As AI continues to grow and evolve, how it will affect certain majors, especially those involved in the College of Communication and Information, remains a hot topic of discussion.

Amy Reynolds, the dean of CCI, sat down with KentWired to discuss how the college is navigating the technology.

“So, there’s a lot of good things you can do with AI; there’s a lot of bad things you can do with AI, and so right now, our faculty are really just exploring it,” Reynolds said. “How do we think about what are the skills students might need? How can we help students understand how to navigate a tool that’s going to continue to probably evolve?”

In wanting to help students navigate this new technology, Reynolds explained a few initiatives the college wants to take.

“If faculty have wanted to go learn more about this, and they want to go to workshops, we’ve been very supportive of that,” Reynolds said. “We have started to offer classes to allow for different ways that students can start to see both the limits of the tools (and) the range of stuff we’re talking through here.”

Reynolds went into further detail about a class the college is offering this semester to help students learn more about AI. Reynolds said Daniel Alenquer, the director of the School of Visual Communication Design, is teaching a course this semester called “AI and Image Generation.” By offering this course, students are given the opportunity to learn more about certain AI image generators and the limitations of them.

Along with wanting to help students understand AI, Reynolds said she wants students to be able to voice any concerns regarding the technology. She also encouraged students to not only speak about AI but also to speak about any courses in general.

“I do think one of the things I admire about our faculty is how open they are to hearing from students and listening to students and wanting to know student perspective,” Reynolds said. “I very much want to continue to think about how we can get student input on courses.”

Joseph Dziak is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].