How College of the Redwoods Is Responding to AI
Artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday life, whether we actively seek it out or not. It is changing how people search for information, communicate, create, work and learn.
At College of the Redwoods, we are seeing those changes in our classrooms and across the institution, and we have spent the past year considering an important question: How should we respond as a college?
For us, the answer cannot simply be to embrace AI or to reject it. Our responsibility is to help students understand the technology while also protecting the values that are central to education: learning, critical thinking, creativity, human relationships and trust.
Over the past year, CR has taken a broad, community-based approach to this work. Nearly 400 students, faculty and staff participated in a collegewide survey about AI, and we followed that work with interviews, committee discussions and a review of emerging practices in higher education. What we heard was not a simple story of enthusiasm or concern. It was both.
Students told us they are already using AI and want help learning how to use it effectively and responsibly. They also raised concerns about misinformation, fairness, access, environmental impacts and the possibility that overreliance on AI could interfere with learning and critical thinking. Faculty and staff raised many of the same concerns, along with questions about academic integrity, privacy, changes to teaching and assessment and the appropriate use of AI in college operations.
That input has shaped CR’s response. We have developed a set of guiding principles and recommendations centered on human decision-making, transparency, equity and accessibility, privacy, clear expectations and continuous learning. We are working toward clearer guidance for students and employees, professional development for faculty and staff, greater AI literacy for students and ongoing evaluation as the technology changes.
This fall, that work will continue through a standing AI Planning and Advisory Committee rather than ending with a single report or set of rules. That is important, because AI is developing too quickly for any institution to assume that the questions we are answering today will be the same questions we face several years from now.
Community colleges have always had a responsibility to prepare people for a changing world. AI adds a new dimension to that responsibility. At CR, our goal is not to predict exactly where the technology will lead. It is to make thoughtful choices as it develops, to help our students navigate those changes and to ensure that technology remains in service of people, learning, and the communities we serve.
Rebecca Robertson, Ph.D., dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at College of the Redwoods, chaired CR’s committee to assess and plan for AI at the college.
