On college campuses across the country one of the biggest questions being discussed between both faculty and students is the implementation of generative AI inside the classroom, Ramapo being no exception.
As it stands, there is no universal guideline regarding the use of AI at Ramapo, though the academic integrity policy does state that all work produced by a student must be their own work. However, this doesn’t mean AI isn’t inserting itself into Ramapo classrooms.
“We have an important obligation as an institution to incorporate the use of AI into our classrooms,” Provost Michael Middleton said in an interview with The Ramapo News. At the beginning of the semester, Middleton sent a letter to all of the faculty at Ramapo urging them to consider how they’re approaching the use of AI in their classroom that fits within disciplinary standards.
“It’s important we don’t have a one size fits all policy because each discipline will create its own ethics and standards.” – Provost Michael Middleton
The sentiment that AI needs to be integrated into classrooms at Ramapo is one shared by many faculty members, including Teacher Education Professor Michael Bitz, who over the summer led a slideshow for faculty on how to use AI in classrooms. Included in that slideshow were notes on how AI works, how AI can assist students with critical thinking and how to use AI bots, such as Chat GPT, to assist in creating class assignments.
“AI is part of the future of teaching,” Bitz said in an interview. “I know that there are faculty that are getting really interesting ideas from AI, and it’s transforming what they do in the classroom.”
One of the many professors embracing the use of AI in the classroom is Professor Ali Al-Juboori, who teaches programming. “I would like to tell my students about the development of programming language for the past 10 years,” Al-Juboori explained. “So I may write the question in Chat GPT and ask it to show me the list of programming questions from 2014 to 2024.”
Another faculty member who is implementing AI in classes is Communications Professor Lucas Millard. “The more we confront and embrace AI and learn how to use it in ways that are beneficial to us, the better we’ll be,” Millard said in an interview. Millard has been encouraging his students to play around with different AI tools, adding “How I see it is as another tool for (students) to use.”
As for the higher-level administrators, Social Science and Human Services Dean Aaron Lorenz, along with the other deans at Ramapo, believe it’s best to “leave the use of AI in classrooms to the purview of the faculty member.”
The decision to leave the use of AI up to each individual faculty member is one the administration believes will allow for students to learn and become comfortable with a tool that could become the future of many industries. “We’re really in a technology generational change,” Middleton said. “It’s important we don’t have a one size fits all policy because each discipline will create its own ethics and standards.”
Despite the optimistic outlook of AI from a large majority of the faculty, there are still those who feel that Ramapo is leaning too heavily into such a raw, underdeveloped tool.
“I have really deep concerns about the use of AI,” Law and Society Professor David Gurney said in an interview. “It’s something that came about so quickly and most people have not spent a lot of time thinking about the implications.”
“Do we have to accept new technology just because it exists,” Gurney asked. “One of the difficulties with trying to come to terms with new technology is there’s always going to be this impetus to adopt it because it makes life easier.”
Sharing a similar stance to Gurney is Literature Professor Todd Barnes, who said he failed around half of his summer class because of AI use.
“You can’t replace the core of any discipline with AI,” Barnes said in an interview. Both Barnes and Gurney have a zero-tolerance policy for AI in their respective courses.
“Our whole purpose in our mission is to get students to think,” Gurney said. “(If) we allow students to use AI, they’re bypassing that. And the same applies to faculty.”
Despite the concerns brought up by Gurney and Barnes, the administration at Ramapo does not believe the implementation of AI changes the core of the Ramapo experience, or the curriculum.
“The core of the Ramapo experience is helping people on how to think, not what to think,” Middleton said. “AI will not change the core of the Ramapo experience, but it might change how that experience happens,” he continued.
Contemporary Arts Dean Ken Goldstein believes incorporating new technology such as AI is what the Ramapo experience is all about. “My guess is in the next five years, every faculty member in the spirit of a liberal arts education will find ways of incorporating new technologies,” he said.
Next month, Bitz and management professor Rikki Abzug will hold a workshop for faculty development day to ensure Ramapo faculty stay up-to-date on advances in AI. The workshop will specifically focus on the relationship between AI and scholarly research.
wjackso2@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Airam-Dato, Pexels
