This podcast draw listeners into an ongoing conversation inside one university as it faces the promises and pressures of artificial intelligence. Each episode brings voices from across Calvin University—students and seasoned faculty, media researchers and business thinkers, theologians, technologists, and campus leaders—who are all asking how AI is reshaping learning, creativity, and Christian intellectual life. Rather than offering final answers, the podcast opens a shared space for questions: What should guide our imaginations now? How do we teach, study, and lead well in this time?
"Being discerning isn't enough," David Smith suggests in this episode's preview of the October 8-10 AI-focused conference at Calvin University. Planners for four divisions of the conference--David Smith, Eric Araújo, Jason Stansbury, and Forrest Wakeman join Craig Mattson to give listeners a foretaste of Calvin-hosted conversation featuring prominent voices at the intersection of Christian thought and AI technology.
In the second half of this episode, undergraduate student Nathan Holtrop talks with Professor Eric Araújo about their summer AI research, investigating what major LLMs know about two fourth-century Christian women: Macrina the Younger and Olympias the deaconess. It's an important conversation about the role of bias in the history of the church and in the development of AI models.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
31 Aug 2026
Our Friend the Magic Robot
This episode lets you eavesdrop on liberal arts community in an age when a friendly chatbot promises to do everything for you in a fraction of the usual time. But not everything is well in age of friendly magical robots. A department chair mourns for something she calls the joy of procrastination, and a first-year student confesses to a mounting impatience. A production manager asks whether a machine that answers every question has quietly stepped into the place of the divine. Then the interim provost turns to the freshman and asks how he ought to be doing his job in an age of AI. Craig Mattson hosts this Calvin University conversation with Sophia Nelson, Kevin den Dulk, Rachel Hammond, and Kendrick Satterfield.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
31 Aug 2026
The Struggle's the Point
The assignment takes an hour if you do it honestly. Or it takes five minutes if you let a bot do it for you. Facing choices like this all the time, a junior in computer science describes what living with AI is doing to him in a liberal arts community. He finds help in the writings of Simone Weil--and in the company of an assistant registrar, a psychologist of religion, and a professor who taught here thirty-three years. Craig Mattson hosts this episode of Prompted with Rachel Cush, Greg Goodfellow, Tyler Greenway, and Quentin Schultze.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
31 Aug 2026
The Aliens Have Finally Come
Does AI represent an abuse of power that tempts our allegiance? Or is AI itself a power and a principality that threatens human existence? This episode features a Prompted's widest disagreements yet. Making sense of the uncanny power of AI, the liberal arts student at the table ponders the demonic. Meanwhile, a professor of political science reaches instead for the terminology of the idolatrous. And the vice president in charge of technology at the university ponders Martin Buber's I-Thou relationship with machines. In this wide-ranging conversation from Buber to Fahrenheit 451 to aliens to companionship, Nolan Cowan, Tracy Kuperus, Hennie Schoon, and Brian Paige join Craig Mattson for a podcast about doing liberal arts community in an age of AI.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
31 Aug 2026
Is AI a neutral tool?
Is AI just a tool? Is it a neutral instrument until somebody picks it up and does something good or bad with it? A pre-med senior says yes. A geographer, reaching for Postman and Ellul, says no. Wait, says a theological librarian,. there might actually be an element of neutrality. But there's also an enormous responsibility. Whether it's a neutral tool or a biased platform, AI feels like a pervasive vapor that enters everything in liberal arts community. Which is why one guest says it makes her want to touch dirt. For listeners concerned about ecological questions and AI and for people wondering what the sacraments have to do with large language models and for anyone wondering about how one university is making sense of an age of AI, this podcast episode is a great way to spend thirty minutes. Host Craig Mattson is joined by Calvin University colleagues Sam Ha, Cassie Hagedorn, Karena Moleakunnel, and Mark Bjelland.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
31 Aug 2026
How Hard Should College Be?
"Why don't you cheat?" It was a question that surfaced in the middle of this conversation, conducted with an engineering major, a computer science/linguistics student, a business school dean, and a pair of communication scholars. As one student says his professors want him to have a mini-crisis, as another student watches her field's job market thin out, as the comm scholars ponder whether AI is a charging grizzly or a wobbly surfboard, the business dean has a question that somehow feels central to our AI era: why don't you cheat? It's a question that bears directly on the title of this episode: how hard should college be? You won't hear a uniform answer, but you will hear a fascinating engagement with the challenges of liberal arts in the age of AI. Host Craig Mattson is joined by Dean Jim Ludema, Dr. Katie Day Good, Anna St. Clair, and Chukwuemeka ("Emeka") Anayo-Ezikeoha for this Calvin University conversation.
Production work for this podcast was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Rough cuts for the episodes were edited by Natasha Jayaputra. Final edits and all other production work for the podcast were done by Craig Mattson.
28 Feb 2026
Early-Careerists Are Overwhelmed
Episode 5 of Prompted: Liberal Arts in the Age of AI shifts the mic to those who will inherit the world most shaped by artificial intelligence: emerging scholars and young professionals. The conversation features Adam Plowman, Dacey Redman, Taheer Alibhai, Alex Johnson, and Chloe Yonkus—graduate students and rising professionals from Calvin University's Masters of Media and Strategic Communication. You'll appreciate the tone of realism, skepticism, and sometimes unease that distinguishes this episode from other conversations in this same series.
These Gen Z and young millennial voices reflect on what it means to come of age in an era where AI has always been in the background, and now suddenly surges to the forefront. They name concerns about authenticity, surveillance, employability, and the speed at which expectations are shifting around them. Yet they also point toward the forms of agency, ethical courage, and community support they believe will matter most as they step into leadership.
This episode offers a candid look at how those closest to the future—by age and by vocation—are feeling their way through the promises and pressures of AI. It’s an honest, grounded check-in with the generation poised to shape the next chapter of the liberal arts.
The rough cut for this podcast was edited by Riley Johnston, and the production was funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
28 Feb 2026
What Kind of World Do We Want to Live in?
Episode 4 of Prompted: Liberal Arts in the Age of AI brings together a rich variety of perspectives: ESL instructor Sara Vander Bie, graphic design professor Christopher Fox, chaplain Mary Hulst, and dean Kyle Small. Each one works daily with students who cross cultural, linguistic, or generational boundaries—and each one is wrestling with what AI means for the life we wish for and the world we seek.
Together, they explore how AI tools both connect and complicate relationships among learners who bring different life experiences, worldviews, and communication practices into the classroom. What changes when a first‑generation student, an international student, and a returning adult learner all use AI in distinct ways? How does design education shift when visual cultures collide? What spiritual, relational, and ethical questions surface when technology mediates how we listen to one another?
This conversation takes seriously the idea that the liberal arts can help us not just use AI, but live with one another while using it. It’s a hopeful, grounded look at how intercultural and intergenerational wisdom might guide us toward forms of learning that honor the full complexity of human community.
The rough cut for this podcast was edited by Riley Johnston, produced by Craig Mattson and funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
28 Feb 2026
Can Learning Go Slow When Tech Goes Fast?
In a world where everything is speeding up—information, expectations, distractions—how do we learn well? In Episode 3 of Prompted: Liberal Arts in the Age of AI, a theologian, a communication scholar, and a computer scientist--Sam Ha, Katie Day Good, and Fernando Santos--explore the tensions between unavoidable acceleration and indispensable friction.
Together they unpack why meaningful education can’t just keep pace with technological speed, and why moments of pause, difficulty, and resistance are often the very conditions that allow students to grow. From classroom practice to digital culture to the shaping of long-term habits of mind, this episode asks what it takes to cultivate learners who can think critically, slow down wisely, and engage the world with care.
For anyone navigating today’s rapid-learning environments—students, teachers, technologists—this conversation offers grounded insight into how we might recover the conditions for learning that actually lasts.
The rough cut for this production was edited by Riley Johnston, produced by Craig Mattson, and funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
28 Feb 2026
Do Students Need to Recall Anything?
Prompted: Liberal Arts in the Age of AI returns for Episode 2 with a conversation about the sometimes unsettling invitations of Generative AI for liberal arts educators. Drawing on the insights of a technologist, a media specialist, a supply-chain professor, and an adult-learning administrator--Ken Arnold, Katie Day Good, Philip Johnson, and Abbie Lipsker—this episode explores fresh ideas for tech-free "Walden Zones" on campus, right next to tech-saturate innovation spaces.
The conversationalists don't agree on everything, especially when it comes to the role of memory in learning. They do agree on the need for virtue formation and explore different ways that virtue can be explored in philosophical courses and put in practice in professional programs.
This may be the most optimistic of Prompted's conversations, as the conversationalists treat AI not as a threat, so much as an occasion for exploring new forms of learning.
Whether you’re an educator, a student, or simply someone wondering how to prepare people for a dynamic future, this episode offers a grounded re‑visioning of what the liberal arts can do.
The podcast was edited by Riley Johnston, produced by Craig Mattson, and funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
28 Feb 2026
Early Findings from Our Experiments with AI
Episode 1 brings together voices from across Calvin University to explore how AI is reshaping creativity, learning, and institutional life.
What role should friction and difficulty play in learning? Art historian Craig Hanson, Calvin vice president Sarah Visser, double‑major (Entrepreneurship & Computer Science) undergraduate Pauline Lu, and documentary filmmaker Sam Smartt join host Craig Mattson for a lively, inquisitive conversation about what it means to teach, learn, imagine, and produce in an age of intelligent tools. The discussants reflect on curiosity, craft, discernment, and the shifting texture of human creativity.
The episode is edited by Riley Johnston, produced by Craig Mattson, and funded by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.
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