College of Southern Nevada deploys AI avatar to better engage students

Even in IT, chance encounters can have an outsize impact.

For Mugunth Vaithylingam, CIO at the College of Southern Nevada, sitting next to AI Foundation COO Russ Logan on a flight from New York to Las Vegas last October provided just that: a chance meeting that led to a whole new way for the college to engage with and personalize the experience for its students at a time of heightened need. 

Vaithylingam, energized by their conversation, called Logan the next day brimming with ideas and so began work on the design of an innovative avatar of the college president, Dr. Federico Zaragoza, aimed at providing a personalized connection into the college community for its students. The first avatar digitally connected with students from the website to welcome them to the college, answer basic questions, direct them to portal information, and check up on how they were doing emotionally and academically, as well as offer help to students at risk of dropping out.

The timing of this tool in the post-pandemic era met the unique needs of this largely minority, bilingual institution, some of whom were commuting from Los Angeles, most of whom reside on one of three campuses around the greater Las Vegas area, all of whom needed added support to correct course after the chaos and disruption of the pandemic, the CIO says.

The college president is bilingual and his avatar, created by the AI Foundation, gave students a more personalized way of interacting with the college administration on the website supporting the college’s 18,000-strong community.

Currently, the avatar — which was redesigned into a youthful student avatar dubbed ‘Ellie’ at the president’s urging to help students better identify with it — runs on the college’s website but eventually will be made available on mobile devices, the CIO says.