Exploring AI, the ��سԹ� Way</h1> <article> <h1>Exploring AI, the ��سԹ� Way</h1> <p>eburnett — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:48:47 +0000</p> <span>Exploring AI, the ��سԹ� Way</span> <span><span>eburnett</span></span> <span><time datetime="2026-05-07T15:48:47-04:00" title="Thursday, May 7, 2026 - 15:48">Thu, 05/07/2026 - 15:48</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>At ��سԹ�, the <a href="/president/statements-and-publications/year-ai-exploration-oberlin">Year of AI Exploration</a> began not with a directive, but with a shared sense of curiosity and responsibility.</p><p>Artificial intelligence had arrived in classrooms, studios, and workplaces across campus, raising essential questions. When might it be beneficial to engage with AI—and when might it be unproductive or even harmful? How might its impact differ across a college and conservatory with so many distinct disciplines? And what responsibility does the institution bear, not only to its campus community of today, but to the students, faculty, and staff of tomorrow?</p><p>Rather than rushing toward adoption, ��سԹ� chose to begin with exploration—an approach grounded in curiosity, caution, and concern. The goal was to understand AI within the institution’s own context and to learn as a community. Only through thoughtful, research-based engagement—engagement inclusive of diverse perspectives—could we begin to shape how AI should be used on our campus and beyond.</p><p>This effort was supported by an AI Advisory Group convened by ��سԹ� President <a href="/carmen-twillie-ambar" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="38ab2e86-9b30-44f2-9df4-a3b404b62fa6" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Carmen Twillie Ambar">Carmen Twillie Ambar</a> and made up of faculty and staff representing all corners of campus. Its efforts were coordinated by Chris Drennen, ��سԹ�’s Director of Academic Technology and Instructional Support, as well as Associate Professor of Computer Science <a href="/adam-eck" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="6f9d3ae0-cda5-497e-b965-3ec318b658a2" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Adam Eck">Adam Eck</a> and Professor of Music Theory <a href="/joseph-lubben" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="b949ffd0-a3fe-44db-acd7-0bf514cfb3c1" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Joseph Lubben">Joseph Lubben</a>, who served as co-directors of AI strategy and innovation on behalf of the college and the conservatory, respectively.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-subhead field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">A campus-wide effort centers curiosity, caution, and community in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2026-05-07T12:00:00Z">Thu, 05/07/2026 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Office of Communications</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=3490">Presidential Initiative</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=769638">Critical AI Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=25321">Computer Science</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-faculty field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/carmen-twillie-ambar" hreflang="und">Carmen Twillie Ambar</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/adam-eck" hreflang="und">Adam Eck</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/joseph-lubben" hreflang="und">Joseph Lubben</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/critical-ai-studies" hreflang="en">Critical AI Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/computer-science" hreflang="und">Computer Science</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Yevhen Gulenko</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-flex-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden vertical-spacing--basic field__items"> <div class="field__item"> <div id="obj-50817" class="paragraph paragraph--type--pb-el-bq paragraph--view-mode--default"> <blockquote class="blockquote--quotemark" data-text-color-red data-text-size-giant> <p>Like all new technology, its use and development will grow and change; consequently, faculty, staff, and student usage will grow and change.”</p><p class="text-align-right"><em>—President Carmen Twillie Ambar</em></p> </blockquote> </div> </div> <div class="field__item"> <div id="obj-50818" class="paragraph paragraph--type--para-el-copy paragraph--view-mode--default o-flex--basic-copy basic-copy"> <hr><p>Faculty, staff, and students gathered to hear from higher education AI experts, including professors Lauren Goodlad (Rutgers University) and Christopher White ’05 (University of Massachusetts) and Tricia Bertram Gallant, Director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California San Diego. Each brought a different disciplinary lens to the discussion.</p><p>Workshops and events complemented these talks. A dozen sessions—organized by groups including the Center for Information Technology, the <a href="/lemle-teaching-center">Lemle Center for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship</a>, the ��سԹ� College Libraries, and individual faculty—created space for hands-on learning and reflection. Topics like “AI & the Liberal Arts Imagination” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About AI” encouraged participants to think critically about AI’s role in a liberal arts setting.</p><p>In the conservatory, a series of faculty- and alumni-led workshops fueled discussions on historical perspectives on computational creativity, use of generative AI in music-making, and examinations of how AI music generation works.</p><p>Also in the fall, faculty and staff gained access to institutionally licensed versions of two leading AI platforms, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, thus creating space for examination of the tools in a secure environment. </p><p>Plans for the spring semester extended this momentum, with additional workshops, the formation of communities of practice, and new opportunities for curricular development. Nine grants of up to $5,000 each were allocated to support experimentation and innovation, allowing faculty and staff from a host of campus offices and departments to explore how AI might fit into their work. In the coming year, each grant recipient will report the key takeaways of their research to campus.</p><p>At the same time, attention turned to building AI literacy and shaping policy.</p><p>Efforts began to provide students with training on how to responsibly engage with generative AI. This included not only technical understanding, but also consideration of academic integrity, creativity, emotional well-being, data security, environmental impact, and accessibility.</p><p>Institutional policies were revisited. The writing requirement came under review, with a focus on how AI might affect students’ ability to communicate effectively, think critically, and adapt their writing to different audiences and disciplines.</p><p>The Honor Code, revised on its regular cycle, was updated to remain flexible in the face of rapidly evolving technologies. While the default position limits the use of generative AI in assignments, instructors are given the authority to determine appropriate use within their courses.</p><p>“The faculty have made clear that the default framing of AI in the classroom is that it is not permitted,” says President Ambar. “But, this ‘default’ gives way to the individual faculty members’ discretion about the use of AI for research, broad understanding, uses in specialized projects, assessments, and more. </p><p>“Like all new technology, its use and development will grow and change; consequently, faculty, staff, and student usage will grow and change. We will, in our various settings on campus, continue to develop the ways AI can and should be used, and where it isn’t appropriate.”</p> </div> </div> <div class="field__item"> <div id="obj-50827" class="paragraph paragraph--type--pb-el-bq paragraph--view-mode--default"> <blockquote class="blockquote--quotemark" data-text-color-red data-text-size-giant> <p>The most important outcomes of our collective exploration were the rich communal conversations we had during the year. These conversations resulted in a better campus-wide understanding of AI, its benefits, and challenges. We now have clarity on the range of ways faculty and administrative units will use AI going forward.”</p><p class="text-align-right"><em>—Ambar</em></p> </blockquote> </div> </div> <div class="field__item"> <div id="obj-50828" class="paragraph paragraph--type--para-el-copy paragraph--view-mode--default o-flex--basic-copy basic-copy"> <hr><p>Out of this period of exploration, new academic pathways have begun to take shape.</p><p>A <a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/critical-ai-studies">Critical AI Studies minor</a>, set to launch in fall 2026, aims to prepare students to evaluate AI systems—examining their usefulness, ethical implications, and limitations within broader social contexts. </p><p>“The most important outcomes of our collective exploration were the rich communal conversations we had during the year," says Ambar. “These conversations resulted in a better campus-wide understanding of AI, its benefits, and challenges. We now have clarity on the range of ways faculty and administrative units will use AI going forward.”</p><p>In the near future, all ��سԹ� students will have the opportunity to receive training in responsible use of AI and gain access to campus-licensed versions of AI tools. According to Ambar, faculty approval of the student training module laid the groundwork for student access to the institution’s enterprise AI platform—most likely Gemini—in the year ahead.</p><p>“Implementation of student training and broad student access to the institution's chosen AI platform will happen fully in the coming year,” she says. “Additionally, we are piloting various AI projects that would support the work of administrative units in substantive ways.”<br><br>Together, these initiatives reflect a commitment to a human-centered approach—one that builds on ��سԹ�’s historic strengths of academic and artistic excellence and its commitment to developing future leaders who are empowered to foster change around the globe.</p><p>“I think conversations have evolved in their depth over the course of the year as we have collectively gained new insights and understandings about generative AI, as well as its impacts on higher education and society around us,” says Eck. “Those conversations started with trying to understand what is generative AI—including cutting through the hype ever-present in public discourse—and have evolved to deeper conversations weighing the short- and long-term benefits and risks of utilizing this technology in different scenarios in education and beyond.” </p><p>The Year of AI Exploration was never intended to produce simple answers. Instead, it opened space for ongoing inquiry, collaboration, and reflection. The invitation remains: to continue exploring, together.</p><p>“That evolution is never finished,” says Eck. “It will continue in the coming years as the ��سԹ� community continues to explore and evaluate these emerging technologies.”</p><p><a href="/ai"><em>Learn more about the Year of AI Exploration at ��سԹ�.</em></a></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-article-header field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">0</div> </article> <article> <h1>��سԹ� Launches Critical AI Studies Minor in Fall 2026</h1> <p>azaleski — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 15:54:38 +0000</p> <span>��سԹ� Launches Critical AI Studies Minor in Fall 2026</span> <span><span>azaleski</span></span> <span><time datetime="2026-02-19T10:54:38-05:00" title="Thursday, February 19, 2026 - 10:54">Thu, 02/19/2026 - 10:54</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>In recent years, higher ed institutions have been grappling with the best ways to respond to artificial intelligence, a rapidly changing technology that’s becoming increasingly pervasive in our world. As part of a Year of AI Exploration, ��سԹ� is responding in ways that align with its mission and history. </p><p>��سԹ�’s faculty and staff are leading cross-disciplinary conversations about the opportunities and challenges of AI, especially in light of concerns over environmental impact, job displacement, intellectual property extraction, and cognitive debt. </p><p>��سԹ� feels a deep responsibility to ensure our students become responsible stewards of AI. And as a liberal arts institution that centers undergraduate learning and responds to challenges with interdisciplinary creativity, ��سԹ� is uniquely equipped to be a leader in preparing students to navigate and engage with these sophisticated technologies.</p><p>Launching in fall 2026, ��سԹ�’s new critical AI studies minor has a solid foundation in both science and the humanities. As a result, students will understand and be able to analyze the ethical, cultural, environmental, political, economic, technological, and labor effects of AI.</p><p>“We're entering a world where, over the next five to 10 years, AI is going to impact most jobs and careers,” says <a href="/adam-eck">Adam Eck</a>, ��سԹ�’s David H. and Margaret W. Barker Associate Professor of Computer Science and Business and Data Science. “��سԹ�’s minor focuses on helping students be better decision-makers in those spaces and prepares them for the 21st-century-plus world that they’ll inherit.”</p><p>Every student pursuing the minor is required to take two foundational classes: Intro to Critical AI Studies and a course on methods of critique. From there, they’ll take two electives within four broad categories: decision-making and learning, epistemology and the history of science, applications and practice, and societal impacts. </p><p>In practice, the minor complements multiple majors at ��سԹ�; students can choose electives in fields such as philosophy, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, economics, music, and math. “If you're in STEM, you might take a course in AI applications,” says Assistant Professor of Computer Science <a href="/michael-mccarrin">Michael McCarrin</a>. “If you're on the humanities side, your courses might be more on the history and epistemology of science.”</p><hr><p>By offering this minor, ��سԹ� is a leader in critical AI studies—an emerging field informed by “a confluence of forces,” McCarrin says.</p><p>“It captures two necessary things,” he explains. “One is a critical theory of technology in general. It's important for computer scientists, but maybe everybody who's going through school right now, to have some sense of this.</p><p>“And the other one is just a response to the moment we’re in right now,” McCarrin continues. “If we did this 10 years ago, maybe it would have been called critical data studies. But AI has become such an overwhelming cultural phenomenon that we want to impress its relevance.”</p><p>The critical AI studies minor is distinguished by its emphasis on the humanities as well as the sciences, positing that these areas of study complement each other. </p><p>“In developing AI technologies, there are all kinds of assumptions at work about what human beings care about and need,” says Professor of Philosophy <a href="/katherine-thomson-jones">Katherine Thomson-Jones</a>. “In the humanities, we can uncover, articulate, and critique these assumptions. In this way, humanists can provide scientists with a clear motivation and direction for the development and implementation of AI.</p><p>“It’s also a matter of having the ability to think clearly and critically about what is appropriate and ethical when it comes to having AI in our lives,” she adds. “More than anything, we want developers and users of AI to make principled, far-sighted, and open-minded decisions about AI, and to feel intellectually empowered to do so. The humanities enables this.”</p><p>Accordingly, ��سԹ�’s minor is deliberately accessible to any student interested in the field; the only prerequisite is an intro class in computer science, data science, or data structures. </p><p>“We want students to have some understanding of technical systems and how AI works,” Eck says. “They should have the ability to distinguish what's actually happening in these systems and understand, mathematically and algorithmically, what's actually going on behind the scenes.”</p><hr><p>The flexibility of the critical AI studies minor means broad career applications for STEM-focused students. For example, computer science majors might guide ethical conversations around building AI systems, while global health majors can use their knowledge when creating policy. </p><p>The same flexibility holds true for humanities grads. “A humanities graduate can use this minor to become the person who can speak clearly about ethics, representation, and accountability in spaces that often want to reduce everything to ‘innovation,’” says Assistant Professor of <a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/dance">Dance</a> and <a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/africana-studies">Africana Studies</a> <a href="/talawa-presto">Talawa Presto</a>. “They can help organizations decide what kind of AI is being used—generative, retrieval-based, probabilistic—and what risks and responsibilities come with each.”</p><p>Multiple faculty members note that knowing AI’s technical side makes students better communicators of critiques and analyses, no matter which academic or career path they choose. </p><p>“A lot of large language model interaction is designed around approval,” explains Presto. “Systems like ChatGPT are often optimized to keep you engaged and to give you outputs you’re likely to like—sometimes even more than they’re optimized to be correct or to challenge you toward better thinking. </p><p>“That matters for education, and it matters for democracy,” he adds. “Critical AI studies should equip students to recognize that dynamic: to ask not only ‘Is this persuasive?’ but ‘Is this grounded, accountable, and true enough to act on?’”</p><p>Eck concurs. “Students will have an understanding of how the systems work, what their strengths and weaknesses are. And they’ll be aware of AI’s impacts so that they can factor that into their decision-making: Where should we be using AI? Where is it beneficial or harmful to us? How is it impacting the world?”</p><hr><p><em>Learn more about ��سԹ�'s minor in </em><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/critical-ai-studies" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="b3896647-e709-4f10-9973-8860a6585651" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Critical AI Studies"><em>critical AI studies</em></a><em>.</em></p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-subhead field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">The course of study offers a humanities-grounded approach to the transformative technology</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2026-02-20T12:00:00Z">Fri, 02/20/2026 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Office of Communications</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2363">Academics & Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=769638">Critical AI Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/critical-ai-studies" hreflang="en">Critical AI Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Bob Handelman</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-article-header field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">0</div> </article> </main></body></html>