If it could. Just. Stop. Being like this.

The University Curriculum Committee met this afternoon. The first thing on the agenda was a totally new course from the Library.

Okay I do not want to disparage the library or the work that the librarians do but they are not teaching faculty. They are not assessed for "teaching effectiveness." I am assessed for teaching effectiveness.

And the class that the library was proposing was the totally new

AI 200: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Ethics

Here's the thing this isn't new.

Last fall my former head of the department tried to get the English Department Curriculum Committee to go all in on an AI Microcredential including two new English Classes at the 200 and 300 levels

And the department went "we have a large number of questions and concerns, we are not comfortable moving forward with this idea at this time"

So what happened was

The former head took her idea to the library and asked them to do it instead.

And so the library, who has not taught classes since the 1980s put forth this idea.

I asked where this came from because the English department had had an almost identical proposal that we chose not to move forward with earlier this year.

And was told how it was transferred over. And my reaction was "Frankly, I'm incredibly upset to see that this course has been brought back in this way" I DIDN'T SAY UNDERHANDED but I WAS SHAKING WHEN I SAID IT.

So anyway. I brought up a number of the questions that the English department had broached, and I immediately stated, "Due to the ethical concerns about using AI, I cannot in good conscience approve of a course that will lead to a Using AI microcredential."

I was more developed than that.

"I vote no."

I dragged discussion out for 40 minutes.

I brought up the environmental use. I brought up the theft of the work of authors and artists to be repackaged and sold as a product divorced from the people whose work was stolen. I brought up the plagiarism.

Education faculty member talked about how her students were already using it to make lesson plans! It was so useful for making lesson plans!

I died on the inside.

One of the professors brought up "well it's about the ethics of using AI so that's where they can debate about it"

And I asked "are students required to use AI to complete this course? Will they have to use AI as part of the planned course content?"

And I was told that they would.

"So then the ethics don't matter. You made the decision for them that they are using AI no matter what the ethical debate is."

I felt bad. The key librarian presenting this is someone I think as a friend.

But. I was just. Incapable of holding back about my problems with the entire way this was being conducted.

Someone said that we need to teach our students about AI use because they're already using it and we can't just stick our heads in the sand!

So I asked why we couldn't have a library-led ethics of AI use unit included in the English 101/102 classroom.

Someone said "well not every takes 101 and 102"

And I said "nearly everyone does, and are we imagining that there will be hundreds of students a semester taking this AI Ethics course? This is an elective that doesn't count towards any degree -- running 4 sections of this would be incredibly successful for an optional elective, so 80 students a semester getting the ethics here is more effective...

than the hundreds of students a semester who take English 101/102?"

And no answer.

So finally, a vote was called. And it passed.

And I was so angry I almost walked out of the room.

I might resign.

I'm still thinking about that.

I'm too close to it.

But after that, I think I'm done caring about this committee.

If my former chair, who is now the administrator in charge of this committee, can do a workaround to get what she wants in this way

I feel like my time would be better spent doing literally anything else.

ALSO. I'm conspiracy brained over this. One of the admins, who is the associate dean of arts and humanities, who is normally at the meetings, was not at this meeting. He's an art professor who makes award-winning documentaries.

I know that he does not like AI and sees it as theft.

If he had been in the room, I feel like someone would have been able to support me.

Instead it was me, realizing the newest generation of teachers is letting Chat-GPT write their lesson plans for them.

I'm so sorry, this sucks so bad. not just that no one was there to support your VERY VALID POINTS but that the faculty are so blindly complicit with this crapsack excuse for technology

it's so frustrating

I was the only person from the humanities in that room other than the person who used to be my department head and whose entire brain is administrator

and I'm struggling to get my students to learn how to write their own work in their own voice with their own ideas so they can gain personal skills

cries

the political scientist in the room who is not a voting member because he's there for administration purposes did try to engage with what the ethics were they're going to be teaching in the class because he teaches ethics

and the reaction was we haven't really thought about that other than to talk about is it ethical to use it.

everyone was really impressed with a rubric that asked students to evaluate a claim about the history of AI that AI wrote about itself

that rubric was basically just a very standard critical thinking rubric that you could use for any source.

Slaps forehead

and at one point they said and a lot of these you can't answer because it's unknown so it really seems questionable about using it.

and that's when I launched off into the so why aren't we approaching this in the English 101 English 102 classroom

because this seems like Source evaluation skills which is what we work on in English 102

also for the microcredential they're going to do it in a way so that the student has to find someone in their major who is willing to do a special AI content focus for them in one of their classes or to just have a class that could be considered AI focused

so what happens if you are getting a degree in art or theater or film and your professor refuses to include an AI component?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's like their brains exit the vicinity once the novelty of AI enters the picture

imagine a world where 4 years ago someone decided that what we really needed was an nft art class

that's just what this feels like

it is incredible to me that people don't understand that if they rely on AI, they make it more likely that the job will get rid of them and keep the robot

trust me, when the education professor said that students were using chat GPT to write their lesson plans I had to bite back so why do they need you to teach them anything about lesson plans?