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Artificial intelligence has crossed a threshold. What began as a disruption to be managed has become the condition within which we now lead, work, and learn. It is no longer a tool at the edge of the enterprise but the medium through which decisions are made, teams cohere, and knowledge is built. The 91��Ƭ�� has marked this moment by announcing a collaboration with OpenAI-expanding access to tools such as ChatGPT for students and faculty, and building on an AI foundation already established across the University, guided by a clear principle: that AI should enhance human expertise, not replace it.

For the Fall/Winter 2026–27 edition, the 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ takes up that principle. The theme emerged from the College of Doctoral Studies’ three Research Centers, whose scholars independently arrived at the same conclusion from three different vantage points. Together those vantage points form the through-line of this issue: when intelligence is everywhere, the decisive questions are no longer only��technical but human, about judgment, belonging, well-being, and the cultivation of human potential.

Three Layers of a Single Condition

As AI becomes the operating condition, it presses on organizational life at three levels at once. This issue invites scholarship across all three:

• AI as Learning Context. How knowledge is taught, absorbed, and assessed when generative systems are woven into study and research-the AI-native university, human–AI cognition, AI literacy, and the preservation of critical thinking.
• AI as Workplace Experience. How people actually experience AI-mediated work-belonging, connection, engagement, and wellness as technology reshapes roles, teams, and the texture of daily labor.
• AI as Organizational Decision. How leaders and entrepreneurs decide with and about AI-strategy, innovation, communication, ethics, and accountability in AI-enabled environments.

The Call

In addressing AI as the new operating condition, the Fall/Winter 2026–27 edition of the 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ seeks research articles, white papers and practice reports, theoretical and conceptual essays, and book reviews that examine how intelligent systems are reshaping leadership, work, and learning, and how the human dimension can be honored and strengthened in the process. We welcome empirical, conceptual, and practitioner-informed scholarship from faculty, students, alumni, and colleagues across disciplines and institutions.

Areas of Interest - The AI Thrust

The AI-native university: governance, policy, faculty development, and AI literacy as a general and professional competency.

• Human–AI cognition, cognitive offloading, and the design of “productive friction” that protects critical thinking and intellectual ownership.
• Assessment, authorship, and academic integrity in AI-abundant classrooms and across educational platforms.
• Corporate integration, engagement, and wellness in AI-mediated and hybrid work.
• AI-supported strategy, entrepreneurial innovation, and leadership communication.
• AI ethics, responsible use, and leadership fears in high-stakes sectors (bioethics, patient safety, data security).
• Constrained capacities: uneven institutional capacity and the human consequences of AI adoption.

Beyond the Theme - Open Categories

AI leads this issue, but it does not exhaust it. The 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ also invites strong scholarship on the enduring questions the Research Centers continue to advance. We especially welcome submissions in the following open categories:

The Future of Work and Workforce Capability. Reskilling, credentials, graduate employability, and human capital as workforce infrastructure.

Healthy Leadership and the Human Interior. Transformational leadership, fear in leadership, emotional intelligence, and potentiating relationships that generate healthy organizations.

Engagement and Thriving. Connection and mattering across work and online learning; organizational wellness; resilience and psychological safety in distributed settings.

Leadership for Everyone and Entrepreneurship. Democratized, practitioner-informed leadership scholarship; the scholarship–industry seam; entrepreneurship from idea to impact.

Advancing Research - Methodology, Rigor, and the Path to Publication. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method design; methodological rigor; and turning research and dissertations into published scholarship.

Submission and Timeline

Submissions should follow current APA style and the 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ author guidelines available on the Research Hub.

Submission deadline: [deadline for proposals-Oct 1st 2026-11:59 MST]. Anticipated publication: [Winter 2026–27 - to be set].

Convened by the Research Center Enterprise

This issue is convened jointly by the College of Doctoral Studies’ three University Research Chairs, as co-conveners:

• Dr. Mansureh Kebritchi - University Research Chair, Center for Educational and Instructional Technology Research (CEITR).
• Dr. Kimberly Underwood - University Research Chair, Center for Organizational Wellness, Engagement, and Belonging (CO-WEB).
• Dr. Rodney Luster - University Research Chair, Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurial Research (CLER).

Have ideas or questions? Please contact Dr. Mansureh Kebritchi (mansureh.kebritchi@phoenix.edu), Dr. Kimberly Underwood (kimberly.underwood@phoenix.edu), Dr. Rodney Luster (rodney.luster@phoenix.edu), or Dr. Mark McCaslin, Editor-in-Chief (mark.mccaslin@phoenix.edu).

To submit, follow the accomapnying link below. Additionally, authors should submit only one authored work at a time. Multiple submissions by the same author following the first will be declined.

About the Scholar

The 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ showcases the commitment of 91��Ƭ�� faculty, students, and alumni to help foster the process of leading research through evidence-based practice. It serves as a dynamic and robust platform for sharing research results and outcomes and exploring their relationship to the broader scope of learning and scholarship.

The 91��Ƭ�� Scholar™ is an open-access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. Additionally, there is no charge for researchers who seek to publish within the periodical.

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