Provost’s DELTA Teaching Forum

Opening Plenary: AI and the Future of the University

Neil Richards holds the Koch Distinguished Professorship at Washington University School of Law, where he co-directs the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law. He is also an affiliate scholar with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, the Harvard Berkman Klein Center and the Yale Information Society Project, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. Professor Richards serves on the advisory board of the Future of Privacy Forum and is a member of the American Law Institute. He writes, teaches, and lectures about the regulation of the technologies powered by human information that are revolutionizing our society. He is the author of Why Privacy Matters (Oxford Press 2022) and Intellectual Privacy (Oxford Press 2015). His award-winning writings on privacy and civil liberties have appeared in wide a variety of media, from the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal to The Guardian, WIRED, and Slate.

Finding Your Voice: Improvisation in the Age of Brain Science

Participants will learn evidence-based improv exercises that promote neural integration, mindfulness practices targeting the default mode network, and voice work that engages the brain’s social engagement system. The session will feature performance and improvisation throughout, including excerpts from The Best Cuisine by Carlos Simon Jr. (music) and Carl DuPont (lyricist), solo piano improvisation, and collaborative piano/voice improvisation. Participants will also learn practical applications for daily teaching: 

• Quick improv exercises to reset the nervous system during class 

• Voice practices that regulate the vagus nerve for stress management 

• Collaborative exercises promoting social brain development 

This session integrates improvisation, self-care, and mindfulness to create lasting changes in how we teach, connect, and express ourselves while highlighting the neuroscience behind it. Participants will understand the “why” and “how” of using these techniques for sustainable teaching practice. Through experiential learning and concrete strategies, educators will learn to harness their brain’s natural capacity for adaptation, creativity, and resilience. Research shows that improvisation activates neural networks that enhance creativity, reduce anxiety, and strengthen social connections. This neural shift allows for spontaneous self-expression and reduces self-judgment; these pathways enable us to flourish instead of careening toward burnout.  

Carl DuPont is an artist, innovator, and educator dedicated to Transformational Inclusion in the arts and Care of the Professional Voice. His articles can be found in the Oxford University Press: American National Biography, The Laryngoscope and the Voice and Speech Review. His voice can be heard on the world premiere recordings of the Caldara Mass in A Major, The Death of Webern, and his solo album of art songs by Black composers entitled The Reaction. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (BM), Indiana University (MM), and the University of Miami (DMA). Carl is an associate professor of voice at the Peabody Institute and teaches Executive Education at the Carey Business School of the Johns Hopkins University. 

Professor DuPont will be accompanied by Richard Johnson, an Associate Professor of Jazz at Peabody. Richard Johnson has cultivated a rich and pedigreed musical background, being schooled by some of the most legendary jazz musicians and studying at the most esteemed institutions of music. After receiving a scholarship and graduating from the Berklee School of Music in just two years, Johnson earned a master’s degree in jazz pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory. He then went on to receive an Artist Performance Diploma at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory under the direction of the influential Ron Carter. Johnson currently serves as an associate professor at Peabody.