Get in touch
For questions about the grant, partnership opportunities, or to be added to future updates, reach out directly.
Martin Versluis
FIPSE Grant Project Director, Educational Technologist
aipoweredsuccess@cochise.edu
- Academics & Workforce
HVAC is a trending career in Arizona!Learn More - Admission & Aid
Get Help Paying for College from our friendly staff!Visit Financial Aid Page! - Community
AI for Educators: Classrooms Reimagined Series InformationLearn More - Student Experience
Get involved by volunteering in your community!Visit Cochise Cares - About Cochise
Cochise is Hiring!More Info
Federal Grant InitiativeFIPSE · P116J250356
Federal FIPSE Grant · 2026 to 2029
Integrating AI Literacy and Ethical Digital Citizenship
A four-year federal grant helping Cochise College build practical, ethical AI literacy among faculty, staff, students, and regional partners, and turn what works into a playbook other rural colleges can use. If you met the project team at a conference, bookmark this page: it is the home base for grant updates and resources as they become available.
$1.87M
Federal Award
4
Initiatives
24
Faculty, Cohort 1
21
Staff Trained
About the grant
Cochise College is a rural community college in southeastern Arizona. This grant funds a college-wide effort to build AI literacy and ethical digital citizenship across four connected initiatives, from faculty course redesign to K-12 and industry partnerships to student-facing credentials. The work is grounded in a simple premise: technology is rarely the bottleneck for rural institutions. Capacity, readiness, and trust are, so the grant invests first in people.
The Rural AI Playbook
Concept art, Playbook in development
The grant's overarching deliverable is the Rural AI Playbook: a replicable framework for building AI literacy at a small, rural, resource-constrained institution, so other community colleges can adapt it rather than start from scratch.
0Build
Readiness
Readiness
1Pilot
2Refine
3Scale
4Share
The Playbook is being written as the grant's initiatives mature, drawing on real implementation data from Cochise College. It has not been published yet; this page will be updated when it is.
Open Educational Resources
Materials produced through the grant are deliberately designed from the start as reusable, shareable resources rather than converted into OER after the fact.
AI literacy drop-in modules
Full AI Innovation Studio curriculum
Microcredential training content
In development
A hosting platform for the OER repository has not been selected yet. This page will be updated with access details once the repository is live.
Four initiatives
1
AI Innovation Studio
The faculty and staff professional development hub. Participants build practical AI literacy and redesign courses with AI-integrated assignments.
24 completed Level 1, 16 advancing
2
AI Essentials for Staff
A voluntary, credential-based AI literacy program open to staff across every division of the college, covering responsible use and role-specific workflows.
21 staff completed
3
K-12 and Industry Partnership Pipeline
Regional partnership work connecting Cochise College with K-12 districts across Cochise County and with industry and military partners.
Building regional partnerships
4
Workforce Microcredentials
Stackable, industry-aligned AI credentials for students and community learners.
Targeting fall 2027 launchThis program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), Award P116J250356. Contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and endorsement by the federal government should not be assumed.
