Generative AI Applied with Dr. Thomas White

In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Thomas White, president of Cedarville University. They discuss possible applications of Generative AI at Cedarville and in higher education at large.  Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.Dr. White sees how influential Generative AI will be on higher education and has explored it by using ChatGPT4 and plugins. While using the tools, he has found uses outside of education – recently using Generative AI to help book his family’s vacation. However, Dr. White’s main emphasis for Cedarville faculty is that they need flexibility and freedom to handle how GAI is used in their classes, but they need to set clear expectations for their students. He plans on continuing that stance this coming academic year.Within higher education, Dr. White sees many possible applications of GAI in various areas. GAI can be leveraged to take care of smaller, lower-level tasks that keep faculty from spending time building relationships with students, researching, and completing other complex tasks. He sees GAI helping faculty with grading, answering common questions, and finishing mundane tasks that keep them from doing more authentic, enriching tasks. Dr. White also wonders how GAI could serve as a research assistant to help faculty with writing and publishing.Dr. White recommends that both faculty and staff should look for ways to incorporate GAI into their workflow. For faculty, he advises them to think of one activity in the classroom where they can use GAI to expose students to it. From there, faculty can evaluate what GAI can do and if it is useful. For staff, he encourages them to think of a task they hate to do and find a way to use GAI to accomplish it, freeing up their time to do something else.