By Dylan Smith, Managing Editor
California State University last month announced a partnership with major tech companies to establish CSU as the nation’s first and largest AI-powered public university system. In a Feb. 5 email to all 23 CSU campuses, the Chancellor’s Office said students, faculty, and staff would receive free access to tools from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
CSU officials believe the AI toolkit will enhance students’ learning experiences and support faculty in teaching and research. The university’s 18-month partnership with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is intended to ensure equitable access to resources throughout the university system.
“What we were finding is that there was definitely a digital divide with our students and faculty and even some staff,” said Leslie Kennedy, the CSU assistant vice chancellor for academic technology services.
According to CSUDH officials, Toros can expect to have access to the toolkit by April. “We’re preparing everything technically in the background to make sure it’s secure, locked down,” said Chris Manriquez, vice president and chief information officer of the IT Department.
In an email to The Bulletin, Manriquez said the version of ChatGPT rolled out at CSUDH will not be used as a training model for OpenAI’s standard product.
“The data is segmented and protected and it’s not used for general training and chat,” Manriquez said. “This is gonna be protected only for CSU, only for Dominguez Hills, and is not being used generally.”
To help ensure a smooth integration of the AI technology, the CSU is providing online training and workshops to students, faculty and staff. CSU officials strongly advise those who are curious about AI’s implementation to visit the CSU website, which offers a variety of resources for students and faculty to learn about the technology.
On the website, students, faculty, and staff can take lessons to familiarize themselves with AI literacy and learn how to use it ethically and responsibly. Kennedy said since last spring, hundreds of faculty members have completed the training.
CSUDH also facilitated in-house training sessions called “Tech Bytes” aimed at providing campus members an opportunity to learn about the latest tools and platforms released by IT—including upcoming sessions on ChatGPT, said Manriquez.
Jolivette Mecenas, an English professor and director of composition, said that all Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) instructors will be required to complete a professional development module on Canvas, the university’s online learning platform. The module covers CSUDH’s approach to ethical AI use, strategies for integrating AI into teaching, and available resources for faculty.
Over the past year, the University Writing Committee in the English Department developed an AI policy that faculty are strongly encouraged to include in their syllabi, Mecenas said.
The guidelines address AI’s role in teaching, research, data privacy, and institutional support, ensuring alignment with the university’s mission and the CSU system’s broader initiatives.
English professor Siskanna Naynaha, chair of the University Writing Committee and director of Writing Across the Curriculum, is leading efforts to shape CSUDH’s AI policy.
On Mar. 6, Academic Affairs sent an email on Naynaha’s behalf inviting campus members to provide feedback on the AI policy recommendations. According to the email, input from the campus community will directly inform the final policy, which will be presented to the Academic Senate for review and approval.
Kennedy said the CSU regularly meets with Chief Information Officers from each campus and the Academic Senate of the California State University to review feedback and provide updates on AI implementation.
The CSU also established a Systemwide Generative AI Committee, composed of representatives from the Chancellor’s Office and CSU campuses, to develop guidelines and policy recommendations for AI implementation. Kennedy said the committee would “reconvene shortly” to evaluate feedback on the AI’s inclusion.
Some instructors have already started incorporating AI literacy and tools into their courses, Naynaha said, but some faculty “are vehemently against it.”
“They wish there would be an all-out ban on AI,” she explained. “A lot of students, particularly in the College of Arts and Humanities, are also skeptical. They’re questioning the limitations and affordances of this technology and how it might impact them as thinkers.”
Senior sociology student Evelyn Favela sees AI as a valuable tool for organizing and refining ideas but warns against becoming too dependent on it.
“That’s why I heavily do not use AI to write my stuff, ’cause I’m like, oh, I’m gonna forget how to think,” she said. Favela hopes that the CSU version of ChatGPT will encourage students to think for themselves.
Computer Science chair Mohsen Beheshti said the department is collaborating with other campuses through a National Science Foundation initiative to incorporate AI-related ethics into coursework.
“We’re working with the department of philosophy to address ethics in computer science,” Beheshti said. “We created modules that could be integrated into more courses so students can learn about AI’s ethical issues and how to use it responsibly.”
Beheshti added that the department is also developing an AI major and has submitted a proposal to the Chancellor’s Office. “Hopefully, in a couple of years, we will have that program.”
Manriquez, the IT lead, emphasized that AI is being introduced to enhance efficiency—not to replace staff and faculty, nor minimize their expertise.
“I mean, if I didn’t want to have a professor, I could go learn all this, my whole whatever I earned my degrees by just Googling everything,” Kennedy said. “But that wouldn’t have taught me critical thinking, necessarily without the discourse that happens in an instructional environment or the expertise that you get from the professors.”
Kennedy suggested that CSU’s partnership with OpenAI may not be permanent, as newer, more affordable AI tools could become available in the future.
Naynaha encourages faculty to rethink the role of writing in assessment. She emphasized the importance of process-oriented approaches that treat writing as both a knowledge-building tool and a skill.
She said: “Research has shown that having honest conversations and really inviting students’ curiosity about these technologies in the different ways that it’s being used in different academic disciplines is a way that we can support them.”
