This fall, the College of William and Mary is offering an interdisciplinary artificial intelligence minor designed to give students technical expertise while addressing the ethical and social concerns of this evolving technology. This new minor is part of the College’s School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics, which launched in July under the leadership of Douglas C. Schmidt ’84, M.A. ’86. The inaugural Dean of the School of CDSP, Schmidt, is also an acclaimed computer scientist, author and two-time College alumnus.
The School of CDSP will be located in ISC 4 — the newly constructed extension of the Integrated Science Center — with four different departments: Applied Science, Computer Science, Data Science, and Physics.
Until now, AI’s acknowledgment on campus was largely limited to professors including personal policies in their syllabi, following recommendations from the College’s Studio for Teaching and Learning Innovation.
Provost Peggy Agouris praised the minor for its alignment with the College’s 2025 initiative on education and innovation.
“This new AI minor and all the related courses in CDSP build on William & Mary’s tradition of inquiry and action while serving society ethically and responsibly,” Agouris wrote in an email to The Flat Hat. “They bring together cutting-edge research and the breadth of the liberal arts and sciences, keeping the human perspective at the center of innovation.”
Schmidt, whose family has been connected to the College for over a century, received his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Arts degrees in Sociology from the College before earning his Master’s of Science and Doctorate in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine.
Before becoming Dean, Schmidt served as the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation for the U.S. Secretary of Defense. He has also held several roles at Vanderbilt University, where he published extensively in computer science.
Schmidt continuously emphasizes that technical education must be balanced with critical thinking and reasoning in the School of CDSP’s curriculum. His goal is to foster what he calls “augmented intelligence” in graduates, meaning the combination of a strong understanding of AI with the critical thinking skills found in a liberal arts education.
“The curriculum is designed to give students a couple of things: technical fluency and also the critical thinking perspective for how to use AI wisely,” Schmidt said. “It’s not just to know how to use it, but you have to know when to use it and when not to use it.”
Tucker Peters ’28, president and founder of the W&M AI club, views augmented intelligence as an incredibly useful skill for students to take with them upon leaving the College.
“I encourage W&M students to think about how [AI] can turn your dreams into reality, or how it can teach you concepts you have only dreamed of learning,” Peters wrote in an email to The Flat Hat. “This will ensure that students are better protected in an evolving AI-centered workforce and will make their résumés, no matter what major or minor they pursue, more bulletproof.”
The AI minor requires 19 credit hours: four core courses — Introduction to Programming, Discrete Structures of Computer Science, Research Design and Statistics and Applied Machine Learning — in addition to two electives from a restricted list.
While none of the class titles explicitly mention ethics, Schmidt explained that social and ethical issues will be woven into the curriculum of every course.
“More than just focusing on how to teach people to build a system or use a tool to do something, we want to focus on our students building systems that will serve humanity, serve society, and that, of course, requires addressing things like privacy, equity and ethics,” Schmidt said.
Course syllabi will also be updated frequently to keep pace with the technology’s rapid evolution.
An AI major is in the works, but a minor offered the fastest way to bring AI education to the College. Majors require approval from both the Board of Visitors and the Virginia State Council on Higher Education.
In the meantime, Schmidt encourages students outside the School of CDSP to take on this minor, emphasizing their role in bringing more diverse perspectives to technical fields.
“[Non-CDSP majors] are going to bring in cultural issues, human issues, and ethical issues, of course, and the technical fields desperately need that kind of focus…so what we’re really doing is creating a minor that is not intended for our majors,” Schmidt said.
Those still skeptical of AI are encouraged to enroll in a course, too. The School of CDSP underscores that AI cannot replace human creativity, but it can complement it by handling some of the more mundane tasks that occur between creation.
“People begin to realize that [AI]’s actually empowering because it allows them to offload a lot of tedious and mundane and boring things, and then leave them more time to do the fun stuff, the human stuff, the creative stuff,” Schmidt said.
Peters echoed this sentiment. He challenged skeptics to try using AI and see if it can help them like it helps him — with studying, exploring new interests or finding information on lesser-known topics.
“I use it all the time to study, create practice tests for myself and dig into complex internal questions,” Peters said.
As AI is becoming increasingly embedded into the workforce, the School of CDSP and the College aim to teach students how to use this technology as effectively and ethically as possible.
“We are responsible for helping students become good stewards of things that will make them have more effective careers,” Schmidt said.
For more information on the College’s AI policies and resources, visit the College’s AI website.
CORRECTION (09/12/2025): Article was updated by the Standards & Practices Editor to clarify that there are four, not five, departments in the School of CDSP, and that there are no plans to create an AI department.
