May. 5, 2026

 

Dear University Community,

Earlier this academic year, we shared our vision for the expanded UNLV Rebel AI Initiative. We are committed to preparing students to thrive in an AI-enabled world, empowering faculty and student innovation, and enhancing university operations – all with human judgment, critical thinking, and equity at the forefront. It’s challenging to move at the pace of AI, which changes daily, but we are making great strides. Today, we're pleased to share the meaningful progress our academic community has made in recent months, as we continue on this AI journey together.

Leadership and Governance

One of our most important steps has been the formalization of an AI Implementation Group to provide campus-wide guidance for responsible AI adoption. This group will launch soon with representation from Academic Affairs, Faculty Affairs, Research, Teaching and Learning Innovation, IT, Faculty Senate, and student voices. It will be chaired by university leadership to align our AI strategy with UNLV's institutional values and goals.

This cross-functional group ensures that our AI programming, resources, and investments are coordinated, evidence-based, and equitable across the university. The group will make recommendations to the president and provost, as well as provide at least annual presentations to Faculty Senate, student government, and key campus stakeholders and leadership groups.

Expanded AI Tools for Faculty, Staff, and Students

We have significantly expanded the suite of enterprise AI tools available at cost to faculty and staff. In addition to ChatGPT and Gemini Pro, UNLV now offers access to Anthropic's Claude and Cowork as well as Open AI’s Codex - giving our community a broader range of powerful, secure tools to support teaching, research, and administrative work. We are also actively working with our enterprise partners to develop a campus-wide AI access solution that would extend these capabilities to all faculty, staff, and students. We look forward to sharing more on that effort in the coming months.

Training and development opportunities continue to expand alongside our tool offerings. We encourage you to visit the AI Hub and our AI at UNLV Faculty Resources hub in Webcampus for the latest resources, session schedules, and guides tailored to your role.

Students have access to the Learning with AI microcredential in the Webcampus Student Resources hub to help them on their AI literacy journey.

Google Gemini

AI access inside of our Google Workspace now includes the following within in our data-safe environment:

  • 100 prompts a day at the highest Gemini 3.1 Pro model
  • Gemini integration into the Chrome Browser
  • Safe for HIPAA, FERPA, and COPPA data
  • Now integrates into Google Docs

Zoom and Zoom AI Companion

UNLV is expanding Zoom access for students, faculty, and staff

  • All students now have access to full Zoom licenses and are no longer limited to 45-minute Zoom sessions
  • Zoom AI Companion is available inside all Zoom meetings and is no longer limited to a tool inside of your meeting. It is now also a web-based application that is powered by their own model, connects to web searching, searches across all of your Zoom meetings and any artifacts it created, and connects to your Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Calendar 

Immersive Learning: New Spaces, New Possibilities

Our commitment to innovative teaching extends beyond AI. This March, we were proud to open a new Immersive Learning Lab in BEH 114. This new lab is a faculty and student space featuring a wide variety of immersive technologies to augment those currently available through the Dreamscape Learn experience in Lied Library. Among the highlights of this new lab is the debut of a UNLV student-created application, the Virtual Rebel Experience, a milestone that reflects the talent and creativity of our own students.

We are also piloting ThingLink, a platform that enables faculty to create immersive learning content that can be embedded directly into Canvas and experienced across major VR headsets. And in a small but exciting proof of concept, we are beginning to explore the Apple Vision Pro as a platform for next-generation learning experiences.

These initiatives reflect our belief that immersive learning, like AI, is not about technology for its own sake. It is about partnering with faculty to deliver meaningful, flexible, and innovative learning experiences for students in the classroom, online, and beyond.

Looking Ahead

The progress described here is the result of collaboration across every part of this university. From faculty redesigning their courses, to staff adopting new tools that create meaningful efficiencies, to students building immersive applications and learning how to ethically deploy AI tools, UNLV is addressing and embracing the AI era together.

We encourage you to engage with these resources, share your experiences, and send your ideas and success stories to aifeedback@unlv.edu. Your voice continues to shape the direction of these initiatives.

Together, we will ensure that UNLV remains a student-serving, research-strong university, one that embraces emerging technology responsibly, creatively, and always in service of human insight and opportunity.

Sincerely,

Chris Heavey
Interim UNLV President

Kate Hausbeck Korgan
Acting Executive Vice President and Provost

Kivanc Oner
Vice President for Digital Transformation and Chief Information Officer