How Fresno State is implementing AI
With the rise of artificial intelligence, many questions have been raised around the globe. In academia and the arts, organizations and institutions are trying to find out how this revolutionary technology fits into the picture.
College students are one of the most prolific users of AI. Programs like Chat GPT, Gemini, Sora and more are being used to type papers and create art projects.
At Fresno State, an AI literacy division was launched in 2023. President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval has spearheaded the task force with the help of the vice president of information technology, Bao Johri.
Johri has led this initiative and its four main pillars.
Pillar one is empowering faculty members to use AI in teaching, two is using AI to advance research, three is using AI in career development and four is promoting proper AI use within the Fresno State community.
“As we move forward and really thinking how do we essentially, when a student leaves Fresno State, in my opinion, they have to be an AI graduate because the workforce demands that type of skill set,” Johri said.
Students have had a mixed reaction to this progressive mindset so far.
Roxana Jarrahian is a computer information systems major and has seen AI encouraged in her classes. She said she has learned how to use AI as a tool to aid in freeing up her creativity opposed to creating the ideas for her. Although she has seen the dark side of AI use.
“They want you to have your own writing style or your own creative strategy and then use it to sort of help you out,” Jarrahian said. “Help emphasize and like wrap things up. They don’t necessarily want you to take the assignment and give the entire thing to AI”.
“I’ve had some group members completely copy and paste directly,” Jarrahian said.
Johri said that teaching students the balance between using AI to cheat and as a tool will be a challenge but that the AI initiative is working all the time to do that.
The whole initiative and mission statement is on the Fresno State website. It has information regarding webinars, tips, tools and more for students and faculty.
AI has carved itself into society and will continue to improve as technology advances.