At least three women in the Fresno City College communication department refused to work today in response to an EdSource story revealing the Title IX investigation and act of sexual violence report of their colleague and president of the academic senate, Tom Boroujeni, sources say.
Boroujeni, also a Fresno City College communication instructor, was found to have committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague at nearby Fresno State in 2015 when he was a graduate student and adjunct instructor. The alleged victim is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at City College. The State Center Community College District, parent agency to City College, learned of the “sexual misconduct investigation” when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order against Boroujeni, which was granted in the spring 2022 semester.
Email sent to students
The instructor who asked not to be identified by name shared the email she sent her students about cancelling class.
“We feel that this person was protected over us,” an instructor who asked not to be identified by name said about the college’s inaction against Boroujeni – which she called an “inability to keep us safe.”
On Wednesday night, the three professors informed members of the college administration and their students of their intention not to work Thursday. None of the administrators responded to the professors.
Neither the district nor the college has responded to EdSource as of Thursday morning.
Taking action
Tiffany Sarkisian, Fresno City College’s program review coordinator and a communication arts instructor, told the administration and her students that she and others decided to stay off campus in an effort to advocate for a safe teaching, learning and working environment.
“The environment at FCC (Fresno City College) grows more toxic and unsafe by the day, especially as an abuser has been – and continues to be – protected by various campus leaders,” she emailed college administrators.
The administration’s failure to act on information they’ve had “created an unsafe space emotionally and physically,” Sarkisian told her students.
Tiffany Sarkisian’s email
Sarkisian, a communication arts instructor at Fresno City College, emailed her students about her decision to cancel classes Thursday.
To read the email, click on the image.
Sarkisian said she and others have been upset about the community college’s knowledge of the allegation against Boroujeni.
“They literally gave him a taller, bigger pedestal rather than taking the pedestal away from him,” Sarkisian told EdSource. “They had no concern about all other parties involved.”
In May 2023, Boroujeni started a two-year term as Fresno City College’s academic senate president. In that role, Boroujeni works with the school’s administration in setting academic policy and hiring faculty.
Shiwali Patel, the senior counsel and director of Justice for Student Survivors at the National Women’s Law Center in D.C., has represented students in Title IX cases against colleges and universities.
“He shouldn’t have any impact on her experience there, any promotions or anything to do with her employment,” Patel said. “If he holds this position of power over the victim who told the community college about what happened at the other institution, she could be in a vulnerable position.”
Boroujeni told EdSource he is also facing allegations regarding his interactions with three other women at Fresno City College. They have each filed complaints against him, which he characterized as allegations of “gender discrimination.”
Fresno City College, Patel said, should ensure the alleged victim of the Title IX allegation and the three complainants feel safe and supported.
“That might mean limiting or pulling him from his academic senate president role,” Patel said. “Even while the school is investigating, they should be looking at interim measures: what can they do in the interim to protect the complainants and provide them with the support and accommodations they need.”
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
John Martin is a plaintiff in one lawsuit and is the chairman of the California Part-Time Faculty Association.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
A pair of recent court decisions may bode well for the state’s part-time community college professors, known as adjuncts, who have argued for years that they work unpaid hours to meet students’ needs.
In Southern California, roughly 1,200 adjuncts who brought a class-action lawsuit against the Long Beach Community College District in 2022 are preparing for mediation to resolve claims of lost pay.
A judge would have to approve any settlement.
That the case proceeded to mediation after a judge denied a district motion to throw it out “is having a pretty substantial impact” in California as some districts are “looking at renegotiating their terms by which they’re paying adjunct faculty,” said Eileen Goldsmith, a San Francisco labor lawyer who represents the Long Beach plaintiffs. “Our case really started that process.”
A spokesperson for the Long Beach district said she could not comment on ongoing litigation.
Many issues cited in both suits were detailedin EdSource’s 2022 series Gig by Gig at California Community Colleges. Adjuncts routinely claim they are exploited by only being paid for time spent teaching, not for designing syllabi, grading, and answering student emails. Yet they are considered the backbone of the community college system, numbering more than 30,000.
In Sacramento County, a Superior Court judge ruled in March in a separate 2022 lawsuit that adjuncts working at colleges across the state are employees of the community college system’s board of governors — a decision that could lead to uniformity in pay across the 116-college system, said Dan Galpern, a lawyer for John Martin, the plaintiff in the case. Martin, an adjunct in the Shasta and Butte community college districts, is also chair of the California Part-Time Faculty Association.
He claims in the lawsuit that the board and districts violated state wage-and-hour laws by not paying for time spent preparing for classes, writing curriculum, grading, and interacting with students outside of class.
Lawyers for the community college system sought to have the suit thrown out, arguing that adjuncts work for local districts, not the state.
In a decision rejecting the request for dismissal, Judge Jill H. Talley wrote that because “the statutory scheme of the community colleges” requires the board of governors “to provide oversight, establish minimum employment standards, and to advise local community college districts on the implementation of state laws,” the board has “an obligation that extends to faculty wages.”
Martin called the judge’s decision to go forward “a big victory.”
The decision may be appealed.
California Community Colleges “does not control the wages, hours, and working conditions of part-time professors at local community college districts, which are established through collective bargaining at each individual district,” Melissa Villarin, spokesperson for the chancellor’s office, wrote in an email.
“The chancellor’s office is disappointed that it was unable to persuade (Talley) to adopt its motion for summary judgment, and will evaluate its legal options as this litigation moves forward,” she said.
The favorable ruling in Martin’s case and the mediation in the Long Beach case are building momentum for adjuncts to continue to push for pay for all hours worked, said Karen Roberts, an art history professor for more than 20 years in Long Beach who is one of the lead plaintiffs in the case.
“I got into academia as an idealist,” Roberts said Tuesday. “Join the professor ranks and we’re all gonna join hands and sing Kumbaya.” But, she said, adjuncts can’t let themselves “be exploited. We live in a capitalist economy. We have a moral obligation to take care of ourselves financially.”
The lawsuit, should the mediation result in awards for lost pay, should motivate adjuncts to stay active in unions and trade groups, she said.
The suits are clearly being watched around the state and have the potential to have important impacts, Stephanie Goldman, the executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, said in an interview Tuesday.
It’s too soon to know how they might impact college district funding through Proposition 98, the 1988 ballot measure that sets funding levels for K-12 schools and community colleges based on the state general fund.
“That’s a really big and heavy question,” Goldman said. “I think ultimately it depends on how the lawsuits turn out and the reasoning behind it.”
Still, she said, schools across California are carefully watching to see what happens.
“I don’t think anybody would be surprised if it had a ripple effect across the state,” she said.
This story has been corrected to say that 50% of senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president, according to the bylaws.
The Fresno City College community continues to reel from an EdSource report revealing that Tom Boroujeni, a tenured communication arts instructor and president of the school’s academic senate, was found to have committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague at nearby Fresno State in 2015.
The fallout was laid bare during Wednesday’s academic senate meeting when several professors challenged the body’s leadership, criticizing the executive board and demanding change, despite a plea by the acting president that attendants not use the public comment period to “prosecute this (Boroujeni) case or any other case.”
Because of his administrative leave status, Boroujeni, through a request handled by Fresno City College President Robert Pimentel, asked if, and or how he could speak during Wednesday meeting.
He didn’t show up, but the possibility that he would be at the meeting galvanized many of his colleagues. His absence did not prevent discussions about him, his case and the conduct of the academic senate, which he led.
“You are our faculty leaders; we look to you for guidance in matters related to us,” communication arts instructor Kherstin Khan said at the meeting. “Your silence in the face of controversy has exacerbated the division of faculty and left many of the people that you represent feeling alienated and marginalized.”
As Boroujeni remains on leave, Jackie Williams, president-elect and now acting president, asked those who wished to speak during the meeting’s open forum to focus only on concerns about academic and professional matters pertaining to issues concerning faculty, curriculum and their work.
“We are here to work on the matters that are on the agenda,” Williams said.
She told EdSource that she believes in confidentiality for victims, whom she supports, but doesn’t believe that anyone’s personnel matters should be discussed in a public forum.
“I have witnessed firsthand how the investigations of assault can be revictimizing and traumatizing, not just to the survivor of that incident but to other survivors and those that are close to them,” she said. “I firmly support, for that reason, matters being kept confidential and being handled by the appropriate legal and human resource experts unless a survivor chooses to share their story.”
However, she did not stop people from speaking out about Boroujeni or the Fresno State case. She declined to comment on their criticism of the executive board.
What does Fresno State case entail?
Boroujeni has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student. The alleged victim is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at the city college. The State Center Community College District, parent agency to Fresno City College, learned of the sexual misconduct investigation when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order, which was granted in the spring semester of 2022.
Fresno State opened the investigation based on the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX, records show. The investigation determined that Boroujeni committed the sexual violence in 2015. At the time of the incident, Boroujeni was a part-time instructor at Fresno City College while finishing a master’s degree at Fresno State, records show.
Fresno State couldn’t discipline him because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred, Debbie Adishian-Astone, Fresno State’s vice president for administration, told EdSource. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State in 2022 after officials said the act-of-sexual-violence report would be placed in his personnel file.
The Fresno State case was not taken into account as Boroujeni was elected senate president at Fresno City College and achieved tenure in 2023, even after the community college district investigated the alleged victim’s request for a stay-away order and found that sexual violence occurred.
Fresno State released a redacted copy of the report to EdSource under the state’s Public Records Act, explaining, “Given that Mr. Boroujeni remains active in the educational community and is teaching at a local community college, there is strong public interest in knowing that a college instructor has been previously found to have committed an act of sexual violence at another university.”
Academic senate presidency
In May 2023, Boroujeni started a two-year term as Fresno City College’s academic senate president. In that role, Boroujeni works with the school’s administration in setting academic policy and hiring faculty. He assumed the academic senate presidency after a two-year term as president-elect — a rule that doesn’t seem to work, said Tiffany Sarkisian, Fresno City College’s program review coordinator and a communication arts instructor.
Sarkisian urged the executive board to create a task force to investigate the efficacy of its bylaws, which she said need to be updated by changing its nomination process, voting procedures and board duties.
Williams said the executive board has been reviewing its bylaws in light of the situation.
“We’re going through every line and addressing some things that we have found that were silent in the bylaws and came up because of this,” she said.
The bylaws only address the resignation or removal of an officer, not what to do when an officer is on leave. According to the bylaws, removing an officer requires a written petition detailing the rationale for the removal, with signatures from 25% of the academic senators; 50% of the senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president.
Anthropology professor German Loffler submitted a petition in December, calling for Boroujeni’s removal, according to Williams. Loffler has since withdrawn the petition.
“We do not have an active petition; that’s one mechanism that would open the conversation,” Williams said. “We’re not aware of another mechanism, but if it’s appropriate to place it on the agenda as a discussion item, we can do that.”
Boroujeni’s case has divided Fresno City College community
Even though the community college district has placed Boroujeni on leave and launched an investigation, some faculty members expect more from the district, the college and the State Center Federation of Teachers, the union representing faculty.
For example, some professors in the district called for union leaders to be transparent about their knowledge of the sexual misconduct findings at Fresno State while others expected the union to take a position on the case.
For instance, Liz Romero, an early childhood education instructor at Clovis Community College, told EdSource it was “disheartening” that the union, through its statement, said their responsibility was to “defend the contract” and “defend the faculty’s rights to due process.”
There have been heated union discussions among a divided faculty.
On Dec. 4, the union censured Clovis Community College philosophy instructor Michael Stannard for his conduct during a discussion of the Boroujeni case at a Dec. 1 union meeting, according to union representative David Campos. The district also announced on Dec. 15 that it is investigating allegations of “inappropriate behavior” by many unnamed employees who allegedly made several female employees “feel unsafe” during union meetings.
Boroujeni requested to speak first during the public comment period on Wednesday and then be escorted off campus by police during a brief recess. The executive board declined the request, Williams said.
Boroujeni published a blog post on Medium focused on “reclaiming my narrative” on Jan. 10. The nearly 8,000-word post casts Boroujeni as the victim of sexual harassment at the hands of the alleged victim as well as racism and stereotyping because of his Middle Eastern background.
Some of his colleagues, including communication arts instructor Jerry Thurston, say they believe the alleged victim.
“When women share their experiences, I believe them,” Thurston said.
“I don’t gullibly swallow anything people say, but when women tell me that someone has behaved inappropriately toward them, explaining what happened, I believe that that thing happened to them. I believe my female colleagues when they tell me someone has mistreated them.”
EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to this story.
In data science classes, students write computer programs to help analyze large sets of data.
Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource
The article was updated March 5 to include the letter from high-tech executives supporting the Algebra II requirement. It also clarifies that AP Statistics is for students who have completed Algebra II.
An influential committee of the UC Academic Senate weighed in again last month on the contentious issue of how much math high school students must take to qualify to attend a four-year California state university.
It ruled that high school students taking an introductory data science course or AP Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University, starting in the fall of 2025.
The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course.
Robert Gould, a teaching professor and vice chair of undergraduate studies in the statistics department at UCLA and lead author of Introduction to Data Science, said that he disagrees with BOARS’ decision. The course was created under the auspices of the National Science Foundation through a math and science partnership grant.
“We are disappointed, of course,” he said. “We believe our course is rigorous and challenging and, most importantly, contains knowledge and skills that all students need for both career and academic success.”
But how, then, will UC and CSU ultimately fit popular data science courses like CourseKata, Introduction to Data Science, and YouCubed’s Explorations in Data Science into course requirements for admission? That bigger question won’t be determined until May when the math workgroup will issue its next report.
Data science advocates are worried that BOARS, which commissioned the review, may disqualify data science and possibly statistics under the category of math courses meeting the criteria for admissions. Increasing numbers of high school students are turning to introductory data courses in a world shaped by artificial intelligence and other data-driven opportunities and careers. They see them as approachable alternatives to trigonometry, pre-calculus and other rigorous courses students must take to major in science, technology engineering or math (STEM) in college.
Dozens of high school math teachers and administrators have signed a letter being circulated that will go to the UC regents. It reiterates support for data science and statistics courses and criticizes BOARS for not consulting high school teachers and data science experts for their perspectives.
“Our schools and districts have adopted such courses because they provide an innovative 21st-century experience that excites and engages students, impart tangible quantitative skills needed for a wide variety of today’s careers and academic fields, and offer new ways for students to interact with and learn mathematics,” the letter states.
Pamela Burdman, executive director of the nonprofit Just Equations, agreed in a blog post titled “The Latest in the Inexplicable War on High School Data Science Courses.” “The bottom line is that districts are increasingly offering these courses because they are relevant and engaging for many students who otherwise would be turned off by mathematics,” she wrote.
Will it help or hinder equity?
Critics of substituting introductory data sciences courses for advanced algebra include STEM professors at UC and CSU. Many say they support data science, but not courses lacking the full range of math topics in high schools that students need for STEM or any major requiring quantitative skills. Skipping foundational math in high school will set back the cause of equity for underserved students of color, not advance it, they argue, by creating the illusion that students are ready for statistics, computer science and data science majors when they aren’t. That may force them to take catch-up courses in community college.
“The only way we’re going to diversify STEM fields is to keep historically excluded young students on the algebraic thinking pathway just a little bit longer,” Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High in San Francisco and former software executive, wrote to EdSource last year. “That will give them the mathematical competencies they will need to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to pursue rigorous quantitative majors and careers.”
Proponents of holding the line on Algebra II and encouraging more students to pursue STEM majors are circulating their own attention-grabbing letter titled Strong Math Foundations are Important for AI. The signers, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, his nemesis Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and CEO of X, and executives from Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Google, “applaud” UC for maintaining the math requirements.
“While today’s advances might suggest classic mathematical topics like calculus or algebra are outdated, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, modern AI systems are rooted in mathematics, making a strong command over math necessary for careers in this field,” it reads. “Failure to maintain standards in the mathematical curriculum in public education will increase the gap between public schools — especially those of under-resourced districts — and private schools, hampering efforts to diversify STEM.”
Surprise actions by UC Office of President
For decades, UC and CSU have required that students complete three years of math with at least a “C” — usually in the sequence Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, also called Advanced Algebra – as the math component of A-G, the 15 courses needed for admission. For students taking integrated math, it is Math I, II and III. Both university systems recommend a fourth year of math, and most students take at least that; aspiring STEM majors take two or more additional courses leading to Calculus.
BOARS establishes policies on admissions, but a small office in the UC President’s Office, the High School Articulation Unit, vets tens of thousands of courses that developers and high school teachers submit for approval. Starting in 2014, the unit began authorizing AP statistics and new data science courses as “validating” or satisfying Algebra II or Integrated Math III content requirements. That meant they either built on the content standards that students had covered or would cover in the course.
Although AP Statistics doesn’t cover most Algebra II topics, the rationale for validating it and data science courses — mistakenly so, BOARS determined in retrospect — was that Algebra II includes some statistics, and most teachers never get around to teaching it. That was problematic for introductory data science courses, because the state hasn’t set standards for what should be covered in the courses. The College Board, the creator of AP Statistics, states that the course is designed for students who have completed Algebra II.
During the last few years, the staff in the review office approved the three most popular data science courses in more than 400 high schools. After analyzing the three courses, the UC workgroup professors concluded, “We find these current courses labeled as ‘data science’ are more akin to data literacy courses.”
UC academic committee meetings, including BOARS, are closed to the public. But minutes from the July 2023 meeting indicated that some faculty members were dismayed that the articulation office had validated so many data science courses without their knowledge. “At least one member repeatedly suggested that UCOP has misinterpreted/misapplied the advanced math standard for years — and absent correction, will continue to do so — and so review of all current courses potentially implicated is needed,” the minutes state.
BOARS hasn’t ruled out approving future data science courses that include more advanced algebra as a substitute for Algebra II; the articulation office has validated Financial Algebra for that purpose. BOARS invited course alternatives in a June 2020 statement, saying it saw the expanded options “as both a college preparation and equity issue.”
But data science proponents are concerned that the math workgroup will take the opposite position and recommend that the three introductory data science courses be treated as elective courses for A-G but not fourth-year math courses. Ruling that way, they argue, would discourage future non-STEM majors from taking an alternative quantitative reasoning course as seniors. Such a position would reinforce a narrow view that only courses leading to Calculus are legitimate math offerings in the senior year.
“Revocation of Area C (math) status will significantly reduce our ability to foster students’ statistical and data competency or incentivize enrollment in these programs, at a time when such quantitative abilities are increasingly necessary for functioning personally and professionally in the 21st Century,” the letter to the UC regents says.
Lai Bui, a veteran math teacher at Mills High School in the San Mateo Union High School District, said there’s no justification for treating CourseKata, an introduction to data science course, differently from AP Statistics, which BOARS has qualified as a fourth-year math course. Students in CourseKata use coding to analyze datasets, while AP Stats students use graphing calculators, which have limitations, she said.
UCLA and CSU Los Angeles created CourseKata in 2017 as a semester course for college and as a two-semester course for high schools; otherwise, they are similar, said Bui, who has taught it for four years.
“CourseKata is definitely not data literacy,” she said. “It’s a math course, like AP Statistics, only more real-world connected. I see students succeeding in math instead of thinking, ‘I am not a math person.’”
In 2023, the CSU Academic Senate expressed frustration that UC was approving courses in data science in lieu of Algebra II without consulting it and urged more joint decision-making involving A-G decisions. In January, three CSU professors were added to the 10-member UC math workgroup.
Mark Van Selst, a psychology professor at San Jose State and member of the Academic Preparation and Education Programs Committee, considered CSU’s counterpart of BOARS, said this week he fully supports the decision not to retreat from Algebra II as a base of knowledge. But he also favors qualifying non-traditional fourth-year math courses that strengthen quantitative reasoning. He said he hopes the UC math workgroup drafts standards or learning outcomes for data science to distinguish between electives and advanced math courses.
Gould said he would need to review the possible criteria before deciding whether to revise the content of Introduction to Data Science.
“A data science education is essential for all students, and all students deserve a relevant and useful math education,” he said. “Despite the committee’s decision, we think it’s important that data science and statistics courses continue to qualify as fourth-year math courses.”
Cal State Long Beach lecturer Casey Goeller wants his students to know how to use AI before they enter the workforce.
Tasmin McGill/EdSource
Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.
Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.
However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.
An October 2024 report from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.
Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort.
“As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”
All in on AI
At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.
Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.
Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.
To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.
While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.
“There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”
Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.
“If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”
California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.
The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”
“I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”
AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently updated, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.
“I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”
However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform.
“Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”
Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.
“You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”
Balancing AI use in the classroom
Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments.
At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s instructor guidelines for AI use: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.”
Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting.
“I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.
An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. (Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)
Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.
“I giveChatGPTthe information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.
He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though.
“You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.
Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders.
“The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said.
Preserving foundational learning
Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.
Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.
“AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”
Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use.
The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to Earth.Org. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses 500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.
By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI.
“You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said.
Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.
“For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?”
Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.
AI in curricula
At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning.
Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.
Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.
The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.
Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it.
“One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”
When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.
“Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”
A tool, not a cheat code
Dr. Celeste Pilegard
Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.
Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools.
“For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”
Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.
“It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”
However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.
At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators.
”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”
