Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
On Tuesday, faculty from the University of Alaska Anchorage published a commentary accusing the university administration of using a chatbot to write its AI policy. This op-ed gets everything wrong about how the board statement came about and maligns every one of us who participated in a quality-shared governance process. Accusations that the process was too quick ignore years of work, faculty governance leadership and reports to our governance bodies. Correcting the record is never as exciting as making accusations, but we hope you will stick with us to see what UA faculty have been doing to help support students, staff, the administration and each other as we navigate this new technology.
First, let us explain what the Faculty Alliance is. The alliance is made up of the elected faculty leadership of each university’s faculty senate. Its primary purpose is to work on issues that impact faculty and students across the UA system. Generative AI is a perfect example of something that impacts us all.
[Related opinion: Who wrote UA’s AI plan? A chatbot did.]
The labor that eventually resulted in the Board of Regents’ statement of intent on AI began with a September 2025 AI symposium funded by the Faculty Alliance Faculty Initiative Fund. Among the outcomes of that faculty-organized and -led symposium was the UA AI Coordinating Council. This council then coordinated with the Faculty Alliance on monitoring UA AI issues.
One issue was that UA needed more coordination, and from that came a joint presentation to the Board of Regents by UAF faculty member Jennifer Carroll and Chief Information Technology Officer Ben Shier in May.
The faculty portion of that presentation did not recommend a path toward maximizing the new technology. Carroll focused on research about the impacts of generative AI on learning, highlighting findings that undirected AI use by students had a negative impact on student learning and that AI pushed users toward homogenized choices and voices. Research also indicates that directed use of generative AI, use that is controlled and carefully applied toward learning a particular subject or skill, can be useful. In addition, while reports of AI takeover of jobs are overblown, it is clear that employers want and need employees who are familiar with AI skills. Carroll’s overall message was that AI use in educational contexts would need to be developed and managed carefully and that, therefore, direction was needed from the Board of Regents.
Tuesday’s op-ed claims that Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude wrote the board’s AI statement and that the use of Claude was “concealed.”
There are many different perspectives across the academic disciplines about how generative AI can be legitimately used, when it needs to be acknowledged and in what way. Some faculty feel that AI should not be used at all. Others think that having an AI model create a draft for you from original documents provided by various stakeholders is perfectly acceptable.
In this case, AI use was not “concealed.” Anyone who met with administrators and board members knew how the original draft was constructed. Eventually adding a small AI attribution was a good move, given the various perspectives and norms, but it certainly doesn’t mean that AI use was concealed at any time.
Tuesday’s op-ed also assumes that it was Claude’s influence that made the board’s statement pro-AI. We can assure you, and we are sure the board would also assure you, that they were already pro-AI. Many faculty have disagreements with the statement, which we have communicated to the board through the shared governance process. One of these disagreements is that we would prefer the statement take a more neutral stance toward AI.
While many faculty and students avoid generative AI — and academic disciplines need to determine how and when AI is appropriate in their programs, if ever — many faculty and students work with generative AI in productive ways, and many programs need to integrate generative AI into their curriculum. The perspectives and needs of these faculty and programs should not be dismissed with references to “cheating.”
Generative AI is a challenge to academic integrity, but most students across the UA system have been very protective of the integrity of their learning and their output. We know there is more work to be done in this area, and we will continue to advocate for funding to support productive AI applications and defend faculty autonomy and academic integrity, but the reality is that, as a public university serving Alaska — with its many needs — universal institutional AI refusal is simply not an option.
Additionally, the op-ed’s accusations of financial impropriety have no evidence and are simply uncalled for.
Finally, the authors of Tuesday’s op-ed request that the university abandon the labor of faculty and administrators who have worked together to identify and respond to a significant disruption by this still-emerging technology. We are proud of the work we have done and sad that there are people who throw their colleagues and their institutions under the bus when they don’t get their way in a process of shared governance in which they neglected to participate.
Jennifer Carroll is a former Faculty Alliance chair, an associate professor of Alaska Native studies and rural development with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and a member of the UA Statewide Advisory Committee.
Jackie Cason is a former Faculty Alliance chair and a professor of writing at UAA.
James Ryan is chair of the UA Statewide Advisory Committee and an assistant professor of writing at the University of Alaska Southeast.
Andrew Harnish is an associate professor of writing at UAA, a facilitator for AI Community of Practice at the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence at UAA, and a member UA Statewide Advisory Committee.
Erin Trochim is a research assistant professor at the Institute of Northern Engineering at UAF and a member UA Statewide Advisory Committee.
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