We’ve just had a year with ChatGPT in our lives, but according to commentators, AI has left higher ed in ruin. Emerging from the rubble are panicked professors with a sole “assignment” – to prevent AI from sowing chaos this year. Others foresee AI instigating a 1984-style surveillance state to inhibit cheating. In another article, faculty are polarized, suggesting AI taps our primal instincts to provoke a culture war that will consume campuses. Of course, more than one commentator has pronounced the benediction for student writing assignments written outside of class, and at least one issued a call to cancel the class one of us is slated to teach in the spring – writing 101.
But is this the way faculty think about AI? Are faculty at each other’s throats over AI?
Instead of examining the squeaky wheels in this debate, we sought to capture what faculty are doing and thinking about AI through a survey of over 500 Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) faculty from 11 institutions. The survey asked whether and how they used AI and on what platforms. You can access the survey in its entirety here: Chat GPT One Year Out