Artificial Intelligence is shaping up to be the defining issue of our generation. It is a tool being marketed as having endless possibilities, with critics claiming even greater consequences. The proliferation of AI tools raises questions about acceptable use and balancing efficiency improvements with potential harms.
Currently, EMU does not have an official AI policy. Through the EMU IT helpdesk, you can access what is acting as the university’s policy regarding AI. The article is titled “AI @ EMU” and briefly lists examples of acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI.
Luke Litwiller has recently been appointed as the Director of Institutional Data, Workflow & AI Strategy. In an interview with Litwiller, they spoke about how EMU is choosing to work AI usage into its policies.
Litwiller acknowledged the difficulty of balancing a swift response to the spread of AI in the classroom with one that is well informed. They said, “I feel like the risk is definitely in doing nothing, or not having a really proactive approach.”
Litwiller later said via email that they, “Continue to see opportunities (not exclusively risks and concern) in AI use particularly for operations.” They went on to say that, “In Admissions, we used AI to build several scripts and custom AI Gems (in Gemini) that assist with file processing.”
Litwiller said that using AI can simplify certain processes for IEP students where translations across several languages can be too laborious without the use of AI. This is in line with the IT department’s guide for use, which encourages “members of the EMU community to explore and develop responsible, useful and creative applications of AI in the workspace, classroom and other campus contexts.”
Litwiller said they are “interested in forming an AI advisory group with student representation.” In addition to student representation, they want to include a range of different voices because of the wide-reaching nature of AI. Alongside the voices of the EMU community, Litwiller said they want to consider the values of EMU as an institution.
EMU is a Christian university with peace and justice at the center of its values. The EMU website says, “We pursue peace by teaching and practicing intercultural understanding, justice and equity, and environmental sustainability.”
In conjunction with the IT department’s statement on AI usage, the academic accountability policy has been updated to include AI. Tara Kishbaugh, Dean of Faculty & Student Success, is on the Provost council which is responsible for updating this policy. In an interview with the Weather Vane she spoke on her perspective on AI usage as someone with an extensive background in higher education.
Kishbaugh said that EMU’s policies are updated every few years, and that the inclusion of AI in the accountability policy happened three and a half years ago.
After hosting conversation in the Center for Teaching and Learning, Kishbaugh said, “Faculty are across that spectrum, there’s some who are like, ‘yeah, this is a really great tool, and we should view it like a calculator.’…And there’s others who are like, ‘this is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to humanity.’”
The Weather Vane distributed a poll to undergraduate students through the Royal Raydar and an SGA email to all undergraduates. The poll asked several questions about the use of AI in the classroom. A strong majority of students had negative opinions on the use of AI and its impact on education. 73% of respondents said they felt that AI has had a negative impact of some level on education. Only 18% said that AI has had any level of positive impact, while the rest were neutral.
The poll had a sample size of 75 students, which represents 10% of the EMU undergraduate population.
After reflecting on the challenge of conversations around AI and not always being sure how to utilize it ethically, or if that is even possible, Kishbaugh said, “The point of college is struggling with something when we don’t all quite know what the best way forward is.”
