Public Safety is tracking a significant snowfall that will be arriving in our area late Sunday morning (Jan. 25). It will snow heavily throughout the day and evening eventually tapering off Monday (Jan. 26) with 10-14 inches expected statewide. A sleet and freezing rain mix is also possible along the shore. Temperatures will be in the teens and twenties.
Due to this significant winter storm and the extensive campus clean-up operations that will need to take place, all in-person day and evening classes scheduled for Monday, January 26, 2026 have been cancelled. All scheduled in-person classes will transition to being held online or remotely. Additional information on the virtual format for each class will be provided by your instructor.
Faculty have been asked to prepare for Online or Remote sessions in the event of in-person meeting cancellations. These options will be determined by the Faculty member and all questions should be directed to the Faculty teaching each course section. Faculty also have been asked to be very understanding and accommodating of the individual situations of their students who may have difficulty managing these alternative online or remote class meetings on short notice.
Please note that only essential employees, as previously determined by their respective department leaders, should report to campus. All other employees should fulfill the requirements of their role remotely.
Campus operations for residential students, unless otherwise noted, will operate as scheduled, though hours may be modified or changed based on the conditions. Separate messages will be sent from the Peterson Library, the Beckerman Recreation Center, and Dining Services regarding any changes to their normal hours of operation. The Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation will remain open for residential students to use for study space and to participate in online classes.
Off-campus students that live in the City of West Haven should abide by the city’s parking ban during inclement weather to avoid having their vehicle tagged and towed. Please check the City of West Haven’s website for further information on their snow parking ban.
The Charger Blog
Associate history professor April Yoder, Ph.D., shares her journey from cultural research to taking a leadership role in the development of global AI policy, highlighting how applied learning and an international collaboration are guiding the future of technology and democracy.
May 22, 2025
Becoming the Editor-in-Chief of the Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values Index (AIDV) for the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) is part of my journey to become an expert in AI policy. About three years ago, I decided to shift my research focus from sports and democracy to AI and democracy. If you look at the title of my book—Pitching Democracy: Baseball and Politics in the Dominican Republic—it can be hard to see the continuity in my research focus. But my interest in how people engage with and shape democracy in their everyday interactions and discussions about popular culture, whether that be baseball or AI, underlies everything I do.
Learning a new research field looks a lot different when you’re a parent and working and teaching full time. In my M.A. and Ph.D. programs, I read and discussed at least three books/week and did research on my topic. Learning was my full-time job (along with the teaching and waiting tables I did to pay rent and eat). My approach to learning about AI has been more applied and professionally oriented. I took a lot of LinkedIn Learning classes and have done some other online learning through programs such as Udemy.
A networking call with an AI Ethicist led me to CAIDP, where I completed their AI Policy clinics during the 2023–2024 academic year. I began this academic year in the policy group, where I contributed to CAIDP’s recommendations to Australia (for example) on their proposed guidelines for high-risk AI systems. I completed a sample edit of an AIDV chapter as part of my application and earned the editor job.
The AIDV is a collaborative effort. The 200+ people completing the AI Policy Clinic each semester, known as the research group, identify material to update the 80 country reports in the AIDV. My job was to integrate the updates into the existing report, which is part copyediting and part research. I also wrote brief introductions to each country report, highlighting the most significant AI policy developments, and an introductory chapter: “A Year in Review,” where I described the current state of AI policy and some of the most significant developments globally. The 2025 edition of the AIDV came in at 1,466 pages and has more than 7,000 footnotes. As a next step, I’m working on a class that uses the AIDV as a reference or textbook.
CAIDP’s single biggest event each year is the AIDV launch, which I attended in Washington, D.C.. This AI Policy Roundtable brought together academics, policymakers, and practitioners from around the world. We had people from Europe, Africa, Latin America, Oceania, Canada, and the United States on Zoom and in person to discuss the gains in and opportunities for AI, related to human rights and democratic values.
The morning session centered on the AIDV, and I moderated a panel of academics with Julian Theseira, a CAIDP colleague, where we discussed some of the challenges of quantitative metrics for ranking countries as diverse as Ghana and Switzerland (for example) on AIDV metrics, which define democratic values and human rights by largely western standards. As the panel pointed out, many of the metrics in the AIDV measure democratic institutions more than AI policies.
Much of the conference centered on protecting democracy, or, really, expanding it, in the face of authoritarianism. CAIDP AI Policy Leader Award winners Saifa Nobel, Maya Wiley, and Sasha Luccioni discussed how to incentivize AI development in line with democratic values, human rights, and sustainability.
Recorded remarks by Connecticut’s own U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal celebrated the AIDV and called for federal legislation to encourage the same. In his recorded remarks, AI Policy Leader Award winner Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN undersecretary general and special envoy for digital and emerging technologies, stressed the need for global efforts to ensure everyone can benefit from AI technologies and the need to protect against a world of “AI haves and have nots.”
The event and experience editing the AIDV refueled my desire to contribute to these discussions and this future where we all have access to the benefits AI can bring us, while also protecting against the risks to society, learning, and the environment. Throughout my exploration of AI policy and ethics, I always come back to the realization that we shape the future, and what AI is, or is not, in that future. As a historian, I find that realization to be both terrifying and freeing. But, mano a la obra!
April Yoder, Ph.D. is an associate professor of History.
University News
New University-wide council will advance strategic partnerships, immersive student opportunities, and innovative research, supporting the University’s strategic plan the development of its pioneering Center for Innovation and Applied Technology.
The Charger Blog
Entrepreneur David Sussman, Pompea College of Business Advisory Board Member and chief visionary officer of The Family Security Plan®, is collaborating with University of New Haven students, faculty, and staff to create a program and app that helps Chargers support each other to achieve academic, personal, and professional goals. It’s called Uccountability.
University News
Vice President for Innovation and Applied Technology Paul Lavoie will serve on the Board of Directors and as America’s Chief Manufacturing Officer for the newly launched American Manufacturing Futures Institute.