On Tuesday, April 18, three Texas Wesleyan undergraduate students won a contest for a social media disaster preparedness campaign. The competition was part of the Digital Innovation Summit hosted by the Texas Social Media Research Institute and the Rural Communication Institute. 

The students, Bailey O'Donnell, double major in English and political science, Selina Humphrey, double major in English and history and Susan Eliason, English major, used two AI tools (text to image in Canva and ChatGPT) to create their campaign.

With their faculty sponsor, Dr. Stacia Campbell, the students also attended a two and a half hour intensive workshop on artificial intelligence and its consequences (benefits and dangers) across fields, including marketing, healthcare, politics and education. The workshop required in-the-moment critical thinking, innovation and active discussion of current issues across numerous fields. The last event of the summit was a lively contest for which participants were given only 15 minutes to create a week-long social media campaign using AI tools, and our Rams were voted on by fellow participants as the winners.

At the event, our undergraduates also had the opportunity to collaborate with graduate students and graduate faculty at Tarleton State University, as well as working professionals attending the event to learn more about social media and AI. A few days after the event, Dr. Jennifer Edwards, professor of communication, extended an invitation to these Rams to apply to become an Undergraduate Fellow (a virtual internship with TSMRI) next year.