St. Olaf students and faculty gathered on Feb. 12 in Viking Theater to discuss a controversial topic: AI use at St. Olaf. The AI Symposium — organized by the Anti-Imperialist Reading Club and sponsored by other student organizations — consisted of two professors and a student speaking about AI usage and its impact on education. 

After the speakers, students and faculty in the audience engaged in a discussion about AI. Students brought their own perspectives on how AI has been used in their classroom and how they hope St. Olaf moves away from AI use. The whole event was recorded with the goal of bringing it to the administration to continue the conversation about AI. 

“We wanted to have a platform where students could express that they didn’t want to use AI,” Atlas Conger ’28, one of the event organizers, said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.

Conger cited a previous article by The Olaf Messenger regarding St. Olaf’s partnership with BoodleBox, an AI platform made for educational institutions, which raised concerns for him earlier in the year. 

“We just thought that there was a disconnect between what admin was thinking, and what students and professors were experiencing,” Conger said. He hopes this event will inform administrators on the opinions of students and faculty.

“I think that oftentimes students are not necessarily encouraged to have conversations with each other [and] faculty outside of a classroom setting,” Naomi Wetzel ’28, an attendee, said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.

“I think it’s really important to be aware of how our colleges interact with [the AI]

policy that affects our classes. AI is an issue that we don’t know a lot about right now, and there’s a lot of misinformation going around,” Wetzel said.

Assistant Professor of English Ryan Eichberger, who teaches about digital rhetoric, spoke at the symposium. 

“AI tends to shortcut past the messy stage. To me, the messy stage is the most valuable part of what a college education offers,” Eichberger said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger. “I think if St. Olaf wants to stand out from the crowd, going all in on AI is not going to be perceived by prospective students as innovative. I think if we want to stand [out] in the crowd, we should be going all in on new kinds of classroom experiences: slower learning, richer and different kinds of social connection, and networks within those classrooms.”

Assistant Professor of English Ryan Eichberger is also the faculty advisor for The Olaf Messenger.