With institutions under increasing attack and the nationwide leadership vacuum seeming to grow daily, it can be easy to overlook the importance of one office at one school, but with the hiring of Wesley Kisting as Provost and Dean of the Faculty, Hamline University is signaling that they are prepared to meet these challenges head on.

“I’m a builder by nature,” Kisting said.

It’s a claim he can readily back up, too. As a young man, he built himself a cedar strip kayak and paddled it 600 miles down the Mississippi. After falling in love, he built a two person sailboat on which he and his wife spent their honeymoon. When it was clear the family would grow, he began construction on a houseboat.

These facts would be impressive enough until you consider that during that entire time, Kisting was also leaving a wide wake through academia as the first in his family to attend college. Over the years, he has charted an educational background so extensive that listing just the relevant parts would take the space of this entire article – his full academic bio is available on Hamline’s website. He says the stress of having so much going on at the same time doesn’t bother him.

On the contrary, “I love a challenge so intense that it forces me to grow my skills,” Kisting said.

Such a challenge is certainly in front of him. Given the ubiquity of AI on and off campus, it may comfort both students at Hamline and their parents to know that Kisting is more than casually familiar with the issue. While many are still trying to grapple with the implications of AI, Kisting has already jumped in feet first. In addition to serving in leadership roles with AI firms and committees both locally and nationally, he has designed and built software using AI systems.

He has an in-depth understanding of the strengths of AI as well as the real and potential harms. Kisting points to the exciting work of the Applied AI community in Minnesota as a strength and conveys a strong conviction against what he calls the “easy button” that AI gives students today.

“These are exciting tools, but they have lots of liability,” he said. “I believe there is a right place for interrogating a proper human relationship with AI.” However, Kisting warns, “It’s only running statistical probabilities,” which he says will lead to consequences, some of which will only begin to appear in the years to come.

While AI may be one of the bigger challenges facing universities today, Kisting knows that it is only one of many, and that as a new provost under a freshly inaugurated president, it will take not just action, but also watchfulness to be successful.

“The president and I, and the administration, are really listening to students.” Kisting said, and reinforcing a united front added, “[President Mayme Hostetter] really means it, she wants to hear from the whole campus about the future of Hamline.”

Beyond experience and expertise, a provost also needs to work effectively within a diverse community. Subeydo Ahmed, a first-year student at Hamline, recently had the opportunity to meet and chat with Kisting.

“He was very welcoming and kind. He took some time out of his busy schedule to help us feel welcomed. He was kind and listened and [he gave us] a couple of ideas for events and even inspired us to create [our] own paranormal club,” Ahmed said

Academic Operations Manager Phil Rudney also spoke highly of his experience so far with Kisting, “He’s a really good strategic thinker and has the long term interest of Hamline at heart,” Rudney said, who works closely with the office of the provost, specializing in process improvements and budgets.

While also new to Hamline this year, Rudney said that he felt the selection of Kisting was bringing a “new energy” to the office of provost and senses that Hamline is “entering a new era.”

You can reach Wesley Kisting at the office of the provost via email wkisting01@hamline.edu or phone (651) 523-2012