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June 26, 2024
Dear President Wohlpart and CWU Board of Trustees,
My name is Stephen Lloyd and I’ve been heavily involved in the Artificial Intelligence space especially during my time at Microsoft as the lead designer on the global AI Marketing team and currently as th e Global Art Director at Axon where I helped launch our flagship AI product for policing this year, Draft One . I was contacted last week by Alyssa Sana at Zschool using a CWU email address with an invitation to join the advisory committee for CWU’s Strategic AI Certificate Program. Several of my family members and friends are CWU alum/staff, I currently live in Central, WA (Kennewick), and I certainly have expertise in the field, so it made sense that I was being approached about this opportunity. I entertained the first call with Alyssa’s associate only to learn that I would have to take the course to better understand the curriculum which made sense, but I would have to pay for the course or have my company pay on my behalf. If I wasn’t able to attend, they said a friend or family member could go in my place, but that raised a major red flag as you can imagine because what would be the point of me attending to better understand the curriculum if a friend went in my place? Other boards I have sat on and am currently sitting on compensate me for time, not charge me for it. After some digging online, I found several reports of Zschool doing a bait - and - switch approach appealing to industry expert egos with a proposed board position and then sending an agreement to be signed where they would pay to take the course. Dozens of reports actually came up and I was surprised an institution like CWU was putting their name behind a program like this. I mean, I’m sure those of you on the Board of Trustees weren’t required to pay for CWU admission to be on this board, right? I responded to Alyssa in an email this morning that I would not be paying to sit on this board, but would gladly volunteer my time as an advisor and even speak on campus about the current and future states of artificial intelligence and how I use it in my career currently. She responded that it wasn’t an option without paying the ~$2000 tuition. At that point I felt compelled to reach out and flag my personal experience for you all as I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this type of feedback from individuals on the other end to find this practice odd and unprofessional.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please let me know if you have any questions.
- Stephen STEPHEN LLOYD Art Director, Marketing M / 253 569 6710 AXON.COM
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