Where Innovation Meets Impact: Montana State University Leads the Way as an Adobe Creative Campus Innovator

Founded in 1893 as Montana's land-grant university, just four years after Montana became a state, Montana State University (MSU) is one of the top U.S. research institutions in fields such as optics, physics, and ecology. In keeping with its pioneering tradition, in 2019 MSU also became one of the first Adobe Creative Campuses, partnering with Adobe to provide students and faculty (in 2024) with full access to Adobe Creative Cloud applications and to foster digital literacy across all disciplines.

Most recently, MSU was awarded the designation of Adobe Creative Campus Innovator, an accolade for the university’s commitment to transforming teaching and student outcomes by embedding digital and AI literacy and creativity into their curriculum. “Recognition as an Adobe Creative Campus Innovator affirms MSU’s dedication to transformational and accessible education to prepare our students with the technological tools that will benefit our communities and society,” says Tracy Dougher, Vice Provost, MSU.

A Key Differentiator: The DigLit Team

What sets MSU apart as a Creative Campus is the Digital Literacy Integration (DigLit) team, a unique, student-centered engine driving digital transformation across campus. Led by Nicole Hopkins, an Instructional Technology Support Specialist who began her journey as a student coach, the team is made up of Adobe Student Ambassadors, happy to share what they know with other students and faculty alike. “We are passionate about the ways technology can enrich learning, teaching, and curriculum,” says Hopkins.

Part of MSU Academic Technology and Outreach (ATO), the DigLit team pursues a three-part mission: spread awareness, provide education, and engage in outreach efforts with other on-campus groups to help all MSU students develop the digital literacy and communications skills they’ll need in any post-graduate field. The group offers in-class demonstrations, curriculum development consultations, workshops, outreach events, and one-on-one meetings to encourage and support the use of Adobe Creative Cloud tools. Additional initiatives they’ve spearheaded include art competitions, tool- and skill-specific workshops, and drop-in office hours, all with the goal of making digital learning as accessible, fun, and relevant as possible.

Integrating Digital Literacy and Creativity into the Core Curriculum

Keenly aware that all students – regardless of their disciplines and areas of work – will need to be digitally and AI literate as they launch into post-graduation pursuits, the DigLit team has sought to introduce relevant tools, skills, and assignments to more traditional classrooms. And it’s worked; the team has driven the integration of digital methods into the core curriculum, making it a foundational part of MSU’s undergraduate education. Through their efforts, the DigLit team has consistently engaged increasing numbers of students annually. They connected with 1,228 students in 2023-2024 academic year, and grew to 1,676 students in 2024-2025.

The DigLit team is working on a pilot program with the US101 First-Year Seminar, one of several core requirements for all freshmen. For the 2025–2026 academic year, this initiative incorporated Adobe Express into 45 sections, impacting 667 first-year students—nearly 20% of the freshman class. The DigLit team worked with the US101 program coordinators to develop a sequenced approach that eases students into digital tools, starting with a low-stakes, image-driven presentations and culminating in a complex final research project presented as a website, podcast, or video. “In all our workshops and in-class demonstrations, we outline what digital literacy is and why students need digital skills,” says Hopkins. “They will need to engage digitally in any field they go into after college, so why wait until then to practice those skills?”

Empowering Faculty to Empower Students

To ensure the digital curriculum integration sticks, the DigLit team runs a grant program that provides stipends for instructors to redesign assignments using Adobe tools. So far, the program has awarded 35 grants to faculty members and impacted more than 50 courses across diverse disciplines. The DigLit team also offer in-class demonstrations to introduce students to the tools they will use for their assignments. “We partner with faculty so they can focus on delivering their course materials while we handle the tech support and tool expertise,” explains Hopkins.

This supportive, hands-on approach is equipping students with career-ready skills in communication and content creation. As one student explains, “I feel that I have become more digitally literate than I was before I took this class. It was a bit uncomfortable for me in the beginning, especially when I started using Adobe Express, but I got better at it with every assignment, and I started to enjoy using the tool. I find the ePortfolio to be a great way to introduce yourself to future employers. I plan to continue using Adobe Express even after I graduate."

Scaling for the Future

The digital literacy program plans to share the success of the recent US101 First-Year Seminar and propose projects with the College of Letters and Sciences and the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship. By doing so, they hope to extend the use of Adobe Express to 50% of the entire freshman student body. This would reach 10% of MSU's total student population. “Our programmatic partnerships in particular are key,” says Hopkins. “As we focus on programs that serve large numbers of first-year students.” By doing so, the team wants to ensure that students know from their first year at MSU that they have access to Adobe tools and that there’s a team on campus to support them.

The DigLit team anticipates that expanding the program will triple the number of faculty the team supports. So, to sustain growth, MSU will launch a new Adobe Faculty Fellowship program out of the provost’s office, encouraging the continued cross-discipline use of Adobe tools and fostering departmental outreach. At the same time, they’ll enlist new workshop facilitators to ensure that faculty gets the support they need.

The DigLit team also plans to partner with the Division of Student Success to launch a campus-wide career-readiness campaign focused on AI literacy and ethical use through the Adobe Digital Academy. This initiative will focus on giving students the option to acquire more than 1,000 professional credentials.

Innovative at the Core

Since first becoming an Adobe Creative Campus, MSU has helped pave the way for and inform other Adobe programs, such as the global Student Ambassador Program.“It’s an honor to be recognized as a Creative Campus Innovator for our work and particularly for the DigLit team, which is unique to MSU and provides us with the opportunity to centralize our support and offer students a chance to share their Adobe skills with the university,” says Hopkins.

At MSU, the DigLit team is writing a blueprint for student success, continuously proving how a student-led, curriculum-focused approach to digital literacy can transform a university and empower the next generation of innovators.