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EdgeCon Winter 2026

Name: EdgeCon Winter 2026
Start: 2026-01-15T09:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-15T17:00:00-05:00
Location: Princeton University

January 15 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

$49

Date: January 15, 2026
Time: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Cost: $49
Venue: Princeton University

Agenda

8:00 am - 8:30 am — Check In / Registration
8:30 am - 9:30 am — Exhibitor Networking & Breakfast
9:40 am - 10:20 am — Breakout Session 1
10:30 am - 11:10 am — Breakout Session 2
11:20 am - 12:30 pm — Keynote Panel - McDonnell Hall, Room A02
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm — Exhibitor Networking & Lunch
1:40 pm - 2:20 pm — Breakout Session 3
2:30 pm - 3:10 pm — Breakout Session 4
3:10 pm - 4:00 pm — Coffee & Connections: Exhibitor Networking

Breakout Sessions

Breakout Session 1 • 9:40-10:20 am

Protecting Your Institution From Fraudulent Applications with Identity Verification

Room: A10 • Jadwin Hall

Institutions are struggling to detect and prevent increasingly sophisticated fraud attacks in the admissions process. Thomas Edison State University will share what led to their decision to confront the problem head on, the process to select a solution, the implementation, practical challenges, and next steps.

Attendees will learn the major considerations for any fraud detection solution, best practices for preparing internal and external constituents for the process, and support considerations to ensure a successful launch.

Presenters:

Christine Carter, Director Graduate Admissions & Recruitment, Enrollment Technology, Thomas Edison State University
Jeff Butera, Lead Analytics Consultant, Voyatek

From Blue Jays to Bright Futures: Hatching a Podcast for Enrollment & Engagement

Room: A06 • Jadwin Hall

Manor College launched ""The Nest,"" a dynamic new podcast showcasing the diverse and impactful journeys of its alumni. This session will delve into the strategic development and behind-the-scenes of this storytelling initiative, specifically designed to resonate with prospective students and foster a stronger sense of belonging among current students and alumni.

"The Nest" transcends traditional testimonials, offering authentic and engaging narratives that highlight the transformative power of a Manor College education. Each episode explores alumni career paths, personal growth, community involvement, and the enduring impact of their Manor experience. By sharing relatable stories of success, resilience, and connection, the podcast aims to:

Recruitment: Provide prospective students with genuine insights into the value and outcomes of a Manor College education, fostering aspirational connections with alumni role models.

Retention: Strengthen current students' sense of community and pride by showcasing the vibrant alumni network they will soon join, reinforcing the long-term value of their investment.

This presentation will move beyond theory to offer a practical roadmap for attendees. We will cover the podcast's conceptualization, detailed content strategy (including identifying compelling alumni stories and tailoring them for specific audiences), the nuts and bolts of the production process (from recording and editing to music and branding, leveraging campus resources and student involvement), and the dissemination plan (utilizing various digital platforms for maximum reach). Crucially, we will also share key lessons learned throughout the development and initial launch phases, including unexpected challenges and effective solutions. Preliminary outcomes and metrics related to prospective student engagement and current student feedback will also be discussed.

Attendees will gain practical insights into:

Developing a compelling storytelling strategy for recruitment and retention.
Identifying and engaging alumni as powerful advocates.
Understanding the production workflow for creating an engaging podcast.
Utilizing podcasting as an innovative and accessible communication tool.
Measuring the impact of storytelling initiatives on enrollment and student engagement.
Avoiding common pitfalls and maximizing resources based on our lessons learned.
Join us to discover how Manor College is harnessing the power of alumni voices to inspire the next generation of Blue Jays and cultivate a lifelong connection with its students, and gain the practical knowledge to implement a similar initiative at your institution.

Presenters:

Kelly Peiffer, MA, Vice President of Marketing Communications, Manor College
Anthony Machcinski, Director of Marketing, Content and Photography, Manor College

Why NSPs Are Not ISPs: Architecture, Intent, and Outcomes

Room: A08 • Jadwin Hall

Network Service Providers (NSPs) and commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may appear similar on the surface, but they are fundamentally different in how they are designed, governed, and evaluated.

This session explores those differences through the perspective of an industry practitioner who has spent years designing, operating, and stabilizing large-scale enterprise networks, and who has worked alongside research and education networks as a customer, partner, and collaborator. Drawing on that experience, the session examines how NSPs like EdgeNet are purpose-built to support teaching, research, healthcare, and public mission in ways that traditional ISPs and commercial networks are not.

Participants will gain insight into how NSP architectures prioritize resilience, predictability, scalability, and long-term institutional outcomes, and how high-capacity fiber backbones, optical transport, and packet-based services enable advanced research workflows and large-scale data movement. The session highlights why these design choices matter from an operational and strategic standpoint, and why understanding the distinction between NSPs and ISPs leads to better decisions about campus connectivity, digital strategy, and future-ready infrastructure.

Presenter:

Christopher Henderson, Senior Network Engineer

Breakout Session 2 • 10:30-11:10 am

Implementing AI in Higher Education - A Roundtable

Room: A10 • Jadwin Hall

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how Higher Education conducts business and educates their students. AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and administration in every size college and university. Institutions are leveraging AI to personalize instruction, enhance student engagement, and streamline assessment through adaptive learning platforms and intelligent tutoring systems. Faculty can benefit from AI‑driven analytics that identify learning gaps with their students. AI can also support evidence‑based pedagogy, while administrators are able to employ predictive models to improve retention and optimize resource allocation. This panel will explore current applications, challenges, and future directions, highlighting how AI is redefining the educational landscape and preparing students for an increasingly agentic digital world.

Participants:

John Bruggeman, Consulting CISO, CBTS
Chris Treib, CIO, Geneva College
Moe Rahman, Associate Vice President / CIO, Community College of Philadelphia
Patricia Clay, MBA, Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Hudson County Community College

Accessibility Is Everyone’s Business: Collaboration Across Operations, PR, and Student Services

Room: A09 • Jadwin Hall

As institutions increasingly rely on digital technologies across the student lifecycle, accessibility has become a critical component of sustainable, resilient operations. This session examines accessibility as a strategic, cross-functional responsibility—one that intersects with institutional technology decisions, operational processes, and student-facing systems well beyond the classroom.

The presentation explores how business and operations, public relations, and student services contribute to accessible digital ecosystems through technology adoption, workflow design, and communication practices. Rather than framing accessibility solely as regulatory compliance, the session connects it to institutional strategy, risk management, data-informed decision-making, and student success.

Through practical examples, attendees will see how accessible technologies and processes—such as inclusive procurement practices, accessible digital communications, and student service platforms—strengthen operational efficiency, enhance the student experience, and support long-term institutional resilience. Participants will leave with a collaborative framework and actionable insights for embedding accessibility into technology-driven initiatives across their own departments.

Presenter:

Laura M. Romeo, Ph.D., Director of Digital Learning Innovation, Scholarship, and Educational Services, Edge

The Banana Ball Playbook: Five Rules for Reimagining the Student Experience

Room: A06 • Jadwin Hall

The Savannah Bananas became a viral sensation by breaking baseball's sacred rules with one philosophy: Fans First. Entertain Always. What if higher education took the same approach? This session uses the "Banana Ball" framework to explore five rules for student-centered transformation—from eliminating the "bunting" of expensive textbooks to using AI for engagement, feedback, and personalized learning experiences that keep students in the game. Come ready to debate which sacred cows need to go, and which rule feels like dynamite to your system.

Presenter:

Mark Green, EdD, Vice President Institutional Effectiveness, Technology, and Innovation, Holy Family University

Rapid Value Creation: Applying Private-Equity Cost Discipline to Institutional Operations

Room: A08 • Jadwin Hall

What would happen if institutions approached cost savings the way private equity firms do—focused, data-driven, and execution-oriented?

This session introduces a PE-inspired “rapid value creation” framework that institutions can apply immediately, using procurement as the primary lever for near-term savings. Topics include establishing spend transparency, identifying quick-win opportunities, aligning incentives, simplifying approval workflows, and using data analytics and AI to surface inefficiencies and prioritize actions.

The presentation will also address common cultural and governance challenges unique to higher education and mission-driven organizations, offering strategies to implement change without disrupting academic or student-facing priorities. Attendees will walk away with a clear roadmap for launching a cost-savings initiative that produces results within months, not years."

Presenter:

Seth Koos, Director, Procurement Services & Contract Compliance, Western Connecticut State University

Keynote Panel • 11:20-12:30 pm

From Spend to Strategy: How Institutions and Tech Partners Deliver Measurable Value in Higher Ed

As financial pressure, accountability, and complexity increase across higher education, institutions are reexamining what “value” truly means from their technology partnerships and investments. Today, success is no longer defined by deployment alone, but by outcomes, whether in student experience, operational capacity, risk reduction, or long-term institutional resilience.

This panel brings together organizational leaders and technology partners to explore how value is created or lost across the technology lifecycle, from procurement and implementation, to adoption and optimization. The discussion will examine how expectations around ROI have evolved, what boards and senior leaders look for when assessing technology investments, and how institutional teams and vendors share responsibility for delivering measurable results.

Designed for both executives and practitioners, this discussion will also explore the organizational and cultural factors that shape outcomes and practical ways front-line managers and staff can influence success.

Breakout Session 3 • 1:40 - 2:20 pm

Advancing Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Education and Learning Outcomes

Room: A10 • Jadwin Hall

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping every major sector of the U.S. economy, creating an urgent national need for educational institutions to equip learners with the skills required to thrive and to lead in an AI-driven world. AI-related careers are among the fastest-growing and highest-demand fields, yet employers report persistent shortages of workers with AI competencies. Strengthening institutional ability to deliver AI-focused programs, hands-on learning opportunities, and pathways into high-growth technology careers is essential for maintaining U.S. economic competitiveness, supporting national security, and ensuring that all learners can fully participate in and shape the future of an increasingly AI-enabled society.

In this session, the speaker introduces a new agentic AI application iNavigator, a student advising and support system. This project was developed to provide students with 24/7 advising and support. It uses Vertex-AI in the Google Genimi models to create agents that provide local (departmental) resources that would otherwise not be possible on generative AI models such as ChatGPT/OpenAI.

Attendees learn how to develop and apply agentic AI models to their instructions and how to use a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline to build a Small Language Model (SLM) that addresses the need for a department, school, or university. The application can also extend its use to corporations and organizations as an internal AI system. The code will be available at GitHub for free access to all.

Presenter:

Paul Wang, Director, Chair, and Professor, Morgan State University

WHY Before HOW: Aligning Strategic Initiatives to What Actually Matters

Room: A09 • Jadwin Hall

Organizations across higher education are continually launching complex, high-stakes initiatives—from AI and digital platforms to partnerships, mergers, shared services, and new academic or workforce offerings. While these initiatives are often well-intentioned and strategically justified, many fall short of expectations—not because of poor execution, but because leadership teams were never fully aligned on why the initiative mattered or how success would be defined.

This session introduces Business Value Story™, an emerging strategy-to-execution alignment approach designed to help organizations define and quantify the business value an initiative must deliver before determining how it will be implemented. Rather than starting with solutions, structures, or technologies, Business Value Story establishes a shared language of business value, translates strategy into specific and measurable business outcomes, and aligns cross-functional leaders around a common definition of success.

Using real-world scenarios from higher education—including early collaborative work around transformative initiatives—this session will explore how institutions can reduce misalignment, improve decision-making, and accelerate execution across both technical and non-technical strategic efforts. Participants are invited to engage in the conversation, offer feedback, and help shape how this work evolves in partnership with Edge.

Presenter:

Dan Miller, AVP EdgeMarket and Solution Strategy, Edge

Ask the Course Catalog: Building a Grounded, Hallucination-Free AI for Course Discovery

Room: A06 • Jadwin Hall

This session showcases Section Tally AI, a conversational agent that enables students, faculty, and advisors to search the course catalog, explore schedules, and analyze course enrollment data using natural language. Developed at Rowan University through collaboration between Office of institutional Research & Analytics and Information Resources & Technology, the system demonstrates how AI can deliver fast, consistent answers from complex course schedule and catalog data without hallucinations.

Attendees will learn how student information system data was modeled into a star schema, combining course catalog details, section schedules, enrollment counts, capacity, and instructor metadata into a unified semantic layer. This preparation allows the agent to reliably answer both lookup questions (for example, “Which sections of college composition 1 are still open?”) and aggregate questions (such as “How many courses are full this term in CS department?”).

The session will explain how the AI layer was designed to remain grounded in data using few-shot prompting, curated examples, and controlled query patterns that guide the model toward consistent interpretations and results. Instead of relying on open-ended text generation, the agent translates questions into structured, rule-aligned queries, ensuring answers are repeatable and aligned with institutional definitions.

Participants will also learn practical techniques for hallucination prevention, including prompt design strategies, reference question libraries, and validation checks that prevent the system from hallucination. The session concludes with lessons learned, adoption strategies, and guidance for institutions seeking to move beyond static catalogs and dashboards toward reliable, AI-powered course discovery.

This session is ideal for institutional research teams, advising leaders, academic administrators, and campus technology teams looking to operationalize AI on structured course catalog data safely, at scale, and with confidence.

Presenters:

Bharathwaj Vijayakumar, AVP Institutional Data & Analytics, Rowan University
Jaress Loo, Director, Software Development, Rowan University

Cybersecurity Awareness: A Refresher and Best-Practices for Non-Security Personnel

Room: A08, Jadwin Hall

Cyber risk is no longer confined to IT—faculty, staff, and student-facing offices are routinely targeted by phishing, fraud, account takeover attempts, and increasingly convincing AI-enabled deception. This interactive refresher is designed for non-cybersecurity personnel and provides practical, university-relevant guidance that participants can apply immediately at work and at home. This session surveys today’s most common threat patterns and simple habits that prevent most incidents. Topics include spotting phishing and strengthening email security; online safety tips for parents and families; recognizing common scams such as elder fraud, fake job offers, toll and billing scams, and impersonation schemes; detecting AI-generated content and deepfakes; and everyday protective tools such as password managers, VPNs, and ad blockers. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of the evolving risk landscape tied to digital citizenship, plus actionable checklists, reporting pathways, and a shared baseline of security behaviors that reduce risk across the university community.

Presenter:

Demetrios Roubos, Ed.D., M.S., CISSP, Information Security Officer, Stockton University

Breakout Session 4 • 2:30 - 3:10 pm

VRM AI‑Driven Compliance Playbooks: Scaling Vendor Risk Reviews with Human-in-the-Loop Assurance

Room: A10 • Jadwin Hall

Rowan University faced a sudden operational challenge: 75% of our VRM student analysts accepted internships or an eight-month Co-op with Lockheed Martin, leaving limited daytime availability and only late-night windows for contribution. This gap inspired the creation of the VRM AI‑Driven Compliance Program, a transformative approach to vendor risk management that blends governance rigor with artificial intelligence.

At the heart of this solution is the VRM Unified Compliance Repository, a dynamic catalog of regulations, policies, standards, procedures, and executive directives. Using AI, we take ServiceNow ticket data and compare it against this repository to instantly generate a customized Due-Diligence Intelligence Playbook for each Get Technology request. At the top of each playbook is the initial inherent risk assessment, which sets the tone for how the review should proceed. Following that, the playbook provides step-by-step guidance for both student analysts and senior security managers, ensuring consistency, reducing oversight risk, and surfacing nuanced requirements often missed in manual workflows.

This innovation enables analysts to work asynchronously at night without supervision, while senior managers can quickly validate and quality-control outputs—turning what was once a bottleneck into a streamlined, repeatable process. Beyond solving an immediate staffing challenge, this approach sets a new standard for scalable, governance-driven VRM operations.

Developed through a unique collaboration between ISO and EA within IRT, this will be the first live process in the OutSystems platform, with a go-live targeted by month’s end—a milestone for both teams. Attendees will learn how Rowan leveraged AI to maintain resilience, improve accuracy, and create a model that other institutions can adapt for their own risk management programs.

Presenters:

Lou Belsito, Manager, Information Security Risk Management, Rowan University
Mahmudul Siddiquee, Enterprise Application Architect, Software Development, Rowan University

From Insight to Impact: How Business Intelligence Transforms Student Success

Room: A09 • Jadwin Hall

What happens when data stops being just numbers and becomes the catalyst for cultural transformation? This session explores a successful data-driven evolution within an academic division of a major urban, minority-serving community college. Confronted with significant demographic shifts, the institution leveraged data transparency and data literacy to drive measurable improvements in enrollment and retention. We will demonstrate how sustainable cultural change is achievable through a holistic strategy anchored in faculty empowerment, robust interdepartmental collaboration, student-centric practices, and a strong culture of accountability—all focused on improving student outcomes.

Building on the high-level architecture and strategic deployment methods presented at EdgeCon Autumn 2025, this session offers a real-world use case showcasing the tangible impact of business intelligence solutions on student success. The Dean of Math Science & Health Careers and the Associate Vice President of Information Technology will jointly present the landscape, benefits, challenges, and methods from their respective perspectives, highlighting alignment and intersections between academic and technology strategies.

Presenters:

Moe Rahman, Associate Vice President / CIO, Community College of Philadelphia
Vishal Shah, Dean, Math Science & Health Careers, Community College of Philadelphia

The AI Explainability Problem: Why Transparency Is Harder Than You Think

Room: A06 • Jadwin Hall

As higher education institutions adopt AI for financial aid decisions, scholarship allocation, admissions, and advising, a critical question emerges: Can anyone actually explain how these black box systems make decisions? Students, administrators, and even those implementing these tools are often unable to fully explain the outputs.

This presentation examines the explainability problem head-on. Drawing from systematic analysis of over 5,500 academic articles, I'll share the emerging consensus: 71% of scholarship frames explainability as an enabler of AI adoption, not a barrier. Yet despite this consensus, how to achieve transparency remains an open question.

The heart of the session is a plain-language walkthrough of current explainability tools. What do SHAP and LIME actually produce? How are emerging approaches like blockchain audit trails being explored? Here's the Alice in Wonderland problem: explainability models themselves require explanation. I'll show why "explainable AI" often just shifts the complexity rather than resolving it.

Attendees will leave with a realistic understanding of the explainability landscape-what these tools can and can't do, what questions to ask vendors, and why this remains an unsolved problem with real consequences for students.

Presenter:

Erica Attoe, Graduate Fellow, Schaefer Center for Public Policy, University of Baltimore

Success by Design: Transforming Academic Operations at MCCC

Room: A08 • Jadwin Hall

As colleges navigate increasing complexity in scheduling, curriculum management, and student support, building an integrated Academic Operations structure has become essential. This session explores how Mercer County Community College strategically combined multiple administrative and academic support units into one cohesive Academic Operations department centered on student success. Attendees will learn how the team leveraged Coursedog to streamline scheduling, improve data accuracy, and enhance cross-departmental collaboration, ultimately reducing barriers for students. The presentation will highlight the development of a unified mission rooted in access, efficiency, and student-centered decision-making, as well as the cultural and structural shifts required to bring diverse units together under a shared purpose. Participants will leave with practical strategies and insights for designing an Academic Operations model that strengthens institutional effectiveness and meaningfully supports student success.

Presenters:

Adelina Marini, Assistant Director of Academic Operations, Mercer County Community College
Dr. James H. Whitney III , Associate Provost, Mercer County Community College