AI, Overwork, and Shared Governance

We’re asking: What do faculty need to know and do in order to ensure that we govern the use and management of technology in our classrooms?

We are told that the tidal wave of AI will transform how we teach and do research. However, the rollout of AI at the University of California has consisted of chaotic technology experiments and understaffing which has primarily generated overwork, anxious students, and frustrated faculty. Regents’ Policy 2301 requires the UC to “see that the value of the diploma is not diluted, that it maintains its meaning to graduates and to future employers. They are responsible to ensure that public confidence in the University is justified.” We are in danger of shirking this mission if we do not act. 

This is a critical moment for faculty. When used judiciously, educational technologies should strengthen the core mission of the university: quality instruction, well-being in the classroom, robust and accountable scholarship, and public engagement. The adoption and development of technologies must be deliberate, underpinned by shared and departmental governance, and concerned with the protection of the health, safety, and well-being of the university community. Most of all, which technologies are used in a classroom must be at the discretion of the faculty leading that classroom.

We Believe: AI should be a matter of Senate authority.

Faculty have diverse perspectives on the issues we face, and AI is no exception. However, we trust our colleagues — not senior administrators — to reach careful, thoughtful, well-informed decisions about how to use AI tools in teaching, research, and admissions. (Systemwide Senate Report) 

We believe decisions about these tools should be made by the faculty who use them. (AAUP report)

The Problem: 

AI increases faculty workload, requiring faculty to take extra steps to ensure academic integrity and student skills.

  • Many students in highly sequenced majors arrive in upper-division classes with less preparation, in part because they have leaned on AI in earlier classes (Daily Cal). Our campuses are scrambling to reorganize and resource teaching to meet students in this moment. (Tech Won’t Save Us, New Yorker)
  • As students take up AI for assignments, faculty and TAs spend more time ensuring academic integrity. We need more teaching support for producing in-class exams, conducting oral examinations, and proctoring tests in order to maintain pedagogical standards in our fields. (Daily Princetonian) 
  • Some Senates have called for faculty compensation for the time spent redesigning curriculum. (UCSD Senate Report III.4.a)

AI is serving as an alibi for understaffing and job elimination.

  • Multiple campuses report layoffs of experienced staff members. (Daily Bruin, Teamsters) These layoffs create heavier administrative burdens for faculty—exacerbating overwork that is already unsustainable and for which AI is not an answer.
    • We’re not alone. Companies around the are discovering that expensive AI contracts cannot replace the institutional memory, expertise, and relationships that make organizations work. (The Street, Global Finance)
  • Faculty lack teaching support. Teaching assistants do more than guide problem solving. They provide crucial support interfacing between students and faculty catching fatal disconnects, whether skills gaps or personal circumstances that block learning.

AI energy use is negatively impacting the climate crisis.

Turning toward solutions:

UC can be a leader in AI implementation

Rather than climbing aboard existing corporate offerings, AI can be an opportunity to lead: to show how technology can be used to advance the public good.

  • The UC faculty includes world-leading experts in science, technology, and social impact. Why, then, should we feel obligated to adopt expensive systems whose flaws and biases are exhaustively documented?
  • UC leads the world in countless fields and disciplines. Why should AI be different? We believe we have the talent and expertise to show the world how technology can contribute to equity—not inequality.

UC can adopt practices that are working on other campuses

UC Faculty are not the only ones facing these issues. As we begin to organize behind a solution, we can look to the options senate faculty and unions across the country have adopted. 

  • Implementing Shared Governance over AI and all educational technologies. 
  • Ensuring adequate staffing at all levels, from faculty, to graduate education, to staff to ensure quality education and sustainable workloads regardless of our AI use.
  • Ensuring teachers of record have to be humans, in line with California’s AB 2148 for K-12 and CUNY Professional Staff Congress union contract. 
  • Ensuring we evaluate data analytics technologies for bias, from admissions to promotions and evaluations. 
  • Demanding transparency. Faculty should have access to the contracts, terms and conditions, and privacy rights associated with software they consider for adoption in their courses. Faculty senate committees should, at minimum, have access and opportunity to comment on all proposed technology procurements that could impact the core academic mission. 
  • Demanding the right to opt out. UC should provide clear guidelines on how instructors can opt out of educational technology platforms in their classrooms, including AI assistants such as Elsevier AI summarizers or Canvas AI tools.

.Next Steps: Decide what we need to educate at UC.

Share your thoughts at the UCFA town hall on November 9th via Zoom. Shape how we strengthen faculty governance over AI and make sure we have the resources we need to uphold quality UC education and research. 

AI, Overwork, and Shared Governance. Image of a person holding a sign that reads "Shared governance means giving faculty a seat at the able"
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