About this Issue Making heads or tails about AI

Whenplanning for this issue of Menlo College Magazine, we set out to (virtually) stop the speeding arrow of artificial intelligence and look at the many ways that AI is ripping through many aspects of our lives. We were especially interested in how it has and will affect our students and our faculty.

We sent an online survey to students and invited faculty to weigh in on the ways they have used ChatGPT and other language-generating programs—for results, please see editor Tricia Soto’s summary of student opinions. We also asked faculty and administrators to look at AI in the classroom. Chief Academic Officer Dr. Mouwafac Sidaoui discusses the many ways students can use AI as a powerful tool to master the Information Age. While seeing the vast potential of AI, faculty members consider darker issues, such as whether assignments created by ChatGPT are a form of plagiarism and how to teach critical thinking in an age of AI.

Besides examining AI, in this issue we have also taken a second look at the mature technology of social media and posed the question: How can AI and social media rob our students of their authentic selves, their own voices? The answer is complicated. Please see the thoughtful article by our senior editor Jeffrey Erickson, Ph.D., on the ways that social media can keep us connected, and the cautions from adjunct professors Michael Habeeb and Giselle Martinez when curating an online presence.

Our small magazine team is proud of this issue. As we go to press, we see all the perspectives gathered here. Students and professors respectfully and eloquently agree and disagree. They hash out what this new paradigm brings to our world. This is academia at its best. Read and enjoy.