Always On: How Lynchburg Built an AI Agent that Answers, Assists, and Adapts at Scale
Date: Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 11am PT / 2pm ET
Staffing shortages, disconnected systems, and students who expect answers at 2:00 a.m. are a familiar story for institutions of higher education. At the University of Lynchburg, these pressures prompted the development of Dell, a custom AI agent that supports students around the clock across admissions, academics, athletics, and IT support.
In this session, Charley Butcher, Chief Educational Technology & AI Officer, and Sandra Perez, Senior Director of Academic Initiatives & Human Resources, will share how they built Dell, what the experience has been like, and where they are taking it next.
You'll learn:
- How Lynchburg launched a custom AI agent quickly and with minimal lift from their internal team
- How the team gained executive buy-in and tackled challenges such as data clean-up, security and compliance
- How Dell handles high-volume inquiries across multiple departments and impacts the student experience
- What's next, including plans to integrate AI with academic systems to deliver personalized scheduling and pathway planning at scale
You'll also hear what it takes to drive AI adoption across campus and move from pilot to core infrastructure.
This isn't a future-state vision. It is what one university is doing right now.
About the presenters:
Charley Butcher, Chief Educational Technology & AI Officer, University of Lynchburg
Sandra Perez, Senior Director of Academic Initiatives & Human Resources, University of Lynchburg
Ned Barnes, Senior Solutions Consultant, Druid AI
About the moderator:
Rhea Kelly, Editor-in-Chief, Campus Technology
Date: 04/23/26
Time: 11:00 AM PT
