In true former college athlete fashion, today’s post is my winter professional development highlight reel.

First, I write on two highlights from the December 2025 NECASP regional conference. Note that the entire day was excellent: shout out to all the presenters! But sticking with my sport highlight reel analogy, I’ll keep this to a (very) high level summary.

Kelly Curtis, Teaching Professor and Associate Dean of Students, started the NECASP day strong with an excellent presentation teaching listeners ways to use generative Ai to inform academic and bar programming. This presentation provided useful sample prompts, examples of output scenarios that captured both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and helpful ways to avoid (or at least limit) ai hallucinations in data analysis. As many of us work on small teams with limited resources, leaning into generative Ai to assist in analyzing raw data is an asset that can change the trajectory of our work.

Next, Shane Dizon captured the lunchtime discussion with his annual job posting report on status and salary. This information is key to improving our job market and status within institutions, and I know Shane spends much time gathering this information to share with our community. Data is a powerful advocacy tool for your program, and if you are new to our field, I highly encourage you to learn more from Shane about this report.

And, in my continued efforts to learn and share as much about generative Ai as possible, Christopher Trudeau, a tenured faculty member at Detroit Mercy, shared with me his experiences using Ai to create a TA for his property class. His blog (https://trudeau.ai/) details how he created this tool, discusses the strengths and hurdles with this process, and includes some other helpful takes on Ai in our profession.

Lastly, today’s post finishes with a reminder about confidence. Confidence in your professional worth starts with keeping your mind fresh. Time for your own professional development helps refresh your mind, reminds you of your value, and benefits our students and the profession. As my fellow Swifties know, “Think of your energy like it’s expensive. Not everyone can afford it.” Professional development is worth your energy.

(Amy Vaughan-Thomas)