Dear Students,
We are writing to share with you Barnard’s new Pilot AI Usage Scale (PAUS), which your Barnard professors will be using in all classes this year to indicate whether, and to what degree, you are able to use AI tools in class assignments. (Columbia faculty will be using their own rubrics.) Faculty and staff teams in the Provost’s Office have developed PAUS over the summer in response to student requests and concerns, expressed in the BEAR survey and in conversations with faculty and advisors, for more clarity about when AI tools can be used, and what professors mean when they say “no AI,” “AI optional,” or “AI may be used extensively.” PAUS is here to provide a more consistent vocabulary across your courses, to stimulate reflection about AI use (a pause!), and to provide a baseline for conversations between you and your instructors.
Arriving first-year and transfer students will be hearing about PAUS during NSOP meetings focused on the academic experience, and first-year students can also expect to be part of more extended conversations in First Year Experience courses (First Year Writing and First Year Seminar). Returning students will have opportunities to discuss PAUS in their Barnard classes in the first weeks of the semester, and all students will be invited to participate in ongoing workshops, community discussions, and academic events related to AI tools, the future of AI as a technology, and AI research. We will be seeking feedback on PAUS, offering you and other community members opportunities to assess the tool and asking you to help us consider revisions in advance of the next academic year. Please keep your eye out for announcements about these opportunities throughout the year.
The full scale is in the linked document, but we want to take a moment to address the numbers at the bottom of the scale. Some of your professors will be assigning a number of 0 (no AI) to your assignments. That means that they want you to use your own cognition and creativity to complete every aspect of your essay, problem set, or project. If you need to use technology as an approved disability-related accommodation, please be in touch with CARDS to ensure that the interactive accommodations process can take place. Other professors may permit AI for brainstorming ideas (1: AI Planning) or for editing and formatting ideas that you generate yourself (2: AI Collaboration). Whichever number they choose, you should read the instructions carefully and ask questions if you have any uncertainty about what is permitted. You are responsible for knowing how and when to use AI on your assignments, and for acknowledging that use in ways that are required by your professor. This includes following proper citation practices and adhering to the Barnard Honor Code.
Barnard’s Pilot AI Usage Scale promotes “AI awareness,” a relatively neutral term that is now in use by even the most technology-affirmative universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology (MIT). AI awareness is an approach that helps students recognize AI’s capabilities, limitations, risks, and appropriate uses without presuming that AI should either be embraced or rejected. We all need AI literacy to know what AI tools do, how they work, when we could use them productively, and when we should not use them, as well as some understanding of the debates surrounding their social, environmental, cognitive, and economic impacts. In some disciplines, you will be asked to use only your own cognition at the introductory level, or at all levels, so you can develop your own authentic capacities for thinking, creating, and analyzing. In other disciplines, you may be asked to integrate AI at early points, or AI tools may be necessary for advanced work. There will be a range of practices in your classrooms, and this scale is not an endorsement of any particular approach.
We look forward to ongoing conversations with you and with the community about the future of AI in learning, research, careers, and our everyday lives.
All good wishes,
Rebecca Walkowitz and Akilah Rosado
Rebecca L. Walkowitz
Provost & Dean of the Faculty
Claire Tow Professor of English
Akilah Rosado
Vice President for Inclusion & Belonging
Interim Dean of the College
