearing. And what we realized Matt is that there's a huge range of understanding and knowledge that people want. And you know, maybe it's a corporate mid manager who says, I just want to know what it can do and that, and you want to have something for that, or someone who's actually going to be using it. And so we're continuing to understand what are the needs of our corporate partners, and what do they want? And so the professional education, that's the new biggest thing for us, and we've rolled out a number of courses. We'll be developing more courses than that, but so we've really leveraged a whole suite of things that we're doing with Rosie and with AI that's

Matt Kirchner: 22:06

so exciting. And we talk a lot, you know, certainly when we're talking about higher education, about students, about their future careers and so on. And then you think about somebody, I mean, you know, careers, as we all know, can last decade upon decade. I'm well, and I guess the fourth or fifth decade now of my career. You go back to the compact suitcase computer with the keyboard that snapped on the top, and I'm dating myself and probably embarrassing our team here at The TechEd Podcast. Did I even use something like that? But now you think about how all that has evolved, and if I'm somebody that entered the workforce 3040, years ago, and I've got technology changing and now we're in this world of lifelong learning, I think the fact that you're looking at continuing education for somebody who's in the workforce, for your corporate partners to be able to come back to the university and study AI and earn a certificate. What does that feel like? What does that look like? What are they learning? I

John Walz: 22:53

think again, it's a wide variety of things. It may be specific to a field. It may be applications of AI and healthcare. What it can do in that it may just touch base on capabilities of machine learning. What are the different things it can do, sure, or to get involved in a little bit more detail about that. So I think that's really what we want, is to touch on a lot of different people. And again, we have a full if you just want a quick understanding of it, we have a short course here. There's no credit for it, sure. If you want to learn, go into lot detail, you can get a graduate certificate. You take three courses on it, maybe in a business area. And then if you want to, hey, I really like this. I want to do more. You get a full master's degree for it, right? So, stackable, I assume all stackable. Yes, that's exactly right. And so that is really the future, is to have a tailor, you know, a suite of products that you can say, this is what we offer to you. Where do you see yourself fitting in? And I think that's the future. Absolutely,

Matt Kirchner: 23:45

it is. Yeah, the future certainly of AI education. And I would argue the future of education in general is true. Technology continues to move so fast, and we'll talk in a little bit about the changing face of higher education before we get into that. A couple more thoughts on the whole AI front. And you know, I know you see, you led on AI. You doubled down on AI with Derrick Hall. Now, in some ways, I would say you're tripling down on AI. I was just, I was just on LinkedIn, I think it was over the weekend, maybe last week, and saw a huge announcement that the university made, from a leadership standpoint, you added a director of applied AI education responsible for guiding the integration of applied artificial intelligence across academic functions at the university and leading a campus wide AI steering committee that comes in the form of Dr Olga EMAS. Tell us about Dr EMAS and the value you think she's going to add to the university?

John Walz: 24:33

Yeah. So Olga is a professor in our Department of Biomedical Engineering, so she is not a computer scientist, but she utilizes and understands the power of that tool. She's a great educator. She's been with us a number of years. What we did is, over the past year, we got a group of our faculty together, and we called it a raider Initiative, or, you know, R, a, i, d, e, r, where the AI, so a little play there. Love it. And really to look at, how can we. Incorporate AI into our University, and he really covered a lot of different areas, what we call applied AI and curriculum, which is, what are we teaching our students? Applied AI in pedagogy, which is, how do we use it to teach our students better? Teach our students applied AI in student success. How can the students use it as a tool? Or we use it to help them graduate, to get them through, and then applied AI in operations, right? How can we, as use it as a tool to operate as a university? And so they really laid out sort of plans for this, and we realized we needed someone to kind of lead that, who's dedicated to it. And Olga was on that committee. She's very, very dedicated to this, and she was the natural choice for us to to lead us that. So those are the kinds of things that she is going to be doing. She's going to continue to be an educator and a teacher, but this is going to be a big part of her job now, is to lead that. So we're very, very excited about that, and

Matt Kirchner: 25:55

you should be very excited. Let's dissect that a little bit, because you mentioned two sides of it, I think. And this is just so, just so we're making sure that the message is getting through to the audience. Obviously, we can talk a lot about, on the AI side, building that into curriculum, building that into student experience. We talked about building certificate programs and degree programs around that. But then the other part of it in higher education is, how are we using AI to do the work of education? Right? I'm just such a huge believer, at any level of education, the amount of data that we have about our students can really be, in a good way, overwhelming. I mean, in a lot of other market spaces, you would do anything to have the kind of data we have about student performance, extracurricular activities, attendance, aptitudes, test scores, all of this information that we have about our students, and I'm just a huge believer that the future of education is recognizing that not everybody learns the same way. Not everybody's going to benefit from the same style of delivery. And so let's figure out, let's use that data that we have figure out how our students are learning best, and then catering that educational experience to the students based on that. It sounds like you're getting into some of that already. We are, and there are

John Walz: 27:04

a number of tools out there. I mean, you could eventually see it. You know, a student is doing a math problem, and they're stuck on a math problem, and here's a machine learning algorithm that could look at what they've done, and actually you can say, hey, you've made a mistake here. This is what I should have done. So that's a study tool, right? It's helping students learn. It's helping with their student success. Many of our faculty are doing that, helping them design problems or assess the work that's being done. So that's really a part of it. The other part about it, and you touched upon, is how we operate. So one of the big applications that we have right now that we're using it is on student recruitment and admissions. Here's a student, they're interested in mechanical engineering. Here's some information about that student. Here's where they're from, Racine, Wisconsin, and we've got machine learning programs now that can say, hey, this is what we think it's going to take to get that student. This is the financial aid award that we need to do. Or we think, you know this student, getting that student on campus is important, or hooking that student up with the faculty member. These are the things that you can do to increase the likelihood of landing that student. And so we expect to see improvements in not only helping us attract students, but on retention of students as well. What are the students struggling with? What are the tools that we can throw out there? So I think all of that is going to change higher education in many ways, and it's already starting to happen the place that we're using it more, probably, right now is, like I said, on admissions and recruitment of students, what is it going to take to land students here? And

Matt Kirchner: 28:28

just to extend that a little bit, number one, the efficiency of being able to target the perfect student, right? Because not MSO we is not going to be perfect for every student. Not every student is going to be perfect for MSO we. And not that it's good or bad or right or wrong, but the more you can dial in on what's right for the student and how are they going to fit at the university, the more likely that you are to recruit that person, the more likely they are to have a positive experience, right? They get there once they get there, that speaks to the retention part that you talked about, and then being able to think about as we're spending our recruiting budget, how do we spend that as efficiently as possible and be able to attract the best possible students that are going to be a great fit for the university, and then use that capital maybe in other parts of the work that you're doing? So incredibly brilliant that way. Had a conversation, actually, earlier this week with somebody who said to say hi, by the way, we share a friend in the form of Dr Richard Barnhouse. Oh yeah, sure, rich at wauci County Technical College, who has tremendous admiration, by the way, for your way of thinking about higher education schedule. And Rich and I have worked on some really fun things. Rich has been using AI to, you know, for the student scheduling experience, right? So literally, like, build different iterations of schedules. So as students, especially in this new world of education where we may be working, we may have other things other than just being on campus every day and going to class and being able to maximize the matching of faculty and academic talent and availability with the availability students, it's another application for artificial intelligence. So really, really exciting it is. It's a new world out there. Yep, exactly, and we're proud and excited to be forging into it together. There on the horizon as we look to the future, you're talking about how you're using John AI now at the University, if we look back or look forward, I should say, three to five years from now, what other applications do you see on the horizon? I

John Walz: 30:12

think, for us, and it's Dwight's dream as well as our dream, is that, you know, eventually, every engineering graduate who comes out of MS we knows how to use it, right? We're getting there. We're not quite there yet. We have minors, we have courses, but that's where we want, and it becomes the basis of the fundamentals that you're using. And how can AI help you with that and eventually expand that beyond just engineering, whether it's nursing or business and other degree programs, that's where we want. We have set our goal with our board that we'll be a recognized leader and applied AI education, right? This is it's nothing that gets great fundamental research. It's a lot of great friends to do that, a lot of great institutions. That's not our mission, right? Our mission is applying this technology. And that is really where we can set that apart. And we want to get to a point where people across the country will say, those students who come out of MSO, we know how to use that technology here, and that's what we're working and that's what Olga is really going to help us do that. And

Matt Kirchner: 31:06

that model isn't really anything new for MSO. We in the sense of that, as somebody who's employed your graduates in manufacturing for 30 years now, the truth of the matter is that the university has a reputation for producing students that are, we used to call them shop floor ready, right? So you can recruit a lot of students out of engineering schools, and you can just tell, you can tell the ones that had a hands on experience, a poly technic experience, from the ones that had a real theoretical experience in engineering. And there's a place for all of them that's right, but, but you've always had a reputation of people that come out not just knowing the theory, but putting it to work on day one, and this is just another extension of that. That's

John Walz: 31:43

right, and that's what I've heard, you know, since I've been here at ms SOE for eight and a half years now, and I've had so many either recruiters or company CEOs will say to me something like, my company hires engineers from these different schools, all great schools, but there's one thing that sets the mswe Graduate apart, is they hit the ground running, and you can throw a hard problem at them from day one, and they will get it. And that, we take a lot of pride

Matt Kirchner: 32:06

in that, and they're comfortable in what we call the gemba, or the place of action, which, in my world, the manufacturing was always the shop floor, right? Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of folks that, you know, if you've just learned in a classroom, and all of a sudden you're standing out on the manufacturing floor with, you know, safety glasses and and earplugs and steel toe shoes, and it's like, you know, they they're overwhelmed by it and and MS always graduates, I can speak from experience. That's not the case. You've got them, and again, in my case of manufacturing, but you put, you put students into a lot of different disciplines and a lot of different career pathways, but absolutely the reputation that you have. And I think it's important for us to recognize that that's going to be super valuable, I think, as we move into the future of what higher education looks like, and certainly what employers are looking for, the enrollment cliff, we, you know, it almost sounds cliche to talk about it, because everybody knows it's it's coming. We know that we're going to have, you know, the same number of universities recruiting a smaller number of students for a period of time. So if competition is what competition is, that's going to really force us to be innovative in higher education. Talk about some of those challenges, whether it's demographic or otherwise, that higher education is facing, and what MSO is doing, yeah, I think generally,

John Walz: 33:10

you hit it right? The key is, demographics are one of it. I mean, just, you know, a lower birth rate of students 18 years ago. There's also students questioning whether, do I need to go get a four year degree, right? You hear about what's happening, is it worth it? And so for all these different reasons, yeah, recruiting students and coming into universities is going to get harder and harder. The wealthy schools with a billion, multi billion dollar endowments, they can survive, but it's going to be a challenging time. And what we've recognized this, this is not completely new, right? The demographic clip has been known about for 18 years now. So what Ms OE is doing a couple of different things to ensure that we continue to thrive and get stronger. Number one, we're broadening our educational offerings. We're recognizing, I'm still a big believer, that a student going to school and learning on campus is just a great experience, and I don't think that's going to change, but I think that if you want to reach a broader group of students, there are some students that that just may not work for. Maybe they're in a different part of their life, they're married, right? They whatever, they're not going to move off to campus. You need to be able to reach those types of students. That's part of it is broadening, and that's what we're doing with professional education and these master's degree programs that are mentioned, they're all online, and that is a place where online education can work. If you're trying to teach an 1819 year old kid how to do thermodynamics and do that to an online that's not the easy thing to do. So if you're trying to teach a 27 year old student who already has an undergraduate degree, they can work from home, they want to pick up a master's degree, then it can work quite well. It's just a different motivation, different type of student. So broadening our offerings is number one, but also just what we call expanding our reach. You know, traditionally, 60% of our students have come from the state of Wisconsin, and we still will recruit heavily to Wisconsin, but we've recognized we've got to go beyond. That too. We've got a great thing that we offer here. So a comment that I've heard many times since I started here from, you know, maybe people, political leaders, others said, MS, we, you guys, are a hidden gem. And I will say, I like half of that, right? I love being a gym, but no one's gonna come to us if we're hidden, right? So, you know, getting out there and marketing and new ways of marketing and reaching a broader group of students, maybe beyond just Wisconsin and getting into the neighboring state. So I think a combination of those and we'll be fine, but that's, I think that's the right way to do it. So it's

Matt Kirchner: 35:32

interesting, 60% of your students from Wisconsin, I might have guessed it was even higher than that. So you've got, you know, four out of 10 students are coming from out of state, yeah, and the majority

John Walz: 35:41

of them probably would come from the Northern Illinois area. Okay, right? I mean, they're either Chicago suburbs are closer to us than many parts of Wisconsin, right? So we do recruit out of that remaining bed for, you know, the remaining 40% that would be the bulk of them. But do we get students? We get them from other Midwest states. We get students here, actually, quite a number, who come from from around the country to play athletics, and athletics is a very important recruiting tool for us. So a student, maybe, you know, living in California, who wants to play soccer, and maybe they want to get a great education, and perhaps they're maybe, you know, not a d1 level soccer player. I think our students are wonderful soccer players, but we can appeal to that and say, Come here. You come here, you can get a great education, you can participate in athletics. That's very important for us. Athletics plays a huge role for us in

Matt Kirchner: 36:26

the urban campus. And you've got just a beautiful soccer field, actually, right there, like Water Street, it's on

John Walz: 36:33

top of a parking garage, right? We have a soccer field built on top of a parking Exactly. Very unique. Yeah, for

Matt Kirchner: 36:38

sure, it is. And as you and I were talking earlier, I actually spent six years of my life living pretty much right on your campus. The apartment that I lived in after I graduated from college was, I mean, the your radio station was right across the street. Yeah, I looked out the window at the baseball team playing out there on the baseball field and And absolutely, that is an interesting aspect. I love it. And you live right in the middle of that, all that activity going on. I know you live right on campus in the president's residence, which is a great experience. You know, being a celebrity, not just on campus, but obviously carrying a high profile in the City of Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin, our Business Journal recently recognized you as a quote power player. I would attest to that, obviously, really leading, in so many ways, higher education into the future here in southeast Wisconsin. Tell us what that recognition, how did that come about, and what does it mean?

John Walz: 37:23

I was really honored to get it. I didn't expect it. There's some, obviously, some really wonderful people on there. It's great to have your work recognized. I mean, I love what I do. I love our institution. I love our faculty staff, I love our students. And so to me, it's a joy doing what I do, and I think it's a great institution. And if I get recognized for that, then that's makes it even nicer, but absolutely, yeah, what

Matt Kirchner: 37:43

are those one or two things that absolutely kind of drive you day in and day out? When you get up in the morning and excited to go about the work that you're doing.

John Walz: 37:50

You do this work because you love students. You have to love students. You have to you see the value and the creativity and the hard work that they have. And we just have great groups of students. Do they like to have a little fun? Of course, they like to have a little have a little fun. But they're, they're 18. You know, I was, we were all 18 or 19 once, right? And still fun. And so they work hard. They're great. They're grounded. And I love being around them. I love going to watch their sporting events, and I love to watch them succeed. To me, Commencement is one of the most special times. I mean, you're sitting up there and you're watching the students and their family, they're so proud of them, and seeing walk across that degree and shake their hand. To me, it's like this is why we do what we do right to give these students that great education and know that they're going to go off and be the next white Derek so whomever, and just contribute and make the world. I give them a make the world a better place. And so I that's what I like, Absolutely,

Matt Kirchner: 38:46

one of my, one of my very best friends, I'll just mention his name is John laundry. His son, Max, I believe, is graduating this spring, has had, and John, will tell me, has told me that Ms OE was exactly the right spot for his third son. His first two went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, obviously different model, much bigger university, but a great school. Yeah, both great institutions in their own right, for sure, but just the experience for to our earlier point, his son, who was at a place in his life that just absolutely flourished at ms OE, and I'm sure being able to to sit up on that stage and watch them come across the stage and then those diplomas at the end of the at the end of their journey, which in some ways is just the beginning of their journey in this age of lifelong learning. That's right, but it's got to be just incredibly it is incredibly rewarding. So a couple more questions for you. Sure. Everybody has their own experience through education. Everybody has their own view of education. What is something that Dr John walls would say You think differently about education than most other people do, or that would surprise other people in terms of your paradigm for education?

John Walz: 39:48

Well, that's a great question. Maybe I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but as I mentioned, I still think a student going to college and being there in person is a great way to get educated. I think you learned as much outside of the classroom as you learned. People, I mean, in the people that you make and the, you know, solving your roommate problems and learning how to deal with that, that's all a part of education, right? There's what you learn in the class and all the other stuff. And you're taking an 1819, year old individual who is still developing in many ways, and producing out an adult who's who's ready to go out in the world. And so I still think coming to campus and dealing with all that is still the greatest, the greatest form of education. And I never want to get away from that. Do I understand that there's a there's a place for online education? Of course, I do. I get that, sure, but I just never hope that we never get away from that model of mom and dad dropping off their son or daughter at school and the emotions of that, and then seeing them when they graduate is still one of the greatest experiences all, and that's a big part of who we are. So the traditional education, I think, is incredibly valuable, still such

Matt Kirchner: 40:50

an interesting observation, and I've said for many, many years, during my post secondary experience, went actually to another solid Milwaukee institution, Marquette University, where I studied after high school, I've said forever that I learned as much outside of the classroom as I did in, and part of it, obviously, was the academic side of things, but then interacting with your roommates and solving problems there. And I worked a ton when I was in college, I worked from Milwaukee County in the Aquatics department. I coached swimming. I was always working. I was always, you know, studying as much as I as I could or had to, to make it through the journey, and then also trying to fit in a bunch of fun as well, whether that was extracurricular activities clubs. We didn't have an AI club at that point, of course, but, but others so, so important, and so it's interesting to hear you say that that in this age of when everybody's talking about Virtual Learning and Technology and remote this and whatever it's got its place, and certainly for the the student, depending upon where they are in their life. Want to make those opportunities available to them so that everybody has a chance at a solid higher education, but that campus experience absolutely important, and it's great that you point that out. One final question for you, John, as we wrap up our time with Dr John walls here on The TechEd Podcast, President, by the way, of the Milwaukee School of Engineering, I know you grew up in Louisiana, right, north of New Orleans, right or New Orleans, New Orleans? Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that. If you were to go back in time to that 15 year old John walls, your sophomore in high school, whole life ahead of you, enjoying the much warmer temperatures in Louisiana than we're seeing here in Milwaukee these days. If you could give that young man one piece of advice, John, what would that be? So

John Walz: 42:23

that's a great question, and I appreciate that, and I would give them the advice that I give to the entering freshmen. I always address our entering freshmen, and I say, take advantage of these opportunities that you're going to have. You know, whether you're in high school, whether in college, you're never going to have a time like this ever again in your life, and don't let it just go by, right? And, you know, don't think, wow, I'll learn that eventually I'll do that. Because, as you and I both know it goes by fast, and you want to look back and say, Man, I wish I would have done this or not done that. So take advantage of these great you, these students, and whether you're in high school or in college, you just given enormous opportunities. And just don't let all that pass you by, right? Stay focused, have a little fun, but take advantage of that. That's what I would have given to myself. And I wish there were things that I probably wish I would have done, that I did, right? I just goofed off a little bit, maybe sure not should have done less, but that would be it. I think that's

Matt Kirchner: 43:23

absolutely perfect for a young person that is, you know, sophomore in high school, thinking about their, you know, finishing off their secondary journey and then, and then heading off into what comes after, after high school, and really, you know, living every one of those moments, being aware of those incredible opportunities. There's a lot of ways that we can just pass time these days, right? I mean, it's almost impossible to be bored, because as soon as you are you can jump on YouTube or jump on tick tock, and that fills the time, right? You've got all of these experiences that are available to you during your collegiate journey. Make sure you're watching for those realizing the minutes are coming and taking advantage of them as they make themselves available to you because time passes really, really quickly, as it did, by the way, in this episode of The TechEd Podcast. So the incredible conversation here with Dr John walls, the president of the great institution, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, learned a ton you're leading. You're doing great things. I know our audience really, really enjoyed this episode, as did I. John, thanks so much for being with us. Thank

John Walz: 44:19

you, Matt. It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed talking to you very much. So thank you for joining

Matt Kirchner: 44:23

us on this episode of The TechEd Podcast. It's Matt Kirk, nurse, so wonderful to have you with us. We'll put all of the information from this episode in the show notes. Check out the show notes at TechEd podcast slash walls. That's TechEd podcast slash w, a L z. TechEd podcast, slash w, a, l, Z, that's where the show notes are. Are going to be, and then check us out on social media. Of course, we're all over social you can find us on LinkedIn and tick tock on Facebook, on Instagram, wherever you are. Checking out social media, you will find The TechEd Podcast. Follow us there. Be sure to say hello. We would love to hear from you. And until nine. This week, I'm Matt Kirchner, your host. Thanks for being with us. You.