By Marty Treinen and Dr. D. Wesley Spencer
Universal Creative Intelligence LLC

California has always been more than a place. It has been an idea.

It is where people come to reinvent themselves. It is where industries are born, where artists and scientists imagine what does not yet exist, and where technology, agriculture, entertainment, design, education, and entrepreneurship meet in ways that change the world.

But California now faces a defining question.

In the age of artificial intelligence, what must higher education become?

And just as important: who should higher education be for?

The answer can no longer be limited to traditional students, full-time degree seekers, or those who can afford the rising cost of opportunity. If California is going to lead the future, its colleges and universities must help open the door to everyone willing to develop themselves, improve their lives, and serve their communities.

That includes high school students preparing for adulthood, college students seeking direction, working adults changing careers, entrepreneurs building something real, retirees and seniors with experience to contribute, the unemployed and underemployed, people with disabilities, veterans, immigrants, minorities, underserved communities, and every person who has never been offered a real pathway to leadership.

That is the promise of Universal Leadership Education.

AI Is Changing the Value of Education

AI is already changing how students learn, how employers evaluate talent, how colleges measure academic work, and how families judge the value of a degree. Students can now use AI to write, summarize, organize, calculate, research, code, design, and produce content at speeds that were unimaginable only a few years ago.

That is not automatically a bad thing. AI can be a powerful tool. But a tool is not a leader.

A tool does not create purpose. It does not build character. It does not develop emotional maturity. It does not teach people how to collaborate, improve themselves over time, serve a community, or lead when circumstances become uncertain.

That is the missing piece.

California’s colleges and universities do not need to fear AI. They need to finish the educational job that AI cannot complete.

They need to develop Universal Leaders.

The old promise of higher education was simple: earn a degree, get a better future. That promise is no longer enough. Students and families are asking harder questions. What does this degree actually provide? Will it lead to meaningful work? Will it prepare students for a changing economy? Will it help them adapt when industries change? Will it give them the human abilities that employers need and communities depend on?

AI has made these questions more urgent.

The question is not whether students should use AI. They will. The question is whether they will have the human intelligence, discipline, judgment, creativity, collaboration, emotional maturity, and sense of purpose to use AI wisely.

That is where Universal Leadership Education enters the conversation.

What Universities Still Do Best

In the rush toward edtech, AI platforms, online tools, and automated learning systems, we should not forget what universities and colleges still do better than technology: they bring people together.

For nearly 1,000 years in the Western university tradition, and for even longer across the broader history of higher learning, education has been built on something deeply human.

Teacher to student.
Student to teacher.
Student to student.
People to people.

That is one of the oldest and most effective educational systems humanity has ever created.

AI can deliver information. Edtech can organize content. Software can track progress. But no platform can replace the human moment when a teacher sees a student beginning to understand, when a student asks a question that changes the direction of a room, or when classmates challenge one another, support one another, and learn how to think together.

That is the lasting strength of the college and university system.

Universities do not need to become less human in response to AI. They need to become more human, more intentional, and more focused on what AI cannot do.

That is why Universal Leadership Education belongs in partnership with colleges and universities. ULE is not an edtech replacement for higher education. It is a human-development system that strengthens what colleges have always done best: bring people together to learn, think, grow, challenge themselves, and become more capable than they were before.

In the age of AI, that human advantage matters more, not less.

What Universal Leadership Education Provides

Universal Leadership Education, or ULE, is built on Universal Creative Intelligence: human intelligence with an AI assist.

That phrase matters.

AI should assist human intelligence. It should not replace it. It should not become the center of human development. It should serve the person, the team, the organization, and the community.

ULE creates a complete circle: human intelligence and artificial intelligence working together, with human purpose leading the way.

ULE teaches the foundational capabilities every student, worker, entrepreneur, educator, artist, public servant, and business leader needs:

Learning.
Creativity.
True Collaboration.
Emotional Mastery.
Mission Focus.
Continuous Improvement.
Service to Others.

These are not soft extras. They are the hard center of sustainable success.

A person may earn a degree and still struggle to communicate. A person may master technical knowledge and still fail in collaboration. A person may understand AI tools and still lack focus, emotional control, ethical judgment, or the ability to lead a team through pressure.

ULE addresses that gap.

It develops individuals who can lead themselves first, and then contribute more effectively to organizations, businesses, workforces, communities, and human endeavors of every kind.

Universal Means Everyone

If Universal Leadership Education is going to meet the moment, it must be available to everyone.

Not only to traditional college students.
Not only to those already accepted into degree programs.
Not only to those who can afford full tuition.
Not only to those already identified as “future leaders.”

Universal means universal.

For too long, leadership development has been reserved for the few. It has often been offered to those already near power, already inside institutions, already chosen by someone else.

ULE is built on a different promise:

Everyone is equal. Everyone plays. Anyone can become a Universal Leader. Everyone benefits. Everyone wins.

That is why colleges and universities must open the door wider. They should not treat leadership education as an elite benefit. They should treat it as a public responsibility and a statewide opportunity.

ULE has special importance for people and communities historically left outside traditional leadership pathways: minorities, underserved communities, first-generation students, working-class families, rural communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, people with disabilities, older adults, and anyone who has been told, directly or indirectly, that leadership was not meant for them.

ULE says something different.

Leadership is not a title. It is not a social class. It is not inherited access. It is not permission granted by the already powerful.

Leadership can be learned. Leadership can be developed. Leadership can be practiced. Leadership can be accredited. Leadership can be improved over a lifetime.

That levels the playing field.

A New Front Door Into Higher Education

Universal Leadership Education also gives colleges and universities a powerful way to expand who they serve.

Higher education cannot be limited only to traditional degree-seeking students. In the age of AI, economic uncertainty, workforce disruption, and widening opportunity gaps, colleges and universities must become broader access points for human development across the entire community.

That means opening the door to high school students preparing for adulthood, working adults seeking advancement, unemployed and underemployed individuals looking for a new pathway, parents, veterans, immigrants, seniors, people with disabilities, minorities, returning learners, entrepreneurs, nonprofit workers, and community members who may never have believed college was meant for them.

ULE gives colleges a way to say something new and necessary:

We are not only here for people pursuing degrees. We are here for every person in the community who wants to develop themselves, improve their future, and become a Universal Leader.

That changes the role of the college.

The college becomes more than a place where students earn credits. It becomes a community leadership-development center. It becomes a place where people of different ages, backgrounds, cultures, and economic circumstances can begin building the human capabilities needed to participate more fully in the future.

This does not weaken degree programs. It strengthens them.

Many individuals who enter through a Universal Leadership Education pathway may later recognize that they need additional education to advance their goals. A person who completes ULE may decide they need business courses, communication courses, entrepreneurship education, nonprofit management, hospitality education, healthcare administration, technology support, design, project management, or another certificate or degree pathway.

In that way, ULE can become a new front door into higher education.

It can build confidence in people who have been disconnected from college. It can create trust between communities and institutions. It can help colleges reach people they have never reached before. It can also create a new revenue stream by bringing new learners into the system—learners who may begin with Universal Leadership accreditation and then continue into additional classes, certificates, degrees, or professional-development opportunities.

For those who cannot afford access, colleges can work with nonprofits, employers, workforce programs, government agencies, foundations, and philanthropic partners to help support participation. That is how higher education becomes both more inclusive and more sustainable.

ULE does not ask colleges to abandon their mission.

It helps them expand it.

Success Is a Continuum

One of the greatest mistakes in modern education is the belief that success is a finish line.

Graduate.
Get the degree.
Get the job.
You are done.

But life does not work that way. Work does not work that way. Leadership does not work that way. Communities do not work that way.

Success is a continuum. It is not a destination.

That is why continuous improvement must be built into the system.

A person should not stop developing when they graduate. A Universal Leader should continue to grow, adapt, refine, serve, collaborate, and advance throughout life. That is why ULE accreditation matters. It creates a pathway of ongoing quality, value, ability, career focus, personal development, and professional advancement.

This gives colleges and universities something they do not currently have: a way to stay connected to the continuing success of their students after they leave campus.

The degree becomes the beginning, not the end.

ULE helps make education a lifelong relationship between the learner, the institution, the workforce, and the community.

Why California Should Move First

California is uniquely positioned to lead.

California already has the educational infrastructure. It has public universities, private colleges, community colleges, workforce programs, innovation hubs, arts institutions, business networks, technology companies, agricultural regions, hospitality industries, and diverse communities with enormous human potential.

Now it needs the next layer.

Universal Leadership Education can serve as that layer by connecting higher education to workforce development, business development, leadership development, entrepreneurship, and community advancement.

That matters deeply here in the Coachella Valley and throughout Riverside County.

Our region needs more than jobs. It needs people prepared to create jobs. It needs people prepared to build businesses. It needs people prepared to lead nonprofits, cities, schools, arts organizations, healthcare systems, hospitality companies, trade organizations, and emerging industries. It needs people who can work across cultures, generations, languages, and economic backgrounds.

ULE is not limited to one major, one industry, or one profession. That is its strength.

It can support the art student, the business student, the healthcare student, the engineering student, the hospitality student, the teacher, the entrepreneur, the returning adult learner, and the first-generation college student.

It can help students understand not only what they are learning, but who they are becoming.

The Advantage for Colleges, Students, and Communities

For colleges and universities, ULE offers a practical strategic advantage.

It helps answer the question every institution must now answer:

Why should students choose us?

The answer cannot simply be tradition. It cannot simply be beautiful buildings, old reputations, or lists of degree programs. Students and families are becoming more careful. Employers are becoming more demanding. AI is changing the meaning of basic competence.

Colleges need to offer something more.

By adopting ULE, either within their own systems or in partnership with Universal Creative Intelligence LLC, California colleges can add a new promise to their programs:

Our graduates are not only educated.
They are developed.
They are prepared to lead.
They are prepared to improve continuously.
They are prepared to use AI without becoming dependent on it.
They are prepared to serve organizations and communities with purpose.

That is a message that can attract students, reassure parents, inspire alumni, interest employers, and strengthen donor confidence.

For students, ULE provides what many already know they need but have never been formally taught: how to lead themselves, stay focused, collaborate with people who think differently, handle pressure, use AI without losing their own voice, and build a life and career that serve both themselves and the community around them.

For communities, ULE provides something equally important: a common leadership language.

Communities do not grow because buildings appear. They grow because people develop the ability to imagine, organize, build, collaborate, lead, and improve.

Economic development depends on human development. Workforce development depends on human development. Business development depends on human development. Leadership development depends on human development.

This is the point too often missed.

We cannot create thriving communities if we do not develop the people who must create, manage, lead, and sustain them.

A Call to California Higher Education

AI is not going away.

The question is whether we will allow AI to define the future of education, or whether we will use AI as a tool while placing human development back at the center.

California can lead that shift.

Colleges and universities can protect the value of their degrees by adding what AI cannot provide. They can offer students more than information. They can offer formation. They can help students become Universal Leaders who continue improving throughout their personal and professional lives.

This is not about replacing what colleges already do.

It is about completing it.

It is about adding the missing layer: the human-capability system that helps students turn education into leadership, leadership into opportunity, and opportunity into community advancement.

California can be first.

The Coachella Valley can help lead.

But only if we understand what is truly at stake.

This is not simply about adding another class. It is about opening the door to a new kind of educational access—one that reaches traditional students, working adults, underserved communities, minorities, seniors, entrepreneurs, and every person who has the desire to grow but has never been given a real leadership pathway.

Universal Leadership Education gives colleges and universities a way to do that.

It gives students added value. It gives graduates a continuing advantage. It gives communities stronger people. It gives employers better leaders. It gives colleges and universities a new access pathway, new enrollment opportunities, and a new reason for the community to see higher education as belonging to everyone.

And most importantly, it gives people who have never been invited into leadership a clear and credible pathway to become Universal Leaders.

The future will not belong to those who merely use AI.

It will belong to those who develop the human intelligence, creative discipline, emotional maturity, collaborative ability, mission focus, and service-centered leadership to use AI wisely.

That is what Universal Leadership Education provides.

Universal Leadership Education: Choose to Participate.

About the Authors

Marty Treinen and Dr. D. Wesley Spencer are the co-developers of Universal Creative Intelligence and Universal Leadership Education. Together, they bring decades of experience across the arts, education, communication, business, creativity, leadership, and large-scale international project environments, including work connected to multi-billion-dollar resorts, casinos, hospitality, design, fabrication, and construction-related projects in the United States and Asia. Spencer teaches communication at the College of the Desert. He holds a Ph.D. in theater and communication and has spent more than 25 years as a college educator, director, actor, writer, and organizational leader.

They are also the authors of “Universal Creative Intelligence: How the Arts and Sciences Propel Human Advancement”. From that foundation, they developed Universal Leadership Education, based on Universal Creative Intelligence with an AI assist. 

2026© Marty Treinen & Wesley Spencer  All Rights Reserved       

Contact Marty Treinen service.to.others.cci@gmail.com