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San Diego Community College District
DistrictRegion: San Diego / Imperial
At a glance
San Diego Community College District's Institutional Innovation and Effectiveness division, led by Vice Chancellor Michelle Fischthal with innovation systems analyst and faculty release-time support, has moved from early professional development to formal adoption: District Policy 343 on Generative AI Use was published in January 2026, City College's Academic Senate presented an AI position paper to the Board in April 2025, and faculty now choose from three syllabus policy frameworks (allowed with citation, conditional, or prohibited). The district launched a free, self-paced AI literacy micro-credential in June 2026—developed through a $1.5M Equitable AI Alliance grant with SDSU and UC San Diego—with 904 participants and 104 badges earned; Mesa College's library offers an AI Syllabus Creator Bot and Assessment Assistant, and the district recommends Khanmigo, Nectir, and PlayLab for instruction.
Updated Scan Findings
9 new 🆕· 14 source-verified findings from the updated web scanAI-Engaged People, Processes & Timelines · 3
- 🆕InnovAItion Day AI symposium (2025 and 2026). SDCCD held its first full-day AI symposium, 'InnovAItion Day: Exploring AI for Everyone,' on April 18, 2025 at the College of Continuing Education North City Campus, organized by the Innovation & Emerging Technologies team with keynote Amanda Bickerstaff (AI for Education); a follow-on InnovAItion Day exploring AI in higher education was held in March 2026. 2026 · high confidence — source
- 🆕II&E division and leaders honored by ASU+GSV. Announced April 6, 2025, SDCCD's Institutional Innovation & Effectiveness division was recognized by ASU and Global Silicon Valley: VC Michelle Fischthal named an 'ASU+GSV Leading Women in AI,' and Elaine Chance, Rodrigo Gomez and Alison Gurganus named 2025 AI Innovators, with honors presented at the ASU+GSV Summit / AI Show in San Diego. 2025 · high confidence — source
- Selected for AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. SDCCD was one of 124 institutions nationwide selected for the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum (running through April 11, 2025), with a cross-college team from City, Mesa, Miramar and College of Continuing Education co-led by VC Michelle Fischthal and Rodrigo Gomez, tasked with developing AI action plans. 2025 · high confidence — source
AI Policies · 3
- 🆕District Policy 343 on Generative AI Use. SDCCD's College Police Policies & Procedures include Policy 343, Generative Artificial Intelligence Use, defining GenAI as AI algorithmically trained on large datasets to generate new content from a prompt; the policy excludes facial/voice recognition, biometric access controls and document/video redaction. PDF metadata indicates a January 2026 publication. 2026 · medium confidence — source
- 🆕City College Academic Senate AI position paper to Board. San Diego City College's Academic Senate approved a position paper on generative AI and presented it to the SDCCD Board of Trustees on April 17, 2025; it defines AI misuse (replacing thinking, misrepresenting AI work as original, conflicting with instructions) and recommends adding AI to the plagiarism policy, faculty training, and instructional-design support. 2025 · medium confidence — source
- Faculty AI syllabus policy framework (three options). SDCCD's faculty AI resource page lets instructors set their own course AI policy using three frameworks (Allowed with citation; Conditional/assistive; Prohibited) and requires communicating expectations via syllabus, a Week 1 Canvas announcement, assignment instructions and a student acknowledgment. It recommends authentic/multi-stage assessments and warns AI detection tools are unreliable. undated · high confidence — source
AI Courses, Tools & Resources · 8
- 🆕Free AAAI AI literacy micro-credential launched. On June 1, 2026 SDCCD launched the free, self-paced Academic Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Micro-Credential with separate paths for students and for faculty/staff; it has five modules (AI basics, ethics/responsible use, generative AI) taking 2-4 hours and awards a digital badge. Developed via the Equitable AI Alliance grant with SDSU and UC San Diego, mirroring SDSU's curriculum (15,000+ participants). 2026 · high confidence — source
- 🆕AAAI micro-credential program page and enrollment data. The AAAI program offers self-enrollment courses for all SDCCD students (including Continuing Education) and a separate faculty/staff version; badges deliver within 14 business days. As of June 2026 the program reported 904 total participants (843 students, 61 faculty/staff) and 104 badges earned. 2026 · high confidence — source
- 🆕Mesa College 'AI in the Classroom' library guide. San Diego Mesa College's library 'AI in the Classroom' LibGuide (last updated Sept. 4, 2025) offers faculty an AI Syllabus Creator Bot, an Assessment Assistant chatbot to redesign assignments, detection-tool discussion (noting detectors are controversial and unreliable), and policy templates from peer institutions. 2025 · high confidence — source
- 🆕Student-facing AAAI micro-credential course. All currently enrolled SDCCD students (including Continuing Education) can self-enroll in the free student version of the AAAI micro-credential to build generative-AI literacy and earn a digital badge, with 843 student participants and 101 student badges reported as of June 2026. 2026 · high confidence — source
- 🆕District AI tools: Khanmigo, Nectir, PlayLab. SDCCD's faculty AI resource page names Khanmigo, Nectir and PlayLab as recommended district AI tools for instructional use. undated · medium confidence — source
- $1.5M Equitable AI Alliance grant (Gov's Office / Cal Learning Lab). On Nov. 25, 2024 SDSU, UC San Diego and SDCCD's Equitable AI Alliance was awarded a $1.5 million AI Grand Challenge grant from the California Education Learning Lab (housed under the Governor's Office of Planning and Research), funding two more years of work to close AI equity gaps, expand AI student surveys, scale the AAAI micro-credential, and build institutional chatbots. SDCCD's Vice Chancellor Michelle Fischthal is a co-principal investigator. 2024 · high confidence — source
- Equitable AI Alliance regional coalition (SDSU, UCSD, SDCCD). SDCCD is part of the Equitable AI Alliance, a regional coalition with SDSU and UC San Diego built on three pillars (assess AI needs, educate campuses, create/scale accessible AI tools); nearly 18,000 students surveyed to date with the survey expanding to UCSD and SDCCD, and shared tools including UC San Diego's TritonGPT and a virtual innovation lab spanning the CSU, UC and CCC systems. 2024 · high confidence — source
- 'Crafting Your GenAI & AI Policy' instructor guide and district tools. SDCCD's Institutional Innovation & Effectiveness publishes a 'Crafting Your GenAI & AI Policy: A Guide for Instructors' and lists district-recommended AI tools Khanmigo, Nectir and PlayLab, plus sample syllabi and Canvas assets via the DE Toolkit and video library. undated · medium confidence — source
Spring 2025 baseline
AI-Engaged People, Processes & Timelines
V2030: PeopleV2030: Resources
Team/Lead: San Diego Community College District / District Office/ Institutional Innovation and Effectiveness/ Online Pathways/ Information Technology Services.
- Sept 2025 SDCCD Selected for AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum
- Per survey
- Senates: Most of the college's academic Senate members are now having conversations; individual college PD is happening along with the districtwide PD.
- District Institutional Innovation and Effectiveness (II&E)
- Purpose:
- The district II&E division has coordinated professional development for two years, with a focus on faculty.
- Survey
- II&E began with an emerging technology survey to determine what area to focus on when the division was first created (two years ago).
- Team
- This past fall, the division was built out and includes an innovation systems analyst and two part-time faculty with release time to support training, resource development, infrastructure, and support and conversations for all employees.
- This fall the teams were introduced to the academic senates at each colleges to understand better where they were in the gen AI process.
- PD Approaches:
- Distance Ed
- Our Distance Ed department provided one workshop on generative AI basics but most of our efforts have been offered by the classified professional development committee and specifically one classified professional who facilitated three workshops.
- I provided training on prompting techniques for generative AI and an overview of AI in general. I am also doing an April AI Bingo event to get people involved.
- AS a multi-college district, this has been challenging to track. However, we have conducted a survey that will get us closer to this data.
AI Courses, Tools & Resources
V2030: PeopleV2030: ResourcesV2030: SystemsV2030: Policy
Team/Lead: San Diego Community College District
- Per survey
- Senates
- Most of the college's academic Senate members are now having conversations; individual college PD is happening along with the districtwide PD.
- District II&E
- Purpose:
- The district II&E division has coordinated professional development for two years, with a focus on faculty.
- Survey
- II&E began with an emerging technology survey to determine what area to focus on when the division was first created (two years ago).
- Team
- This past fall, the division was built out and includes an innovation systems analyst and two part-time faculty with release time to support training, resource development, infrastructure, and support and conversations for all employees.
- This fall the teams were introduced to the academic senates at each colleges to understand better where they were in the gen AI process.
- PD Approaches:
- Gen AI Professional development, which includes workshops, open office hours, leading the AACC gen AI curriculum institution team to incorporate AI into the curriculum (focus on humanities); open office hours, AI full-day summit, resources site in SharePoint. We have also incorporated student interns and are developing our second student panel along with an industry panel; we are seeking funding and have one grant with SDSU and UCSD that will bring us a local employee AI micro-credential and a student micro-credential. Other divisions/colleges are working on AI guidelines and experimenting with bots, including play labs and nectar.
- The district II&E division is also trying to support the statewide initiatives by developing district cohorts to help them.
- We are a bit behind in this work because we were unaware of who was involved and had to chase down the participants by connecting with the vendors.
- ITS
- ITS is working on infrastructure and we are piloting the NRP in a couple of coding classes.
- Admin
- The VC is focused on funding and building our a faculty team to support all colleges.
Entities from the knowledge graph
college: San Diego Community College Districtinitiative: SDCCD Emerging Technology Surveyinitiative: Student AI Panelinitiative: Industry AI Panelinitiative: SDCCD AI Professional Development Programinitiative: April AI Bingo Eventinitiative: AACC Gen AI Curriculum Institution Teaminitiative: AI Full-Day Summitinitiative: SDSU-UCSD AI Micro-Credential Grantorganization: SDCCD District Officeorganization: SDCCD Institutional Innovation and Effectivenessorganization: SDCCD Online Pathwaysorganization: SDCCD Information Technology Servicesorganization: SDCCD Distance Educationorganization: SDCCD Classified Professional Development Committeeorganization: SDSUorganization: AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculumorganization: SDCCD Distance Edorganization: San Diego Community College District II&Eorganization: San Diego Community College District ITSorganization: San Diego Community College District Academic Senatesperson: Innovation Systems Analystpolicy: District-level Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools
Contacts at this college
| Name / Role | Phone | |
|---|---|---|
IA Innovation Systems Analyst Innovation Systems Analyst |