Beyond the Prompt: Coding the Magis in the Age of AI

Authors

• Vanessa Rotondo, Fordham UniversityFollow

Document Type

Praxis

Abstract

As a scholar-practitioner in Jesuit higher education, I’ve witnessed how generative AI is not merely a tool students use—it’s a formative force that shapes how they reflect, imagine, and even pray. Drawing on the Catholic imagination, Ignatian pedagogy, and sociological frameworks like liquid modernity, I argue that Jesuit institutions must respond not just technologically and reactively, but actively anticipate methods of integrating AI both theologically and pedagogically. I introduce the concept of Imaginative Intelligence as a formative goal—an embodied, sacramental way of knowing that invites depth, wonder, and resistance to automation. This is not a call to reject AI, but to reclaim the mission: to form students who are not just capable of generating responses, but of asking better questions. Who they become cannot be prompted. It must be practiced, accompanied, and formed in freedom. This, I suggest, is the best way to advance Catholic and Jesuit identity for higher education in today's context.

Recommended Citation

Rotondo, Vanessa. "Beyond the Prompt: Coding the Magis in the Age of AI." Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal Vol. 15: No. 1 () . DOI: https://doi.org/10.15365/2164-7666.1524
Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/jhe/vol15/iss1/8