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00:00We're here with Dr. Ayanna Howard, the new president of Spelman College. Dr. Howard,
00:05great to have you here on the program. 145 years Spelman has been around a women's college,
00:11considered to be probably one of the top historically black colleges and universities
00:16out there. 145 years. There's only been 11 presidents before you. You're number 12.
00:20How does that feel? It's actually thrilling and amazing, and I'm so excited. And, you know,
00:27I believe and truly believe that this is a legacy and a mission and a calling.
00:34Well, I do want to talk about your background, and it is pretty illustrious. You've worked at
00:39the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a long career in engineering, AI. You helped to build the
00:45marvelous rover technology. You led the engineering department out there in Ohio. I am curious,
00:53though. I mean, Spelman is pretty much seen as a liberal arts school. So bringing in an engineer
00:57as its president, is that a sign as to where this school is going to go?
01:02Well, so it's not really. So my background is quite spread out. But I will tell you, my origin,
01:11my origin story was at a liberal arts education. So I chose an undergrad institution because I was a
01:18roboticist AI specialist. That's what I wanted to do. But I chose a liberal arts because I wanted to
01:23make sure that as a whole person, I had that experience. And with the things that are changing,
01:29I truly believe in this age of AI that the humanities, the creative arts, the liberal arts
01:34are really is what's going to make humanity and humans relevant in this new world that we call AI
01:40and robotics. Well, I'm curious how you sort of blend the two. I mean, is the idea to put maybe
01:46a little
01:46bit more engineering and AI into liberal arts? Or are you trying to put a little more liberal arts
01:51into engineering, AI, technology, et cetera? So it's a little bit of a combination of both.
01:56And I won't say engineering. I'll say STEM and the liberal arts and humanities. So the thing is,
02:01is that higher ed, what we do well is to train students within the discipline. Now, with all the
02:07changes going on in the workforce, how do we ensure that they have the tools of AI correlating with
02:12their specialty in the discipline? And so that means putting a little bit more of AI as a tool
02:17in the discipline. But then for the science and STEM majors, they also need to have the tools because
02:23they are now the developers with respect to the data and the coding and all these elements that
02:28ties to the discipline. So both and. I know you've only been there for six, six and a half days
02:34or
02:34whatever it is now, but are you considering at all any sort of a standalone engineering degree?
02:41Actually, no. One of the things is that we have a university called Georgia Tech right down the
02:47street. We have a dual degree engineering program. So the students can come to Spelman. They can be in
02:53a STEM major and finish and basically matriculate to get their engineering degree. So that has already
02:59existed and it works well. And the students that go through that program are amazing in terms of
03:04alums. So there's no need to start an engineering program when we already have the ability to train
03:10our students in that discipline. I want to ask you just about the current crop of students coming in,
03:16not only for this year and beyond, and their ability to actually afford Spelman. Roughly about $60,000,
03:22which, you know, actually compared to other universities is a modest bargain. But obviously there have been
03:28some significant rollbacks in some of the federal aid with regards to loans, a cap on the amount of
03:34loans that people in need can actually take a cap that is basically about $20,000, I think $65,000
03:41total
03:42for the student. That's well below what it takes to enroll at Spelman. Have you looked in your short
03:48time there so far into ways to sort of mitigate and close that gap between the students in need and
03:54what
03:55can actually be obtained? Yeah. So one of the things is we have something called the Spelman
03:59Forward campaign, which is really going out and fundraising to really cover that gap. And I will
04:07say when the Spelman Forward campaign launched back in the spring, I will tell you, I did not realize how
04:13important this really is in this day and age. And so we are being more aggressive around asking our
04:20donors, our alums, corporate sponsors to do more because they need these students when they
04:27graduate. And if they have the debt and they can't go to grad school because of the limitations,
04:31they will lose an entire generation of students' excellence working for them. And so it's a win-win
04:38proposition, but we will be more aggressive in ensuring that we can fill the gaps with respect
04:43to some of the limitations on the loans. Is there an anticipation that you can maybe close that gap
04:48completely, the idea that you can basically meet for at least every admitted student's full
04:53demonstrated need, that that can be covered in some way or another? We're going to try. We're
04:59going to try our best. Well, I mean, your predecessor, the interim, President Roz Brewer, who's still there
05:04on the board, did a really great job in fundraising. And obviously, Spelman Forward was just announced
05:09earlier this year to really double down on what she's done. You serve on corporate boards, Autodesk,
05:14Motorola, a few others I'm probably forgetting here. How are you going to leverage your corporate
05:19connections to maybe continue what Roz Brewer was able to do? Well, one of the benefits I have is
05:25being an AI specialist and my connections with the technology side is really showing up to them based
05:31on my personal network and showing them the specialness of Spelman. I will say a lot of times,
05:37if they're going to an HBCU, they have not come to Spelman, but with me in the role, they will.
05:43And so it's showing them what we do, what we're capable of. And I will tell you, our students are
05:48special. They are smart. They are bright. They're confident. And they are talented.
05:53One more question about what's been going on in Washington, and that involves the rollback of some
05:57of the federal funding for university research, an initiative to put more of that money in the hands of
06:03private companies. How exposed is Spelman to that rollback in R&D coming from the federal government?
06:11Yeah. So one of the things that we've had to do is fill in the gaps of some of our
06:15faculty that have
06:16lost their funding in areas that are really, really important, whether it's Black women health,
06:21whether it's thinking about the social justice and inequities in our society.
06:25And so we have been filling that gap. We will go to mostly private corporations to think about how do
06:31we do more in this space? Because these are areas, like with anything, research sometimes takes
06:36four or five, a decade sometimes to actually have your outcome. And so we will fill that gap,
06:42even if we aren't able to get the grants from the federal government in certain areas.
06:47All right. We have to talk about AI. Obviously, a hot topic. It is your wheelhouse. And we should
06:52point out, I mean, I was asking you earlier about whether you have a standalone engineering department.
06:57I mean, there are, you guys have touted this for years. I mean, Spelman is the biggest producer
07:02of Black women who go on to STEM PhDs. I assume, I don't want to put words in your mouth,
07:07you want to continue that trend.
07:09Oh, of course. Of course. And even more.
07:11Yeah. Well, talk to me about just how AI, the AI boom overall fits into that and whether that
07:18actually widens the pipeline. And I'm talking specifically for Black women, or maybe potentially
07:24creates maybe some hurdles, some roadblocks up ahead.
07:27So I think it widens the pipeline. So we're going to assume we are doing it correctly.
07:31And so we're going to be navigating and figuring that out over this next year.
07:35But what happens is, is that when you're out in the field, AI is a non-negotiable. It's already
07:42left the train station. It is, in fact, bullet speed ahead. And so how do we quickly ensure that
07:47our students, whether they're in the STEM or even the humanities, or they're interested in law,
07:52know how to use these tools in their discipline when they're going to grad school?
07:55I want to make sure that when they are day one sitting in that class, and the professor is
08:00talking about, well, we're doing legal briefs, and you need to use your chat bot to go through
08:05them, that they're like, oh, I actually did that as an undergrad. I know exactly what you're
08:09talking about. And so I think it widens it because our students, when they're trained with those AI
08:15tools in their discipline, they will be, one, much more capable, but also they will beat out all
08:22the competitors.
08:23Do you think, though, the students are going to embrace this? And I bring that up because this past
08:28graduation, commencement season, there was a lot of hay made of some of the reaction by the graduates
08:34to some of the speakers talking and extolling the benefits and the future of AI. There's a lot of
08:39anxiety about displacement of jobs and just the general role of what AI will be in our lives. So when
08:47you have some young girl coming in, 17, 18, 19 years old, into the school this week here, do you
08:53think she's going to have that same enthusiasm for this technology that you have?
08:58Well, this is the thing, and this is why the humanities and having this critical thinking
09:02skills is important. AI isn't all positive. We know that. And I'm an AI specialist. I am an optimist,
09:09but I'm also a realist. And the fact is, is we have, if you think about the water requirements,
09:15the energy requirements, the data center kind of boom, the fact that as we're using AI, we're losing
09:21some of our ability to think critically, like that is a reality. So what I want is I do want
09:26that
09:27healthy criticism. I want students to say, look, what are you doing about X? What are you doing
09:32about Y? And let's have a conversation so we can move together because the world is moving forward.
09:37I want our students to have a voice and a seat at that table, asking those hard questions so that
09:42we do get it right. Well, I also want to draw on the fact you wrote a book, basically kind
09:48of the
09:48book on bias in AI. And I am curious as to how much progress since you've, I think that was,
09:54you
09:54know, maybe six years ago when that came out. Give me a sense of how much progress, if at all,
09:59has been made in addressing that because there have been some very high profile exits from some of
10:03these AI and tech companies, people concerned about sort of the wanton nature of what is being
10:09rolled out and whether there are any guardrails, whether imposed by the companies themselves or by
10:15the government. What are we facing when it comes to the use of that technology or misuse of that
10:20technology, I should say? So I would say that there's both. There is just as misuse as there is
10:28positive use. And when I wrote that book, it's called Sex, Waste, and Robots, six years ago,
10:35I would say the progress in terms of addressing some of the bias, we've only touched the iceberg,
10:40the tip of the iceberg. It's one of the reasons why I have a new book coming out in November
10:44called Rebooting the Machines, which actually addresses the now and provides and thinks about
10:50the blueprint and the tools of what people can do, not just developers and coders and companies,
10:54but everyday people and humans can do to address some of the issues so that we get the full
10:59advantage. Healthcare, education, thinking about clean energy, thinking about global warming and
11:05climate change. AI can be used positively, but we have to basically put in the guardrails. We have to
11:10train individuals to think about in a responsible way. And I think we can do that. Where do you think
11:15we're going right now with regards to physical AI? Your background is in robotics. A lot of these
11:21tech CEOs, they've moved on from LLMs. They're now all talking about the actual physical of it,
11:26which includes a lot of robotics. Is that real? Is that here? And more importantly,
11:31is that going to be beneficial? So I have a little bit of a bias because now I'm the cool
11:37kid because
11:37I am a roboticist with thinking about embodied intelligence. And so I actually think that what
11:43we are going to see in the physical robotics space or physical AI is an acceleration. And primarily,
11:50it's the amount of investments that are going in, in terms of venture capitalists, in terms of large
11:58big tech companies, it's going to happen because it has to. You have to have a return on investment.
12:03We are going to have at least one or two unicorns in this robotic space. Where the holy grail is,
12:08where the low hanging fruit is, I think is going to be in the logistics centers. I think it's going
12:13to be in manufacturing. And in some cases, it will be in hospital clinical settings. I think those are the
12:19three kind of areas where we're going to see the most involvement and the most acceleration of this
12:24technology. But it's here. I'm going to make a prediction. I might be wrong. But I see within
12:29the next five years, we're going to see a uptick in the number of robots that are in those three
12:36domains.
12:36We started this conversation kind of with a nod to how the age of Spelman, going back to the 1880s.
12:45And we think about the original intent of why most of these historical black colleges and
12:50universities were created back then. Here in 2026, let's just say black Americans are dealing with a
12:57lot. And I am curious as what's the message that you have for those young women coming in as to
13:03the
13:04importance of an HBCU like Spelman, as well as your peers, and whether that legacy, and more importantly, the
13:11ability that these schools have to shepherd these men and women to whatever our new world is going to look
13:17like, how much power do you still have?
13:21So I think even more now than ever is one of the reasons why I said yes to this mission
13:27and this opportunity
13:27is that we need universities like Spelman today. We belong here. We belong to society. We change the
13:36shape of society. When we think about our outreach, when we think about our community engagement, when
13:40we think about social justice, we as black women are in those spaces. And so how do we empower the
13:47next generation of students so that when they're in those spaces, they have the voice, they have the
13:52talent and have the skill to actually make the change that we need today. More importantly than
13:56ever, we need the space to feel like we belong, because frankly, in a lot of places, we no longer
14:03are.
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