Consulting

Outside perspective and capacity for the AI decisions your institution can't afford to get wrong.

When a board asks for an AI strategy, when a vendor pitch lands on the provost's desk, when faculty senate wants policy by next semester — institutions need a partner who has seen the pattern before. We come in for the specific problem, leave you with the capacity to handle the next one yourselves.

Who it's for

Provosts, deans, and superintendents facing a board or cabinet decision on AI strategy, with weeks rather than quarters to form a defensible position.
CIOs and Chief Innovation Officers evaluating a major AI vendor or platform commitment and wanting an independent read before signing.
Leadership teams launching an AI pilot or initiative who need a credible design — not a vendor's marketing deck — to anchor it.
Institutions that just had an AI incident (a faculty dispute, a student-conduct case, a public misstep) and need to move from reactive to coherent.
Boards and trustees who want a clear-eyed briefing on where AI in education is actually going, not where the loudest voices say it is.

What's included

Strategy sessions with leadership

Structured working sessions with your cabinet, board, or initiative team. We bring the questions and the frameworks; you bring the institutional knowledge. We leave with a shared map.

Independent vendor evaluation

Side-by-side analysis of platforms, models, and AI tools you are considering — covering pedagogy fit, data posture, lock-in risk, total cost, and realistic deployment effort.

Policy and guideline drafting

Drafts of academic-integrity policy, faculty AI-use guidelines, student-facing expectations, and procurement standards — written for your context, not lifted from a template.

Pilot and initiative design

End-to-end design of a defensible pilot: scope, cohort, success metrics, ethical guardrails, governance, communications plan, and a clean off-ramp if results disappoint.

Executive coaching and briefings

Confidential 1:1 sessions with senior leaders preparing for a board presentation, a press question, a faculty town hall, or a difficult internal conversation about AI.

Implementation roadmap and governance

A phased roadmap with milestones, owners, and decision gates — plus a governance structure (committee, charter, escalation paths) that survives after we leave.

What's not included

Honest about scope. Things you might assume are included but aren't:

We don't sell tools. We recommend vendors when relevant, but we have no affiliate relationships, reseller agreements, or revenue share with any AI platform.
We don't build the technology for you. If your initiative needs custom engineering, we will scope it honestly and help you select a builder — but that's a separate engagement.
We don't run your initiative indefinitely. Engagements are time-boxed by design; our goal is to leave you with capacity, not a dependency.

How it works

1

Scoping conversation · 1 week

A no-cost call with the decision-maker and one or two key stakeholders. We clarify the question behind the question, identify constraints, and decide together whether an engagement is actually the right next step.
2

Discovery and listening · 2-3 weeks

Structured interviews with leadership, faculty, IT, and where relevant students. Review of existing documents, prior pilots, policies, and vendor materials. We surface what your institution already knows about itself.
3

Analysis and options · 2-3 weeks

We synthesize findings into a clear set of options — not a single recommendation pretending to be neutral. Each option carries tradeoffs, costs, risks, and the assumptions behind it.
4

Decision and deliverables · 2-4 weeks

Working session with leadership to choose a direction. We then produce the deliverables tied to that direction — strategy memo, policy drafts, pilot plan, board presentation, or whatever the decision requires.
5

Handoff and light-touch follow-up · Ongoing for 60-90 days

Briefings to the people who will carry the work forward, a documented governance structure, and a defined window of follow-up calls as the work moves into execution.

Sample deliverables

Strategy memo: a 10-15 page document framing the institution's AI position, the decisions in front of leadership, and the recommended path with rationale.
Vendor shortlist and evaluation matrix: scored comparison of 3-6 platforms against your specific criteria, with a recommended primary, alternates, and explicit reasons to walk away.
Pilot plan: scope, cohort, timeline, success metrics, ethical guardrails, communications plan, and exit criteria — formatted to drop straight into a cabinet packet.
Policy drafts: academic-integrity language, faculty AI-use guidelines, student expectations, procurement standards — in your institution's voice and ready for governance review.
Board or cabinet presentation: a 20-30 slide deck (and a 1-page brief) that a non-technical trustee can absorb in fifteen minutes.
Governance charter: a written structure for who decides what about AI at your institution, with escalation paths and review cadence.

Engagement pattern

Provost facing a board AI mandate, eight weeks out

A mid-size institution's board asked the provost for an AI strategy by the next quarterly meeting. The provost had strong instincts but no time, a divided faculty, and a vendor already lobbying internally. We ran a six-week engagement: interviews across faculty, IT, and student affairs; an independent read on the vendor pitch; and a strategy memo with three options rather than one. The board adopted a phased approach, the vendor decision was deferred to a structured procurement process, and a faculty governance committee took over the ongoing work — which was the goal from day one.

Questions you might have

How do you scope an engagement when we don't fully know what we want yet?

That's the most common starting point, and the scoping conversation is designed for it. We don't ask you to write a perfect brief — we ask you to describe the decision or the discomfort. From there we usually narrow to one of three or four common engagement shapes, and propose the smallest version that would actually move you forward.

Do you bring your own AI tools or platform?

No. We are deliberately independent. We use AI tools in our own work, and we'll show you what we use and why, but we don't sell them, resell them, or take referral fees. When we recommend a vendor, it's because we believe it's the right fit for your context — not because we benefit from the choice.

What about confidentiality with board-level or sensitive work?

Everything is covered by a written confidentiality agreement before discovery begins. We don't publish case studies that identify clients, we don't name institutions in talks without explicit permission, and we structure deliverables so that internal-only material stays internal. If a board needs us under a separate NDA, that's standard.

Will we end up dependent on you to make every future AI decision?

That's specifically what we design against. Every engagement closes with a governance handoff: the committee, the charter, the decision criteria, and the internal owners. Our follow-up window is bounded. The success measure is whether your institution can answer the next AI question without us — not whether you keep calling.

How quickly can you start, and how long do engagements run?

Scoping conversations are usually within a week or two. Most engagements run six to twelve weeks from discovery to handoff. Urgent situations — a pending board meeting, an active incident — can be compressed, with a clear acknowledgment of what gets traded away when timelines tighten.

Investment range

Engagements are scoped to the question, not sold by the seat or the hour. A focused vendor evaluation or policy draft typically runs in the low five figures; a full strategy engagement with discovery, options, and governance handoff runs higher. Every proposal is fixed-scope and fixed-fee — no surprises, no billable creep.

Discuss your situation See our published Insights for our thinking

Effective consulting bridges the gap between research and practice. Our approach is evidence-informed but practically grounded.

Good consulting starts by listening. Understanding institutional culture and values is more important than deploying the latest technology.

We've helped institutions go from AI-curious to AI-confident in months, not years. The right guidance at the right time makes all the difference.

Great consulting doesn't create dependency — it builds capacity. Our goal is to make institutions self-sufficient in their AI journey, not reliant on external experts forever.

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