In this opening episode, we take you inside the origins of the Humans First conference, hosted at Marist School in July 2026. English teacher Mike Burns and Principal Kevin Mullally trace how a three-day-old ChatGPT and one urgent email from a colleague ("It will change everything soon") set off Marist's exploration of artificial intelligence in education — one balancing curiosity about the technology with caution about what it means for human formation and relational learning.

Burns and Mullally explain the philosophy behind the conference: no corporate sponsors, no product endorsements, just honest conversation among educators grappling with what AI means for schools and for students. Structured around the framework of "selves, schools, and systems," the two-day gathering brought together over 100 attendees from across the country for keynotes, panel discussions, and small-group "homeroom" conversations designed to build a lasting network rather than deliver easy answers.

This episode sets the stage for the full podcast series recorded live at the conference. This podcast series is created with support from DELTA at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, focused on human formation in the age of AI.

Produced by Nic Hoffmann for Marist Podcasting. Series organized by Mike Burns, Kevin Mullally, and Alex Thackston.

The theme is "Beauty Flow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/