University Events

Description: While much has rightly been made of the worrying effects AI may have on student work and the goals of higher education, receiving less attention is the legitimate assistance that AI might offer those within academia in the pursuit of their own work. For example, researchers are already using AI to assist in the identification of potential chemical compounds for medical applications, while AI is also used to automate once tedious and very time-consuming manual processes in data sorting. Likewise, AI's writing functionality (e.g. ChatGPT or Bard) can serve to reinvigorate the writing process or spur efficiencies for any academic needing to produce text for the various needs instructors and administrators have. This session will explore some potential uses that AI writing tools have for academicians from the standpoint of academic writing as a practice in need of continually refreshing, even as we form ourselves to the various instructional, disciplinary, and institutional norms that guide it. Attendees will get both a conceptual model of thinking about academic writing in this context, as well as a chance to try out some of these technologies and supercharge their writing practice over winter break. (Please bring whatever writing technology you're comfortable using for the applied portions.)