AI has been integrated into every part of daily life, and it felt crucial to mark this moment — a time when it seems each decision has the potential to set our course for at the very least the rest of my lifetime. 

The decision to do this issue homecoming weekend was intentional. I want alumni to know what AI looks like at Goshen College, without the filter of the corporate institution. This is the historical record that people will reference when they want to know what GC really looked like as AI first started to boom — the questions we are asking, the conversations held and the decisions made.

Let the record show, our survey on the front page is the first to make a real attempt to understand the perspectives and opinions of the GC community on AI. While an initial survey was sent out by the AI Taskforce in February, the intention was to find a baseline for how students and employees were using AI — not if — their familiarity with AI and how it could be most helpful to their work in the future. 

Let the record show that throughout the discernment process of integrating AI into GC, the main work groups — the AI Taskforce and the AI Ethics Group — are made up of faculty and staff. Some students were invited to a meeting with the Ethics Group in March to help with the discernment process, but it was not an open invitation. 

If you want a more thorough understanding of my concerns about AI at GC I encourage you to search ‘Resistance is futile’ on record.goshen.edu and give it a read. 

However, what I want to highlight with this issue is a trend of GC moving away from community discernment — bringing in more outside consultants and constant comparison to other liberal arts schools. 

This was first brought to my attention with the removal of printing and mailing. The announcement came with immediate backlash. People were confused where the decision came from, and upset at losing a valuable resource on campus. 

Upon seeking further transparency on the decision, I, as a member of the Peace and Justice Collective, was told that part of the reasoning was that an internal printing and mailing department was not standard across liberal arts colleges. This reasoning stems from an effort to be competitive in our market.

While there were many factors that went into this decision, as well as specific reasons this couldn’t be a more open decision making process, it brought my attention to a larger pattern. In talking to faculty members and peers, I quickly realized that this was not a one-off, and I certainly wasn’t the first to notice it. 

One of the defining characteristics of Anabaptism is community discernment. I believe that part of our call as followers of Christ is to live into the radical love of God — a love that rejects the systems of oppression that hold our society together, resist empire and welcome the marginalized. Seeking this radical love is done through the Holy Spirit — a path which can only be found through community discernment. 

While it is tempting to compare ourselves to others, to try and optimize for efficiency, we need to be able to slow down — to recenter ourselves on love of God and love of neighbor; to do what is right especially when it is hard and goes against the grain. 

The process of integrating AI has honestly been upsetting. While I understand the policy is still a work in progress, there is currently no guarantee that students can opt out of using AI without damage to their grade. It feels like AI is increasingly being pushed without the widespread community support to be sustainable. 

The people are what make GC — the students, faculty, staff, alumni. I urge the administration to consider more transparency and communal discernment in large institutional decisions. It may not be the most efficient, or get us a higher rank from Washington Monthly, but it allows us to maintain who we are as Goshen College.