This school year, all California State University students were given access to an educational version of ChatGPT, a strategic step towards advancing artificial intelligence in higher education. At Cal State Monterey Bay, that decision is already being tested through grant-funded research that examines how artificial intelligence changes teaching, ethics, and career preparation.
The grants, which are also part of the CSU systemwide AI initiative, include a push to prepare classrooms for advancing AI technology, even as uncertainty grows over its role in education.
Students say they are already seeing its impact in real time. Some view it as a helpful tool, while others worry it is being misused.
“Used correctly, it's really amazing,” said Steven McLenberg, a junior majoring in computer science, “but I'm afraid not many people use it as it should be (used), and they use it as a shortcut rather than a learning partner.”
Other students share similar concerns. Darcy Evans, a senior in her last semester as a humanities and communication major, said AI is “taking people’s ability to come up with ideas away.”
And Dylan Rivera, a senior majoring in business, said he sees people becoming dependent on AI, “for example, for their critical thinking.”
Ian Li, a senior and an international student majoring in business, references sci-fi pop culture when describing his concern: “(there) might be some drawbacks, like Terminator,” he said, seeing the fictional AI system that becomes sentient in that movie as a warning about where artificial intelligence could lead.
I strongly believe that reading, writing and thinking are correlated. One cannot think without reading and writing.Patrick Belanger
They all raise the same concerns as some faculty.
Humanities and Communication professor Patrick Belanger says the concern is not whether students will use artificial intelligence, but what happens when AI begins to take over the thinking process.
“I strongly believe that reading, writing and thinking are correlated," he said. "One cannot think without reading and writing."
Belanger says reading and writing are not just assignments, but the foundation of critical thinking. It is the long, recursive process of researching and writing, he says, that allows students to determine what they think. And students should have the right to learn what they think and not have artificial intelligence tell them.
While some faculty warn about the risks artificial intelligence poses to critical thinking, others argue the greater risk is failing to engage with the technology at all.
As part of the CSU systemwide AI rollout, faculty were able to apply for research grants, a move that reflects the university’s decision to study and shape AI use, rather than avoid it.
Education professor Erin Ramirez, who trains future teachers, says schools have a responsibility to confront the technology directly.
“The more you tell a student they can’t use it, the more they wanna use it,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez’s grant focuses on developing tools to teach ethical and effective AI use in middle and high school classrooms. She said failing to address AI directly would leave future students unprepared. “We’re doing a disservice to future generations to not acknowledge that it’s here and teach them how to use it in an ethical way,” she said.
Business professor Jill Hosmer-Jolley shares that perspective.
“The project I’m funded for through the Chancellor’s Office is to develop a set of four courses that integrate AI into the curriculum,” Hosmer-Jolley said.
She and her colleagues are taking an innovative approach to preparing classrooms for the advancement of AI technology. They also have a focus on ethical and effective use of AI.
Students and faculty agree it can help with certain skills like organization, efficiency and translation. And everyone recognizes that it’s here to stay. Part of the reason CSU wanted to put ChatGPT in every student’s toolkit was to ensure they’d be prepared for future jobs.
“In order to compete with the people who’ve been in the workplace you actually have to have AI experience,” Hosmer-Jolley said
The goal is not to let artificial intelligence replace learning, she adds, but to ensure students graduate knowing how to work with the technology responsibly. That also means ensuring faculty are teaching students to learn with AI, not just through it.
In order to compete with the people who’ve been in the workplace you actually have to have AI experience.Jill Hosmer-Jolley
Ramirez says part of the challenge is that there is still no shared understanding of how artificial intelligence should be used in teaching.
“No one really knows how to use it effectively in teaching,” she said.
Her research is designed to turn that uncertainty into an opportunity to train future educators and, eventually, extend AI literacy beyond the university.
“And so our goal is to bridge that gap for this area, which I also think will help reduce the digital gap throughout Monterey County, particularly when I think of South Monterey County. Let's teach people how to teach students down there, like, what these things are,” she said.
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, Ramirez hopes her research will help find ways to fill some of those gaps.
Even as students get used to AI being ubiquitous and some faculty hope their research will help ease fears and increase acceptance, there will likely still be people trying to steer clear of it.
Despite the free ChatGPT access and significant hype around AI, no one is ever obligated to use it.
