Professor of Physics Dale Syphers recalls the epiphanic moment last year when he realized the extent, and the imminence, of the AI (artificial intelligence) revolution.
“Prior to that, I had only dabbled in AI tools as a sort of parlor game. For example, I might say to an AI program ‘write a poem for my wife, who makes jewelry about making jewelry’— that’s all I’d done up until then,” he explained.
The Epiphany
The moment came around the time of President Safa Zaki’s inauguration last fall, when he got into deep conversation with an old friend, computer scientist Peter Norvig. A renowned expert on AI, Norvig came to campus to take part in a panel discussion on how society might embrace this new technology.
“We had breakfast in a diner and ended up chatting for three hours,” recalled Syphers, “during which I asked pretty much every question I could think of about AI and its impact. The message I got from him loud and clear was that the AI revolution is coming faster than you can believe, and it’s pretty much going to affect everything.”
AI, and generative AI in particular—meaning technologies that can “create” their own content, be it text, audio, or video—are rapidly changing the learning landscape, figured Syphers, and Bowdoin had to start exploring.
To be fair, the College was already tackling AI issues: Note, for example, Bowdoin’s involvement in a national initiative to consider ethical issues raised by AI; also, as part of that initiative, the teaching last year of a multidisciplinary course exploring this very topic. However, said Syphers, this was clearly an area that was only going to grow in importance.
Securing the Award
As this year’s chair of the Committee on Teaching and Classroom Practice (CoTCP), Syphers found himself in an ideal position to take action.
“Realizing there was this juggernaut coming I looked at the makeup of the CoTCP and was stunned to find it was probably the best situated committee in the entire college for institutional change.”
Syphers teamed up with Allison Crosscup, director of academic advancement and strategic priorities in the grants office, along with several other faculty and staff colleagues, to work on a grant proposal during the spring semester for funding to support a faculty and staff development initiative on AI and teaching. The result was a three-year award* of $249,300 from the Davis Educational Foundation for Bowdoin’s “AI in Teaching Initiative.”
“We were pleased to make the award,” said Ed MacKay, the chair of the foundation’s board of trustees, calling the proposal a “thoughtful examination of the pedagogical applications of AI in higher education.”
The Davis Educational Foundation’s objectives include supporting institutional efforts focused on effective teaching and learning which, according to Crosscup, presented a unique opportunity to partner with the Foundation on this initiative.
“The award,” said Crosscup, “will significantly impact our collective learning about AI in the years ahead. We are excited about the opportunities it opens up to build capacity and knowledge in this area, and grateful to have earned the Foundation’s support for this undertaking.”
The Road Ahead
Over the next three academic years, the initiative, which also involves resource-sharing with Colby and Bates Colleges, as well as the University of Southern Maine and the University of New England, will offer workshops, panel discussions, symposia, and keynote addresses.
This year’s programming kicked off earlier this semester with a workshop featuring Lilach Mollick, director of pedagogy at and an expert on AI in teaching at Wharton Interactive.
Upcoming highlights of the 2024-25 academic year include a humanities-focused symposium on AI in music that will include four invited speakers addressing both the creative sides of AI and concerns about the potential dependency on it given its capabilities.
Additionally, the grant supports a team of faculty and staff who are taking part in a year-long institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
"The AI revolution is coming faster than you can believe, and it’s pretty much going to affect everything.”
Recognizing that faculty and staff are at different stages in their familiarity and adoption of AI, this initiative is designed to offer several points of entry to and engagement with this effort. For example, the grant provides funding to support participation in external trainings and conferences that complement programming offered on campus and course development funds to help enrich existing courses based on AI-informed strategies or to develop new ones using the technology.
Faculty can also apply for funding to host workshops with guest speakers from their respective fields or disciplines. Faculty or staff members interested in learning more about these opportunities should contact the AI subcommittee of the CoTCP.
Concerns about the misuse of AI cannot be ignored, said Syphers, and will mean certain changes. “For instance, there are no more take-home exams for me—ever. We're going ‘old school’ with in-class exams and maybe even some oral follow up or discussion, so students can show me what they know.”
The initiative, however, is primarily focused on understanding the benefits and challenges that can come from AI in the learning and teaching process across disciplines.
A Transformative Impact
“AI has been present in our everyday lives for a long time,” observed Senior Director for Digital Innovation Sherri Braxton Castanzo, who is also a member of the CoTCP. “Think of spelling and grammar checkers, suggestions and recommendations based on previous purchases, Alexa and Siri—we've all been using AI both actively and passively.”
The recent proliferation of AI tools and Large Language Models is impacting and transforming how learning is accomplished, irrespective of subject or discipline, she explained.
“This evolution cannot be ignored. We cannot ‘put the genie back in the bottle.’ But we at Bowdoin can work to adopt and implement the technology and embrace these capabilities in a deliberate, thoughtful, human-centric way that is also mindful of equity, privacy and security concerns.”
This grant, said Castanzo, enables the College to strategically pursue these goals as a community.
A number of faculty members are already incorporating AI into their classrooms.
Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies Nadia Celis used ChatGPT for a collective research experiment with students in her seminar on twenty-first century women writers in Latin America. “It was a trial-and-error experience, and I truly enjoyed learning with my students. I doubt we could have achieved our ambitious goals without the support of this tool,” she said.
Eric Chown, the Sarah and James Bowdoin Professor of Digital and Computational Studies, is among those who worked on the grant proposal with Syphers and Crosscup. Chown, who teaches a class called Artificial Intelligence in the World, said in just the last two years, since ChatGPT3 came out, the impact on the world, and especially on education, has been enormous.
“We need to get to a place where we can harness these kinds of tools effectively and responsibly and also teach our students to do the same. To do that we need resources, and this grant is a step in the right direction,” said Chown.
The ability of AI tools to perform complex tasks very quickly can be very useful in lessening the ever-increasing burden on teachers, explained Syphers. “For example, I teach a course in modern electronics, which involves students working on individual projects. I typically help students come up with their project proposals because they don’t have much background knowledge of the subject.”
It normally takes Syphers two or three days of research, he said, to come up with a list of interesting projects that have not been done before.
“Now, I ask a tool like ChatGPT to come up with ten project proposals that I might use for a physics course in modern electronics involving sensors for college sophomores and juniors that would be doable in six to seven weeks.”
Within seconds, he said, he was presented with a list of proposals, some of which he had never seen before. “That’s three days’ work done in ten seconds.” Using AI in this way, as an assistant to do much of the heavy lifting, he explained, allows faculty “to do more of what the technology cannot.”
He expects this initiative to have a transformative impact on teaching and learning at Bowdoin, due to a “multiplier effect” during and after the project, in which participants will bring their learning into other aspects of their work.
Dean for Academic Affairs Jennifer Scanlon is excited about the grant and the work it will support at Bowdoin, noting how the CoTCP has taken the lead on exploring the opportunities and challenges posed by AI.
“The Davis Educational Foundation,” she added, “has recognized and validated the vital role that Bowdoin, as a liberal arts college with innovative and devoted faculty and staff, can play in preparing our students to use AI tools ethically and effectively.”
* The grant was received from the Davis Educational Foundation established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.
