Ever since she fell in love with reading as a child, Cynthia Dollins, EdD has cultivated a life-long pursuit toward literacy studies with the aim of increasing every student’s access to books. Dollins, who has earned multiple degrees in education, has devoted her career to transforming lives through literature. At Azusa Pacific University, she equips graduate students with the tools to spread God’s love by appreciating the voices of those who share their stories.
Originally from Alhambra, Calif., Dollins spent a majority of her childhood getting lost in books she read from the library. “My mom instilled an appreciation for reading, so early on I felt called to help people discover the power of words,” she said. “Everyone deserves to witness the beauty of what words can do. Books open the mind to a world of new perspectives.”
Dollins began teaching elementary school after earning a BA in Liberal Studies from Cal Poly Pomona. “I immediately loved my students, and even though I thought I was finished with my own education, God led me to keep learning more in order to provide the most I possibly could to each student,” she said. Dollins earned three teaching credentials, an MA in Education, and an MS in Educational Administration. While she was the principal of an elementary school, Dollins’ superintendent asked when she would be getting her doctorate. “I guess now,” Dollins said. She went to Pepperdine for an EdD in Leadership, Administration, and Policy.
Dollins is driven to advocate for literacy in all her endeavors. She fondly looks back on her days as a principal when she initiated “literacy nights” for students and parents to get together and engage in reading and writing in different languages to uplift multiculturalism. Her passion for expanding students’ possibilities led Dollins to write a book, The ABC’s of Literacy: Preparing Our Children for Lifelong Learning. As a guide for parents and early childhood educators, Dollins’ book covers the best methods for selecting books that are enjoyable and enriching for children.
In 2019, Dollins applied for an adjunct professor position at APU, seeking a role that would allow her to embrace her faith through her vocation, and was offered a full time role. “God truly called me to APU, and I listened attentively. I’m grateful I can incorporate faith in my profession, showing students how they can do the same thing,” she said. Dollins teaches graduate students in the School of Education, instructing courses in curriculum development, classroom management, and philosophy of education. She emphasizes the importance of modeling Christian principles through one’s actions. “If we select the right books to read with children, even secular stories can reveal Christ-like character. Most importantly, we share God’s love by showing it in who we are.”
When asked what she hopes students carry throughout their careers, Dollins expressed the vitality of developing strong connections. “Jesus was the best teacher, and he connected with the people he taught. So I hope educators build strong relationships with the students who enter their classrooms,” Dollins said. She encourages students to embody Christian practices by illustrating love, care, and concern to every student they meet. “One big way educators can share love is by learning their students’ stories and sharing their own. We must understand people in order to love them well.”
Dollins’ God-given love for storytelling has taken her across many journeys throughout her career, all rooted in sharing the power of words with students. While Dollins has been impacted by many stories across time and place, her own story of advocating for literacy in schools has touched the lives of countless students. By answering God’s call, Dollins models what it means to be a difference maker.
As the women on Azusa Pacific University’s soccer team race across the field, dirt gathering around their knee high socks while they envision scoring goals in their next match, Brooke Lincoln, their head coach, keeps a watchful eye on their moves. But she doesn’t just observe how well they run with the ball or work as a team. Rather, Lincoln’s commitment to honing the players’ skills is rooted in her devotion to glorify God in all of her actions. As an excellent role model, many of the women she leads follow suit, cultivating a team that is united in uplifting one another, and above all, Christ.
Originally from Byram, a small town near Jackson, Miss., Lincoln never thought she would someday live in the hustle and bustle of Southern California. She started playing soccer at 10-years-old. After playing on her high school’s team, and one year in college, Lincoln realized she might see a future in coaching the sport. As soon as she started coaching youth recreational teams, Lincoln fell in love with it, however, she didn’t see coaching becoming her profession. Lincoln studied elementary education at Mississippi College, hoping to pursue foreign missions.
Looking back on her journey from the South to the West Coast, Lincoln is amazed at how God orchestrated her vocation. “I stopped by a snow cone stand toward the end of my last semester of college, and the girl serving had a soccer club shirt on, which sparked a conversation. I found out her high school, my alma mater, needed a soccer coach,” she said. At 22-years-old, Lincoln’s first day coaching the high school team was a lightbulb moment. She knew exactly what she was meant to do.
For a few years, Lincoln taught at the high school while coaching, but she always enjoyed the soccer season more than teaching. “Life is too short to be waiting for three o’clock to roll around,” she said, expressing her realization to pursue full-time coaching. She still wanted to fulfill the desire to go overseas, however, so after resigning from her teaching job, Lincoln participated in Youth With A Mission, an organization that allowed her to live abroad for a year. She spent a few months in Belize and Honduras working in discipleship programs. Then she lived in Vancouver, Canada, working for the organization Athletes in Action and Trinity Western University. She was a volunteer coach for the university’s highly competitive team.
“That’s where I saw my passions come together. I witnessed what it looked like to follow Jesus and compete at a high level with Christ at the center of it all.”
Although Lincoln enjoyed her time in Canada, she returned home to Mississippi and found a job as the graduate assistant coach at Belhaven University, where she earned her Masters in Sports Administration. “When you’re walking with Jesus, there’s a peace that surpasses all understanding,” she said. Lincoln found this peace at Asbury University in Kentucky when she landed her first college head coaching job.
Even though Lincoln found immense joy in coaching at Asbury, she felt like she couldn’t take their program much further with the resources available. She flew to SoCal and interviewed for a job at Point Loma. She was briefly disappointed when they didn’t offer her the job, but she held onto the peace she knew God would offer wherever He led. Two weeks later she got a call from APU.
In 2018, Lincoln made the biggest move of her life. Inspired by Moses’ story in Exodus, Lincoln believes God gave her the tools to follow Him even when she felt unprepared. “God ended up moving a small town girl to Los Angeles, where all my neighbors are from different countries, I get to lead a diverse team, and coaching soccer is my full-time ministry,” she said. For the past six years, Lincoln has embraced her calling at APU as the head coach of the women’s soccer team. “My job is to make the field a safe place for players to come as they are and explore their faith.”
Reflecting on the team’s memories that have stuck with her, Lincoln shared what she calls “Go God” moments, which are times that can only be explained as the Lord’s powerful intervention. Lincoln especially loves watching seasoned players mentor newer ones. One of her favorite moments was witnessing senior and junior teammates baptize a freshman last spring. Lincoln hopes to continue developing a space where the team encourages each other on and off the field.
Devdyuti Paul is made for a museum career. Growing up in Queens, New York, Paul would pass by the King Manor Museum every day. In the second grade, Paul says she finally entered through the doors on a field trip. “I think it was my first time walking through such an old house and seeing those creaking hallways and seeing the peeling paint and the old, Constitution-era artworks that were there,” she says. “That was a really magical moment for me.”Growing up Paul frequented the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially the Buddhist section of the Asian Art wing, which she says is very calming and tranquil.
WhyPaul’s personal motivation for arts marketing comes from her exposure to programs as a child. “I’m from New York City, and I come from a pretty working-class background,” she says. Paul recalls hours spent in libraries and art museums, taking workshops and free lessons while her parents worked long hours. “Those are some of my core memories growing up in the city,” she says, “and they were brought to our attention through dedicated promotional efforts, specifically to these urban students.”People need art, Paul says. “It’s life-changing. It’s a way for people to feel catharsis; it’s a way to put a satisfaction to uncertain pulls or yearnings that I personally feel.” Paul says she feels especially connected to historical art, which helps her to imagine the generations of creative people that came before her. “It’s really humbling for me when I step into a museum and see works from before my time.”Art, she says, can be “a pathway for people to feel at peace with themselves. And a way for folks to connect with others as well.”Paul’s internship was made possible by the Povich RealArts@Penn Internship Prizes. Funded by 1962 Penn alum Maury Povich, the prizes provide a stipend for Penn students chosen for summer internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
Each year, the University of Mary Washington opens the semester with an all-faculty meeting, celebrating contributions to the UMW community, dedicated expertise to fields of study, and support and mentorship of students. In fall 2024, five faculty members earned awards for their commitment to undergraduate and graduate teaching, as well as service to the campus and their professions.
Professor of Classics Angela Pitts received the Grellet C. Simpson Award, which recognizes outstanding undergraduate teaching. Throughout her tenure at UMW, she has expanded the curricula, taught across-the-curriculum programs, led study abroad, and demonstrated initiative and innovation. She has brought the field of classics to new students by developing classes for the general education program and at the same time she has transformed the upper-division curriculum of her program by creating classes that address issues of contemporary interest. As one colleague wrote, she “sets the ‘gold standard’ for excellence in teaching at Mary Washington” and addresses “not only the education but also the health and well-being of students.” She initiated an annual Mindfulness Week on campus, and in 2015, she introduced a course on contemplative practices, and then a minor in contemplative studies, only the second program of its kind in the nation at the time.
Professor of Education Kyle Schultz earned the Graduate Faculty Award. A mentor to hundreds of graduate students during his 7-year tenure at UMW, including leading as many as 25 at a time through the process of developing and carrying out individual research projects, he has also supervised them in field-based internships. His former students write of the profound impact that his mentorship had on their professional development. While working at Mary Washington, Schultz has served as co-principal investigator for two National Science Foundation grants with awards totaling over two million dollars and has held the Waple Professorship. He serves his field off campus, delivering many by-invitation presentations, facilitating professional workshops, completing frequent consulting projects and publishing several papers.
Assistant Professor of Psychological Science Marcus Leppanen received the Outstanding Young Faculty Award, which is presented to a full-time faculty member who has two to five years of full-time teaching service at Mary Washington. Leppanen’s enthusiasm for pedagogy shines through his work. A frequent member of teaching workshops, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Group, and the Inclusive Course Design group, he also participates in the Council on Undergraduate Research. One recommender wrote of how he “is creative in the classroom, challenging students to actively participate and to apply what they have learned to everyday experiences.” He uses a data-driven approach and best practices to enhance learning, sharing knowledge in and beyond the classroom. He has worked with several teams of students on research projects and supervised student research for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Summer Institute at Mary Washington, resulting in presentations and impending publications.
Associate Professor Emerita of Education Jane Huffman received the Topher Bill Award posthumously in recognition of outstanding faculty service. Within the College of Education, Huffman, who passed away in March, played many roles. She chaired the Curriculum and Assessment Committee and the Department of Foundations, Leadership and Special Populations; she was program director for Advanced Programs; and she served on the leadership team, which advises the dean of education. Huffman taught classes in Elementary Goals and Practices, Development of the Learner and Instructional Practices, and Elementary Social Studies. Throughout her work, she kept an open mind about new and engaging teaching methods including the use of hands-on problem-based learning strategies. She integrated the use of Lego bricks in her teaching methods classes, which inspired and led to the Lego wall in the Seacobeck Makerspace. She was the 2018 winner of the Graduate Faculty Award. In addition, Huffman was actively engaged in leadership for many years at the state level with the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education in Virginia, where she served as the executive director and as president, and the Association of Teacher Educators. Huffman was named Associate Professor Emerita of Education in spring 2024.
Associate Professor of Psychological Science Laura Wilson received the Waple Faculty Professional Achievement Award recognizing the significance and impact of a faculty member’s scholarly, creative or other professional achievements. A clinical psychologist who specializes in post-trauma functioning, Wilson has been named a “Rising Star” by the Association for Psychological Science, and she has co-authored two books and published more than 70 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and articles. She has given 40 by-invitation talks and panelist presentations as well, as 36 poster presentations, and has often served as an invited symposium chair. She has served across the United States for Supreme Judicial Court briefs, worked internationally as a grant proposal reviewer and is at the top of all the research metrics for her field.
Policy creation might not be exciting, but it is essential, especially when something new arrives on the scene and an organization does not have an easy or clear means of modifying existing policies to accommodate the new development. One such arrival happened in late November 2022 with generative AI, and a year later, many colleges and universities are still scrambling to figure out an AI policy that works at the institutional, departmental, and course levels.Footnote1
New technologies tend to follow a particular hype cycle, particularly in higher education.Footnote2 However, the possibilities, problems, and paradigms that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing represent are many and can touch every part of the institution and its stakeholders.
Higher education focuses on building knowledge and investing in the written word, whether it’s scholarly research or demonstrations of learning such as essays, research papers, theses, or dissertations. The underlying assumption is that such work could not be significantly faked aside from paying another individual (such as student paper mills) or taking the work of others without attribution. Generative AI upends much of that baseline and in fact will challenge many institutions’ academic integrity policies because they often prohibit copying from websites or acquiring papers from other individuals. Generative AI will also introduce other ethical and procedures considerations throughout the institution.
In this article, we provide guidance and recommendations for approaching the development of institutional policy around using generative AI tools in higher education. We aim to help leaders in higher education institutions work more effectively to establish a pathway to a policy that includes various stakeholders and ultimately reduces the risk that members of the institution will take policy matters into their own hands, resulting in problems for the entire institution.Footnote3
This piece evolved from our institutional roles (instructional design, writing support, and research and library support), our individual work at our respective institutions, and a half-day workshop on generative AI policy development that we facilitated for the NERCOMP 2023 Annual Conference. The workshop included a student panel, followed by focused conversations around several topics related to generative AI: ethics and plagiarism, bias, instructional technology, opportunities, and threats. For the final part of the workshop, we facilitated a mini design sprint for policy development.
The Need for Policy
The number of ways that generative AI tools can be used is part of what has drawn so much attention to them. In higher education, generative AI has been used for press releases about students’ deaths, for graduation speeches, and as tutors, to name a few examples.Footnote4 Given the nature of knowledge work throughout higher education, institutions need to determine where generative AI tools are appropriate and where they represent ethical or legal challenges.
One of the most pressing examples of areas for guidance is the discourse around plagiarism and how to detect it in an era of AI-generated content. Institutions are under pressure (whether organic or manufactured) to respond in some manner to the rise of generative AI as a widely available tool. The first wave of awareness seemed to be generated around plagiarism concerns and worker replacement theories (“Students will never write original papers again” and “Robots are replacing everyone”). For those in higher education, the drumbeat of fearmongering about plagiarism has succeeded in capturing faculty and administrative attention.
Early on, some assumed that generative AI work submitted by students could be identified with generative AI plagiarism checkers. TurnItIn’s documentation states, “Our AI Writing detector’s false positive rate is less than 1% for documents with 20% or more AI writing (our tests showed that in cases where we detect less than 20% of AI writing in a document, there is a higher incidence of false positives).”Footnote5 However, after the TurnItIn AI Detector was used in practice, across 38 million papers, false negative and positive detections are now at a higher risk.Footnote6 TurnItIn and other companies claim to offer greater odds of correct detection than reality seems to bear out. Additionally, further research is showing biases in what AI-plagiarism detection tools flag as being AI generated, including an increased likelihood of inaccurately flagging multi-language learners’ work as having been generated by AI.Footnote7 Beyond the problem of false accusations, this environment also creates an untenable situation for students who must somehow defend themselves against a machine that cannot show its work but is just a projection. Additionally, students are using tools such as QuillBot, which will paraphrase text and use synonyms, to circumvent AI detection tools.
As original student writing becomes increasingly difficult to verify and confirm, developing a policy for AI detection might result in its being outdated just as the policy is implemented. Having an agile committee representative of diverse campus needs who can both review these issues and considerations to craft a more useful policy is part of what is needed to both protect students and choose the right tools for navigating the technological changes.
This is but one issue that higher education needs to navigate when crafting policy around generative AI. Other issues include but are not limited to the following:
The role of generative AI in visual and textual outputs of the institution, be they for marketing, for social media, or in reports
How and where faculty can use generative AI in the creation of course content, assignments, and feedback or assessments
Addressing the embedded biases of the data and outputsFootnote8
The impact and challenge of information literacyFootnote9
The environmental impact of generative AI, including greenhouse gassesFootnote10 and water usageFootnote11
The impact on workersFootnote12 needed to run generative AIFootnote13
Starting with the End
In many areas of life, including instructional design, an ideal place to start is with the results—what you want the outcome to be or do. To feel that your—and your collaborators’—time has not been wasted, and to see that you have made progress toward what might still be an abstract version of achievement, codify what success looks like for you, your collaborators, your stakeholders, and the final institutional arbiters. As AI continues to develop at a rapid pace, it is important to pause and do enough research so that you can formulate the questions you ultimately seek to answer. Below are some questions to get you started in thinking about this policy:
Whom is the policy going to focus on? Students, faculty, staff, administration, third-party vendors, contractors, etc.?
Can the same policy apply across the institution, or will different policies be needed for different parts of the organization?
Will the policy stand on its own, or will there be room for adjustments (for example, will students encounter variations depending on whether instructors—under the notion of academic freedom—want to encourage or discourage certain uses of generative AI for the purposes of teaching)?
What can or will be the implications of violating the policy?
What methods of accountability with the policy can be created when it may be hard to actually detect generative AI text?
Will there be differences between institutionally affiliated generative tools and those that are available to anyone?
Perhaps you are still in the fact-finding and idea-generating stage—you might need to specifically dedicate time to consider what will constitute your goal for the mission. You may decide that success for your group means developing and writing down these measurable goals. That is, you might still be in the phase of brainstorming and research, and you might need to take time to decide what your goals are. Ultimately, all involved should agree on specific measurable outcomes that are necessary for your group to have completed your work.
It is natural to feel a sense of urgency to take action, and it might be tempting to rush through this step. Although this process will not necessarily be easy, it will be helpful in carving out exactly what you are going to do in this phase. One of the trickiest parts about generative AI is that it has continued to change and shift in the past 12 months and will likely continue to do so, especially as other forms of generative AI (image,
When one of the university’s service providers suffered a data breach that exposed health information for several thousand students, Taylor saw an opportunity to make lemonade from an unfortunate circumstance. From his position in the institution’s IT department, Taylor had long advocated for a strong, formal program to evaluate the risks posed by third-party providers. His appeals had gone largely unheeded, though, caught between resistance from senior leaders about the cost for such a program and opposition from faculty—and sometimes students—who were loath to forgo certain technology tools and services if the service provider couldn’t pass a risk assessment. And yet when word of the breach got out, the students were angry and the administration wanted answers.
In this case, the student health center had implemented a third-party application that allowed students to submit family medical histories and information about their own health and stress levels to a service that triangulated those data with grades and other university-provided measures of engagement. The service would then provide students with weekly personalized recommendations about lifestyle practices that could improve their physical and mental health. Only students who opted in to the program were included, and the data were confidential…until the breach.
Seeing firsthand the consequences of insufficient attention to third-party risk management (TPRM), the campus community was suddenly on board. Taylor was charged with establishing TPRM policy, processes, and standards, and he assembled a small group from various units across campus, including legal counsel, regulatory compliance, IT, and the faculty senate. They began the arduous process of developing a full inventory of third-party products and their uses. What quickly became clear was that there were too many third-party products and services already deployed and too many more in the queue to perform an exhaustive review of each one. The group established guidelines for reviewing existing and new tools,
applying a prioritization schema based on risk and reach. Some tools were jettisoned because the university already had other products or services that performed the same or similar functions and were less risky. Some were replaced with more trustworthy alternatives. A long-running research project was using a third-party tool that the TPRM group would not have approved but that was required by the agency that sponsored the research; for this tool, the IT staff implemented additional security controls to better protect the university. Even with such exceptions, though, and relatively cursory reviews for other products and services, Taylor could confidently say to the members of the university community that significant amounts of risk had been identified and either eliminated or minimized, with relatively minor impacts on users and programs that depended on third-party tools.
1. What Is It?
Third-party risk management (TPRM) refers to the activities and policies designed to identify, assess, and mitigate the potential risks from products and services provided by outside vendors, suppliers, contractors, or service providers. Higher education relies on a large—and seemingly always expanding—catalog of technology tools, any of which carries some risk to the institution and its constituents. Using third-party products and services can bring significant benefits, but institutions need to weigh those benefits against the costs when evaluating the risk from third parties. Managing the risks of applications developed in-house presents its own challenges, and that difficulty is multiplied for technology developed and maintained by a third-party provider, which might be a commercial vendor, a different higher education institution, or another type of entity.
TPRM involves understanding the potential risks external parties may pose to an organization’s operations, data security, reputation, and regulatory compliance. Those risks encompass areas including information security, data privacy, regulatory compliance, business continuity, basic functionality (ensuring technology products and services function as intended, without breaking anything else), accessibility, and ethical considerations. On the security front, any of the elements of the C-I-A triad (confidentiality, integrity, and availability) could be compromised by a third-party product. For some campuses, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations need to be taken into account, and a third party might not satisfy those requirements. One common risk for cloud-based services is the potential for breach of confidential information. Similar risks may apply to on-premises software if the source code is stolen and attackers then use that to find vulnerabilities in the software. Such risks apply broadly across many vendors and could involve enterprise tools used across the institution or specialized software used in a single class or research project. This risk also includes integrations between cloud services such as Learning Tools Interoperability in a campus learning management system. Risks extend to student-led activities—for example, if a student group takes credit card payments for a fund-raising activity, that may incur risk for the institution (if cardholder data is breached), even though it’s “just students” using the technology.
2. How Does It Work?
Classic risk modeling multiplies the likelihood (odds) of an event by its impact (cost) to understand the economics of reducing risk. An institution can then propose various controls to reduce risk and weigh the cost of those controls versus the value of the reduced risk. For a given product, multiple types of risk might apply, and each of those risks can be assigned a score. The overall risk for the product or services can then be expressed as the highest score of all the applicable risks. For example, if the risk of service outage is low, and the risk of data breach is medium, then the overall risk is medium. Assessing these risks, however, can be complex. In the case of a learning management system, the impact of an outage during winter break is very different from the impact on the first day of final exams.
Part of the complexity of TPRM is maintaining an accurate inventory of the third parties and knowing every instance on a campus that uses each tool or service, as well as knowing whom to contact about a particular third party and who is responsible for the third-party tool if it’s used by multiple units on campus. Another aspect of TPRM is monitoring vendor health and the risk that a vendor might go out of business, end support a product, or significantly increase pricing, forcing an unexpected change. All of this work often requires more effort than many campuses are able or willing to devote, resulting in point-in-time evaluations that are less reliable than a comprehensive program. The procurement process might address risk through standard terms and conditions that apply across all vendors, not just technology vendors. One way vendors can offer assurance is by undergoing a SOC 2 Type II audit, in which a third party audits the effectiveness of the vendor’s security practices.
Can the paradox between individual tutoring and social learning be reconciled through the possibility of AI?
For decades, the paradox between group learning and individual tutoring has been evident. In 1977, Albert Bandura introduced the idea that learning is a social endeavor.Footnote1 Through observation, imitation, and interactions with peers, students learn better and retain more than they would otherwise. This theory supports currently popular instructional approaches such as online discussion groups, peer learning, and active learning. In 1984, the educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom found that individual tutoring yielded superior performance when compared with traditional classroom instructional methods.Footnote2 Bloom acknowledged that individually tutoring all students was unrealistic, so he proposed that researchers look for classroom instruction methods that can approach the efficacy of tutoring.
Fast-forward to 2024: tutoring systems based on generative AI (GenAI) now make large-scale personalized tutoring not only possible but also accessible to all. However, the important social aspects of learning will be missing if all students study independently. Does AI offer the possibility of combining the effectiveness of tutoring with the beneficial social aspects of learning? I believe the answer is yes: the chasm between these approaches can be bridged through the thoughtful use of GenAI tutors in both classroom and online settings. The key lies in intentionally designing GenAI tutors and structuring learning activities to take advantage of social interaction with peers.
To illustrate my belief in the possibility represented by AI tutors, I will focus here on a specific app. Numerous GenAI tutors are currently available, with more being released almost every day.Footnote3 Some are subject specific, while others provide tutoring and homework help on all subjects. Some are available at no charge, while others require a subscription or donation for access. Moreover, some are restricted to students geographically or institutionally. AI Tutor Pro is a freely available, ChatGPT-based tutor.Footnote4 AI Tutor Pro personalizes learning about any topic, at any level, in thirty languages. The app illustrates how a GenAI tutor can be used to foster social interaction and learning.
Learning is supported by two distinctly different functions in AI Tutor Pro: the “Check my knowledge and skills on any topic” tool and the “Grow my knowledge and skills on any topic” tool. After a learner enters a topic, the “Check” tool asks questions about the topic in a friendly, interactive chat session. Users can enter their answers in free-form text or simply say they don’t know the answer. AI Tutor Pro responds in a supportive way by praising the learner for a correct answer or providing a hint for an incorrect answer to encourage trying again. The interactive chat session continues until the learner decides to end the session. At that point, a summary table of all questions asked by AI Tutor Pro, the correct answers, and the learner’s answers is produced. This entire session and the summary table can be copied for future reference, or the summary table can be shared on social media.
With the AI Tutor Pro “Grow” tool, the learner enters a Socratic-style dialogue. AI Tutor Pro begins by asking a thought-provoking question such as “Have you ever wondered why . . . ?” Unlike with the “Check” tool, learners aren’t given the correct answer. Their learning is scaffolded, and details about the topic are revealed layer by layer through exploration and interaction with the chatbot. The session continues until the learner decides to end it or chooses to learn about another, related aspect of the topic.
Common to both the “Check” and the “Grow” tools is the ability for the learner to copy and paste text as the subject to interact with the chatbot or upload a file. This allows learners to improve their understanding of assigned readings or lecture transcripts, for example, by interacting with this text. In lieu of copying and pasting or uploading, mobile users can scan text to use as the subject of a session.
Three features of AI Tutor Pro are designed to support a variety of learner characteristics. One feature allows learners to select the language complexity of a session by choosing whether they want to interact using language on the elementary school, high school, undergraduate, or professional level. This is not to suggest that AI Tutor Pro is recommended for use by young learners; rather, it allows concepts and interactions to be carried out at a reading level with which learners are most comfortable.Footnote5
A second feature allows learners to talk with the chatbot in thirty different languages. Contact North | Contact Nord added this feature after discovering that many users tried using foreign languages even though nothing suggested they could. The interface remains in English (there is also a French version of AI Tutor Pro), but the dialogue is presented in the chosen language. This feature makes learning more accessible to users whose first language is not English. A bonus of this function is that it can support international language learners to carry on a conversation in their target language.
A third feature allows AI Tutor Pro’s responses to be read aloud. This supports auditory learners and also learners with low vision. When the app is used on a mobile device, learners can choose the voice input feature of their device so that they can have an entirely oral conversation with the chatbot. The language feature works with this option as well, which means that users can learn a language in the context of any subject.
AI as a Social Learning Tool
All the features of AI Tutor Pro noted above point to its use as a personalized learning tool. While this is certainly one of its aspects, the app can also bridge the gap between individualized and social learning. Listed below are ten suggestions for how faculty can apply the app for social learning in classroom settings and, with adaptation, in online environments. Whereas some suggestions are unique to AI Tutor Pro, others are applicable to most other AI tutors as well.
As part of the 2024 UCSB Summer Carillon Recital Series, Junrui Liu (UCSB Student Carillonist), Iris Yuh (UCSB Student Carillonist, Class of 2024), and Wesley Arai (UCSB University Carillonist) will present a recital from the carillon in UCSB’s Storke Tower on Sunday, September 8th at 2:00pm. Selections will include solo works and duets, covering a wide range of original works for carillon and arrangements of well-known classical and popular tunes. Listeners are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair to sit on the grass outside the tower during the recital.
Junrui Liu is a rising fourth-year computer science PhD student from Changsha, China. His main instrument is the organ if he chances upon one to practice on, and piano otherwise. He took lessons for the former instrument in college, and has performed for recitals and services. Junrui became interested in the carillon for its fascinating sound signature and unique method of playing. When not practicing the carillon, Junrui researches designing programming languages and proving computer programs safe. If he still has time left, he also enjoys playing badminton or watching owarai. Junrui has studied the carillon for one year.
Iris Yuh is a fourth-year majoring in economics and environmental studies with a minor in music, and she is from the Bay Area. She has been taking piano lessons since she was 5, and has continued her lessons throughout her time at UCSB with Dr. Charles Asche. Throughout elementary to high school, Iris played cello in the Golden Gate Youth Orchestra and in school ensembles. Her passion for music inspired her to pursue not only piano in college but also carillon. Iris is fascinated by how the carillon operates and how its playing style both differs from and is similar to the way the piano is played, especially regarding the bells component, which inspired her to begin taking carillon lessons for the first time this quarter. On campus, she has been involved in student organizations such as Environmental Affairs Board, Alpha Sigma Kappa, and TASA. In her free time, she enjoys reading, biking, cooking, going on nature walks, and playing cards with her friends. Iris has studied the carillon for one year.
Wesley Arai was appointed Lecturer and University Carillonist at UCSB in 2018. He plays the 61-bell Storke Tower carillon regularly and teaches carillon to UCSB students. Arai studied carillon with Jeff Davis as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received BA degrees in Mathematics and Statistics. While earning an MA degree in Mathematics at UCLA, he continued to play the carillon and subsequently passed the Carillonneur examination of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Arai then served as Associate Carillonist at the University of California, Berkeley. An active recitalist, Arai has performed extensively across the United States and abroad. Most recently, he has performed in Europe and in Australia, gave the dedicatory recital for the carillon at the University of Washington, and performed at the Ninth Berkeley Carillon Festival and at multiple Congresses of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Arai is also an annual recitalist at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington and is a frequent recitalist at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
Apioneer in local commercial television broadcasting, Marilyn F. (Dillard) Solomon produced weekly prime-time current affairs news analysis programs and long form documentaries on critical issues such as the Iran hostage crisis, the Turkish-Armenian conflict, and the history of Los Angeles’ Afro-Latino settlers. Her archives, now part of UC Santa Barbara Library’s Film & Television Collection, offer significant research potential and preserve the historic record of Southern California media.
“Marilyn’s archives are an incredible addition to our Film & Television Collection because she was a pioneer in telling the stories of underrepresented communities on television, recognizing that local issues could have national effects,” said Laura Treat Liebhaber, UCSB Library film and television curator. “It is rare that local television programming archives from this era exist because most TV stations did not preserve their materials. Marilyn’s collection represents an important voice in the historic record of Southern California media and her archives hold significant research potential for scholars across various disciplines.”
Raised in Detroit by activist parents Ernest C. and Jessie M. Dillard, Solomon’s commitment to activism shaped her career. Hired by KCOP-TV in 1969, she produced programs highlighting civic and governmental affairs, international events, and multiracial relations, including the first weekly program addressing gay and lesbian issues in Southern California, “My Turn.” Solomon’s work earned numerous accolades, including the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for Excellence in Television Journalism and the International Documentary Association CINDY Award.
“It is deeply satisfying to have my archives included in the Library’s Film & Television Collection,” Solomon said. “For 25 years, I was blessed with the opportunity to provide a series of video bridges, connections toward understanding and appreciation. During those years, the catchphrase was, ‘LA’s the place.’ Now, thanks to UCSB Library, some of the history of this unique American region is preserved.”
From small mammals to crustaceans, tiny amphibians to flightless birds, there are over one million animal species described on Earth, and millions more we don’t know about. With so many animals, many are bound to go extinct, and humans can speed up the process. But through scientific ingenuity, international cooperation, and pure determination, the global scientific community is conserving biodiversity across the planet. Here are six animals the Smithsonian has helped save from the brink of extinction:
Before he founded the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in 1888, William Temple Hornaday served as a taxidermist for the U.S. National Museum. He was also an avid hunter and explorer of the American West. In 1886, Hornaday embarked on a collecting trip to Montana on behalf of the National Museum, where he was horrified to find that the magnificent American bison was facing extinction, having been slaughtered in large numbers as settlement moved West.
The trip converted him from hunter to conservationist: he secured a small breeding herd and brought it back to Washington, D.C. to bring attention to the species. He put bison on display in the South Yard of the Castle (the current location of the Enid A. Haupt Garden), and their popularity led to the founding of the Zoo as part of the Smithsonian in 1888. Hornaday was appointed as its first director. Ever the prolific and dramatic writer, Hornaday is credited with galvanizing national concerns about the extinction of the bison and other species native to North America.
Today, the Zoo is working hard to restore the American bison population to the American Prairie Reserve in Montana. In 2022, Zoo scientists found that restoring the bison not only supports the prairie ecosystem, but it also improves food security and food sovereignty for Native Nations in the area. Two bison are currently on display at the National Zoo in D.C., serving as ambassadors for their brethren out west.
In 1972, golden lion tamarins were facing extinction. It was estimated that there were only about 200 individuals left in the wild, and captive birth rates were low. Research zoologist Dr. Devra Kleiman, a recent hire at the Zoo, established the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program, which ultimately became a partnership of many conservation organizations and zoos. In 1984, the Smithsonian released eight golden lion tamarins into Reserva Biológica de Poço das Antas in Brazil, the first step in restoring the species’ population in the country. A recent survey found that the population has reached an all-time high of 4,800—and nearly half are descended from the introduced tamarins.
3. Black-footed Ferrets
Black-footed ferrets once ranged throughout the North American Great Plains, making them North America’s only native ferret species. They were thought to be extinct in 1979, until a small population was discovered in 1981 on the Wyoming prairie. Scientists caught the last remaining wild black-footed ferrets—18 of them—to establish a breeding center in Wyoming. By 1988, the population grew considerably, and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia and Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska joined the breeding program. The next year, six ferret kits were born in Front Royal, the first ferrets born in human care outside of Wyoming. All black-footed ferrets alive today are related to the original 18 animals brought into the breeding program in 1981.
Every year the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute supports a genetic assessment of all the black-footed ferret individuals that are cared for by humans. And, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Zoo has introduced several hundred ferrets to the wild.
4. Panamanian Golden Frogs
The Panamanian golden frog is critically endangered and may be functionally extinct in the wild. Amphibians like these are dying off in large numbers across the globe not just because of typical stressors such as habitat loss, climate change, and pollution, but also because of the deadly amphibian chytrid fungus.
Smithsonian scientists are working to save the Panamanian golden frog and other amphibians from this lethal infection. In 2008, the Zoo partnered with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and others to build a facility in Gamboa, Panama to safeguard amphibians at risk of extinction from the fungus. The project houses a living collection of critically endangered amphibians and is actively focused on sustaining the living collection and restoring wild populations of these frogs.
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