The Ithaca College Faculty Council met March 4 to discuss the use of artificial intelligence at the college with the Presidential Working Group on AI.
The AI working group is a team of seven staff, three faculty and two students created in July 2024 to provide the college with recommendations on AI that reflect the college’s vision, mission and values statement. Luke Keller, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and member of the working group, said the group was asked by President La Jerne Cornish to visit the Faculty Council, along with the Ithaca College Student Governance Council and Ithaca College Staff Council, to get feedback on its drafted set of guiding principles for further incorporating AI on campus.
Keller said the group has five key elements to its guiding principles: centering people, not technology; digital inclusion, equity and access; lifelong learning, adaptability and sustainability; responsible AI research and development; and prioritizing environmental sustainability and stewardship in the college’s use of AI.
Eric Steinschneider, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, asked Keller if the college can successfully maintain its core value of sustainability if it continues to increase its use of AI despite the known environmental impact.
“Is this going to have to generate some sort of reflection on our identity and core values if we’re gonna really go down this path?” Steinschneider asked.
Keller said the working group had many discussions about how the college can be conscious of the environmental impact of AI and be able to recognize when AI use violates the college’s core values.
Leann Kanda, associate professor in the Department of Biology, asked about how the group is working to address privacy issues created by AI.
“At this point it is extremely difficult for me to be able to find out whether my document that is on Google or officially on my Microsoft OneDrive file is being scraped,” Kanda said.
Keller said AI built at the college that uses institutional data will be secured, but the group does not have any control over the data that an AI like ChatGPT uses.
Paula Murray Cole, professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance Performance, asked the group for an example of an AI application that would help the college’s efficiency.
Casey Kendall — deputy chief information officer, associate vice president of applications and infrastructure and a member of the working group — said the Ithaca College Awareness, Response, and Education Team, or ICare, uses an internal AI tool for research that does not write back or train any language models. She said the AI tool has allowed ICare to see about 100 more students per year.
The council passed the motion to enter executive session with Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs — restricting the meeting to only members of the council — to discuss updates on the Huron Consulting Group.
The Ithaca College Faculty Council meets on the first Tuesday of every month in the Taughannock Falls room of the Campus Center from 4-6 p.m. The faculty council can be contacted at [email protected].
