On August 21, 2025, Anthropic announced two initiatives aimed at higher education: the creation of a Higher Education Advisory Board to guide development of its Claude model for university settings, and the publication of three AI Fluency courses co‑developed with educators.
Why this matters
Anthropic says that choices made in the coming years about how AI is introduced into classrooms will shape a generation’s relationship with technology and learning. The advisory board and the courses are intended to provide practical, responsible approaches to integrating AI so that teaching, learning and research are strengthened rather than undermined.
Composition of the Higher Education Advisory Board
The board will be chaired by Rick Levin, who led Yale University from 1993 to 2013 and served at Coursera from 2014 to 2024, including three years as CEO (2014–2017) and seven years as senior adviser to his successor (2017–2024). The announcement highlights his work on expanding access and building large-scale online education platforms.
Levin commented on the initiative: “Anthropic is deeply committed to AI safety and responsibility in its products and every aspect of its business. With the help of its newly formed advisory board, it is striving to bring these values to higher education. Our role is to advise the company as it develops ethically sound policies and products that will enable learners, teachers, and administrators to benefit from AI’s transformative potential while upholding the highest standards of academic integrity and protecting student privacy.”
Other board members and their credentials listed by Anthropic are:
- David Leebron — former President of Rice University, with experience in university development and expanding research.
- James DeVaney — Special Advisor to the President, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation, and Founding Executive Director of the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan, leading academic innovation and workforce development efforts at scale.
- Julie Schell — Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology at the University of Texas, Austin, experienced in large-scale educational-technology transformation and learning-science informed teaching practices.
- Matthew Rascoff — Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University, leading digital learning initiatives to expand access for underserved learners.
- Yolanda Watson Spiva — President of Complete College America, which convenes a national alliance across 53 states and systems to raise college completion rates; she leads CCA’s work on AI adoption for student success and formed the CCA Council on AI.
Anthropic says the board brings perspectives from university leadership, educational technology and learning science to help ensure AI supports critical thinking and academic integrity.
The AI Fluency courses
Working with the advisory board and educators worldwide, Anthropic developed three courses that build on its existing AI Fluency material. The new courses were co‑developed with Professor Rick Dakan of Ringling College of Art and Design and Professor Joseph Feller of University College Cork. All three are available now under a Creative Commons license so institutions can adapt them.
Course descriptions provided by Anthropic:
- AI Fluency for Educators: helps faculty incorporate AI into teaching practice, from developing materials and assessments to enriching classroom discussion, drawing on early-adopter experience.
- AI Fluency for Students: teaches responsible collaboration with AI for coursework and career planning; students are guided to work with AI while developing their own critical thinking and to draft a personal commitment to responsible AI use.
- Teaching AI Fluency: supports educators who want to bring AI literacy to campuses and classrooms, including instructional and assessment frameworks and curriculum considerations for preparing students for an AI‑enhanced world.
Next steps and access
Anthropic frames the advisory board as informing its strategic approach to higher education while the AI Fluency courses offer practical resources that institutions can use immediately. The company positions these initiatives as both short‑term support and long‑term guidance for universities wrestling with AI’s role in teaching and research.
The courses and further information are available at anthropic.com/learn.
