Does Student Council really condone the use of AI? The answer may surprise you! Student Council kicked off AI Week on Tuesday with a faculty panel discussion on the use of AI on campus. 

The panel was organized by Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew Pilat ’25 and the Academic Affairs Committee as a part of a series of events intending to educate students on the appropriate use of AI and reduce instances of academic infractions involving the technology. Pilat introduced the panel after a few words explaining the motivation behind hosting a panel of professors as representatives of a liberal arts education. “We chose [Kenyon] because we seek to constantly have our world views challenged. We are pushed to grow in a supportive, caring environment,” Pilat said.

The panel included Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities Katherine Elkins, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Alexandra Bradner, Professor of Mathematics Noah Aydin and Associate Professor of Physics Madeline Wade. Elkins was the only panelist with work experience explicitly relating to AI, while other professors introduced themselves as laymen to the subject of AI.

With professor panelists hailing from a variety of departments, the purpose of the discussion was to consider “ways in which AI can benefit or hinder the educational experience at Kenyon,” according to an all-student email sent by Student Council. The panelists primarily discussed their class policies surrounding AI and how they decided to restrict — or, in some cases, encourage — its use depending on the context of their department. The panel concluded with a Q&A session.

As a co-founder of Kenyon’s AI lab, Elkins has toured several universities, including Yale, Harvard and Notre Dame, to consult their administrations on AI policy. Throughout the event, she described AI as somewhat uncontrollable and destructive. “I am extremely concerned about [AI use],” she said. “I’ve seen it in my own classes with students who’ve over relied on it and then not been able to do final projects because they, in fact, had not learned the skills that I had believed that they had learned.” However, Elkin argued that a ban on the use of generative AI would only cause students to become more secretive in their use of AI, and added that the use of AI is a rational behavior for Kenyon students. “Recent research suggests that the use of AI for assignments is hard to detect, and students tend to get higher grades,” Elkins argued. “So we are essentially asking students to spend more time to potentially get lower grades.”

While Elkins argued that professors should accept the possibility that AI is being used in every assignment, not all panelists agreed. On the experience of learning specifically, Bradner argued that combating the use of AI in the classroom meant promoting the “non-sexual eroticism to learning,” reminding students that learning new information is supposed to be something fun and meaningful. Bradner, like every panelist, had a nuanced stance on AI. She praised the technology for its ability to refine existing writing, which would support foreign students and those who don’t come from schools that offer high quality English programs. Similarly, Aydin and Wade argued for some limited acceptable use of AI, as they believed it couldn’t substantially affect the empirical problem solving involved in STEM courses.

Overall, there was a lack of consensus from the panel on what a college wide policy would look like in regards to the benefits or drawbacks of AI. Individually, however, the panelists highlighted the different viable uses of AI in their department. The panel emphasized the unique differences in pedagogy and even the value of discretion between professors. “It is really course specific, content specific and professor specific, right? Every professor may have different goals for you. So, yeah, it can be a really useful tool, but it can also be really harmful to your education. So we need to be mindful about using it blind,” Aydin said.