As colleges roll out a wave of new programs to prepare students for an AI-driven workforce, a new partnership between New York University and the State University of New York is trying to answer an increasingly urgent question: Which of these efforts actually work?
This month, NYU and SUNY launched the Higher Education Design Lab, a joint effort to evaluate which higher education programs are most effective at preparing students for a workforce reshaped by AI and other technological and cultural changes.
The lab will study new and established initiatives on NYU’s and SUNY’s own campuses, starting with programs that teach civic engagement, career readiness, first-year programming and innovation to understand their real impact on student learning.
“We’re bringing together two really significant and very diverse institutions, and it’s a big-scale operation, so we’ll be able to look at a lot of things across a lot of different environments,” said Mindy Tarlow, senior fellow and professor at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, where the lab will initially be housed.
The partnership appears timely; Inside Higher Ed’s latest Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 two- and four-year undergraduates found that about 40 percent of respondents think professors could better connect classroom lessons to issues outside class or to students’ career interests.
A separate Student Voice survey of more than 1,000 two- and four-year undergraduates found that nearly 50 percent of students want their colleges to offer training on how to use AI tools ethically in their careers. By contrast, only 16 percent said preparing them for a future shaped by generative AI should be left to individual professors or departments, and just 5 percent said colleges do not need to take any action at all—underscoring the demand for a coordinated, institutionwide response.
“This is a research partnership,” said Elise Cappella, vice provost for universitywide initiatives at NYU. “This lab is not about creating a lot of new things. It’s about studying what we already have and making sure we’re reaching the students we need to reach.”
The approach: The Higher Education Design Lab will examine a broad range of programs and practices designed to strengthen student learning. Its initial focus includes initiatives aimed at fostering dialogue—including university speaker series, co-curricular training and exposure to diverse perspectives—to better understand how these experiences shape engagement, collaboration, critical thinking and confidence in discourse.
The lab will also study career-readiness programs, evaluating which approaches, such as employer partnerships, provide the strongest outcomes for both students and employers.
First-year and orientation experiences, including civics and community-building modules, will be analyzed to see how required versus optional participation affects leadership skills, critical discourse and student well-being.
Teaching and learning innovations, from faculty development programs to instructional tool kits, will be assessed for their impact on classroom and campus learning.
Finally, the lab will explore experiential and community-based learning, including service learning and study away programs, to determine how high-impact practices cultivate skills for navigating diverse perspectives and preparing students for leadership opportunities.
Tarlow said the lab will rely on both qualitative and quantitative data to understand not just whether programs work, but under what conditions and for which students.
The qualitative and quantitative data “often play off each other in really interesting ways,” she said. “We keep coming back to the same core question: What works best, in what conditions and for whom? And depending on what we’re studying, we’ll use the methodology that best helps us answer that, because not everybody responds the same way to the same things.”
What’s next: The Higher Education Design Lab will have an advisory board of higher education leaders and other institutions, including the City University of New York, and intends to invite additional universities, research centers and government partners to participate over time.
Tarlow said the lab’s first year will focus on identifying the pilot projects and specific parts of campus life the team wants to study most closely.
Early work will center on evaluating efforts already underway to foster dialogue and civic engagement, beginning with SUNY’s Civil Discourse and Civic Education & Engagement programming and the Constructive Dialogue Institute’s Perspectives Program.
“There is already a lot of knowledge and good work happening in all of our institutions,” Cappella said. “What is new and exciting about this particular initiative is that we’re really dedicating time and attention internally and across institutions to doing this more collaboratively and more intentionally.”
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