Oberlin, AI, and the Year Ahead

Dear Students and Colleagues,

Last fall, Oberlin launched a Year of AI Exploration: a proactive, campus-wide effort to consider how we can best prepare for a future in which artificial intelligence increasingly shapes higher education, the workplace, and the student experience.

Oberlin has never been content simply to observe change. We seek to understand it, question it, and help shape it. Our goal was, and remains, to ensure that we are at the forefront of important conversations related to AI and the rapidly escalating ways it is influencing—and in some cases challenging—our established practices and responsibilities.

The work we began together last year will provide a foundation for what comes next. Through the surveys we initiated for students, faculty, and staff, we learned more about the prevailing attitudes toward AI on our campus. Workshops, guest speakers, and training sessions created opportunities to examine AI technology and its implications more closely. The Oberlin-licensed AI tools that we made available to our faculty and staff allowed us to build skills, while the microgrants we allocated supported research on Oberlin-specific applications of AI.

It is important that we are launching the new Critical AI Studies minor this fall. This program reflects what Oberlin does best: bringing together knowledge from across disciplines and preparing students to engage thoughtfully with the most consequential questions of our time. It will empower our students to address emerging technologies, while they consider their ethical, social, cultural, and intellectual implications.

This year, we will take a few additional steps in our exploration of AI and its applications across campus, while still leaving room for the healthy skepticism that this technology engenders. Our efforts will allow us to establish a forum for institutional AI governance, assess emerging AI tools, and continue to refine the policies, guidelines, and standards that govern their use.

• We will convene a cross-functional review team to help refine and develop guidelines as we assess the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in the business functions of the institution. These will serve as clear ethical and operational guardrails to protect our data and ensure that our governance structures keep pace with rapid advancements in technology.
   
• We will continue to offer AI literacy initiatives, training, and other support for our faculty, staff, and students.
   
• We will do another round of surveys of our faculty, staff, and students to establish what has changed and what is yet to come. These results will be compared to our AI survey results from last year.
   
• Admissions will pilot a virtual assistant to support individuals seeking an online connection and to respond to inquiries from prospective students and their families that occur when the admissions office is closed. This tool will complement, not replace, the meaningful human relationship that remains at the heart of our admissions work. I expect other areas of the college to pilot and explore other AI applications. 
   
• We will create opportunities to learn about the outcomes of last year’s microgrant-supported research and issue a new round of microgrant funding to support inquiry and experimentation among our students.
   
• We have also begun this second year by making an institutionally licensed version of Google Gemini available to students who complete a brief training session on responsible use.

I recognize that AI and its uses can be a troubling subject. And I think we all agree that healthy skepticism is warranted. But no matter your perspective, it is safe to say that this technology is rapidly impacting our world. As stewards of this institution, I believe we have a responsibility to engage with this change in a deliberate and critical way. Most importantly, we must prepare Oberlin students not merely to adapt to this changing world, but to be prepared to influence it with wisdom, creativity, integrity, and a commitment to the common good.

We have come a long way as a campus in our understanding of AI, as well as collectively understanding its limitations. This year will be another year of learning together, and I look forward to engaging with you. 

With gratitude,

President Ambar