Raj Biyani ’92, after volunteering his time at Goshen College for the newly-created AI Task Force, was hired as GC’s first Chief Innovation Officer, a role which he began on April 1. Biyani has already progressed GC towards the next goal of submitting a grant proposal to the Lilly Endowment Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education Initiative, due by May 1.  GC, which already received $125,000 from the Lilly Endowment after an initial proposal was accepted, is closing in on the finalization of the proposal to receive $5 million in funding. “We’re down to the tweaking stage,” President Rebecca Stoltzfus said....

By Griffin Eash • April 16, 2026 • News

I do not believe that generative AI belongs on a Mennonite college campus. There are many reasons for this, but I do feel the need to first clarify that I do mean generative AI, the type of chatbot that would have you believe it knows how to write better than you, that it gives good advice, that it is a knowledge machine — not a repository of all correct and incorrect information out on the internet. The sacredness of the human mind and communal effort has been at the forefront of the Mennonite movement for 500 years. It is not...

By Kate Bodiker • April 2, 2026 • Features

President Rebecca Stoltzfus announced the establishment of the Goshen College Artificial Intelligence Task Force on Nov. 28. This task force will lead the implementation of GC’s Lilly grant planning period. According to its charge, the AI task force will “provide broad thinking and compelling ideas for GC’s in Higher Education Phase 2 Implementation and/or Collaborative Grants.” The task force will be led by Stoltzfus alongside Raj Biyani ’92, who will serve as AI strategy advisor and co-chair. Biyani is currently leading a seminar series that was opened up to GC staff in December. Biyani says that his goal for the...

By Liam Shaw • January 15, 2026 • News

For most of the semester, Goshen College has been hosting Raj Biyani ’92, an investor and mentor who worked as a managing director for Microsoft IT. On Wednesday last week, Biyani spoke on the role artificial intelligence has been playing in industry at a luncheon hosted by the business department. Biyani said that he has spent his time in Goshen in three main areas: speaking to students, engaging with the community and presenting on artificial intelligence. Of his time here on campus, he said, “It’s been incredible. It’s been actually very, very energizing.” Jodi Beyeler, vice president for institutional advancement,...

By Josiah Miller • November 13, 2025 • News

At the beginning of this semester I decided to make a small change to the masthead. Next to the editorial, the masthead features the staff of The Record, as well as a few other bits of information.  I added the line “The Record is made without the use of A.I.” It felt important. We live in a world where A.I. is being used for more, and getting better every single day. Over the past 18 months, A.I. has hurtled forward at breakneck pace.  I remember first playing with A.I. as a first-year. I signed myself up for a beta version...

By Tyson Miller • April 3, 2025 • Features

When Suzanne Ehst, associate academic dean, was writing her dissertation, she encountered documentation of some of the anxieties and implications of the pencil replacing the standard quill and ink:   “There were certain writers who were so scared that [the pencil] was going to change the quality of writing,” Ehst said. “[It] was going to change the rhythms of writing — it was going to make our writing dumber when we didn’t have those natural pauses to dip our quill and ink.” As artificial intelligence becomes more prominent and accessible academics are wrestling with these new tools — determining what is...

By Mackenzie P. Miller • January 16, 2025 • Features