The University of Michigan’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met Monday afternoon in the Alexander G. Ruthven building to discuss plans for a Faculty Senate committee on artificial intelligence and SACUA’s priorities for the upcoming academic year.
The meeting began with a series of updates from SACUA Chair Kentaro Toyama, who announced plans to host a Faculty Senate-sponsored panel on the University’s institutional neutrality policy. Toyama also discussed responses to a faculty survey on AI policy, and said University administrators have continued to ignore SACUA’s requests to be included in the recently restarted presidential search committee.
Members then resumed discussion from the body’s previous meeting, regarding the scope of the Faculty Senate’s planned committee on AI policy. SACUA Vice Chair Soumya Rangarajan, clinical assistant professor of internal medicine, said she believes the committee should allow for various AI standards across colleges and departments, arguing a singular policy for the entire University could be harmful.
“We can do AI and teaching, AI and research, AI and clinical care, different things, but I wouldn’t really say we could do one specific AI policy for every possible utilization,” Rangarajan said. “I think we do have to create subsections that would encompass different schools.”
SACUA members disagreed over how the committee should approach AI usage. Physics research scientist Michael Schubnell argued the committee should help faculty teach students to use AI responsibly in both academic and professional.
“We have a responsibility to prepare our students for the real world, and the real world will use GenAI,” Schubnell said. “We have to fold that in somehow. There is no value judgment here in what I’m trying to say, but we have this responsibility.”
History professor Derek Peterson disagreed, and argued the committee should focus on helping faculty regulate AI use in the classroom. These regulations would include lockdown browsers and AI-free learning communities, as called for in resolutions passed by broad faculty votes earlier this year.
“You can take these surveys in the summer, but frankly, no one’s paying attention in the summertime to a faculty chair’s newsletter,” Peterson said. “What we have is a mandate from our colleagues, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of a list of things that … myself and others put together.”
The meeting then transitioned to discussion concerning which issues to prioritize at an upcoming SACUA work retreat, and throughout the academic year. Rangarajan urged SACUA to address ongoing staffing issues at Michigan Medicine, which she said have increased wait times for patients.
Rangarajan said she believes these issues are the result of administrative mismanagement and a lack of focus on staff retention.
“Salary plays into it a little bit, but the main reason is a lack of transparency,” Rangarajan said. “When units close, there’s no transparency to the faculty. I’ve had four units close in the last year now, and all of them I get like one week notice that they’re closing. I have to scramble; all my colleagues have to scramble to find other work to do. It’s a huge problem.”
Cost of living for faculty members was also a prominent topic of discussion throughout the meeting, including childcare costs and concerns over the sufficiency of benefits provided by the University.
Schubnell said SACUA should call for the University to broadly increase wages to offset the effects of rising costs of living.
“Groceries are so much more expensive, buying a car is out of reach for a lot of people,” Schubnell said. “When I look at our grad students, postdocs, staff, low-salary faculty, that is really a problem … I think the University should provide a flat cost of living adjustment across the board. That would really benefit where it hits the hardest, the low-income.”
Peterson said SACUA should attempt to support faculty unionization efforts, citing significant gains the Lecturers’ Employee Organization has secured for lecturers and other workers represented by the union.
“It’s telling that they’re able to get such a deal from the institution while tenure-track faculty are not,” Peterson said. “(It’s) because we effectively bargain individually out of the basis of our academic celebrity, and we don’t form a common cause.”
SACUA members decided to further discuss the University’s admissions policies. While a recent Faculty Senate motion showed broad faculty opposition to early decision admissions, which disproportionately benefit wealthy students, less consensus was found around the topic of test-optional admissions.
Toyama said some faculty members are concerned test-optional policies may have left their original goal of benefiting underprivileged students unfulfilled, and instead removed an important indicator of student success.
Additionally, SACUA members agreed to address the University’s policies on transgender athletes, ongoing shakeups within the athletic department and University Regent Jordan Acker’s (D) continued presence on the Board of Regents, despite calls for his resignation — from SACUA itself as well as other groups — over a series of sexually demeaning messages sent over Slack.
Daily News Editor Glenn Hedin can be reached at heglenn@umich.edu.
