The event was not open to the press, and The Dartmouth was not allowed to record the proceedings of the meeting.
On Oct. 8, the Office of Community and Campus Life and Dartmouth Student Government co-hosted a “roundtable discussion and listening session” on artificial intelligence at the College. The event was open to “all members of the campus community,” according to an Oct. 2 email invitation sent to campus by senior vice president for community and campus life Jennifer Rosales, but it was not open to the press.
College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the listening session was “not open to the news media” in order to “create a space where students, faculty and staff could speak candidly about their own AI use, raise concerns about the technology and pose questions for leadership.”
The listening session was announced in a Sept. 25 email to campus by College President Sian Leah Beilock titled “A Review and a Community Conversation on AI,” which also announced a committee-led review of Provost Santiago Schnell’s alleged AI use in recent op-eds and academic articles.
“We need role-appropriate rules and policies for this technology,” Beilock wrote in the Sept. 25 email. “Thoughtful people on our campus can and should disagree about those norms, which are rapidly shifting. In the coming weeks, we’ll host campus conversations on AI, authorship and transparency.”
Hosted in the Hanover Inn grand ballroom, the Oct. 8 session featured six panelists: Beilock, faculty leadership group on AI co-chair and engineering professor Peter Chin, Dartmouth chief financial officer Scott Frew, AI fellow and film and media studies department chair Roopika Risam, neuroscience professor Tor Wager and vice provost for academic and international affairs Barbara Will. Approximately 380 undergraduates, alumni, faculty and staff attended the event
Rosales opened the event with a speech about “bringing the community together to talk about creating guidelines for usage” of AI, swim instructor and Hillel at Dartmouth employee Pam Crandall ’88 recalled in an interview after the event.
Following Rosales’ opening speech, participants were asked to discuss “a set of questions” with others at their tables, but participants did not talk about “anything really specific,” Crandall said.
“Participants talked about how one size could not fit all and how different departments may use AI differently,” Crandall said. “They did talk about a need for training people about proper usage. They mostly talked about creating shared norms, creating shared principles that would guide us in our usage.”
Student body vice president Maggie de la Fuente ’27, who attended the event, said in an interview that it was “really interesting” to talk with stakeholders from across campus.
“I was at a table with people from [the Geisel School of Medicine], from Technology Services and on the more administrative side,” de la Fuente said. “It was very interesting to see perspectives from parts of campus I don’t typically hear from.”
Following the small group discussions, representatives chosen from each table shared a discussion takeaway to the attendees at large, according to William Jewett Tucker Center for Spiritual and Ethical Life director and chaplain Reverend Nancy Vogele ’85, who was her table’s spokesperson. Vogele said she shared a quote from St. Augustine to the broader event, based on her group’s discussion about how academic “struggle is good”: “That which is sought with more difficulty is discovered with more pleasure.”
“That’s what education is about,” Vogele said during the interview after the event.
De la Fuente wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the panel answered audience questions “ranging from how to ensure students are prepared to use AI in the workforce to how campus should accommodate students who would not like to use AI due to ethical concerns.”
“The panelists emphasized that AI policies will differ from context to context and expressed hope for dialogue as we continue to grapple with these issues,” she wrote.
Crandall said she thought the event was “amazing.”
“One of the biggest takeaways was coming together as a community to set guidelines for using AI,” Crandall said. “It was really wonderful having the whole community all together, working on a thing that’s so big.”
Attendee Abigail Burke ’28 said that, as a humanities student who does not interact as much with students studying in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or coding, hearing STEM students’ “perspectives on AI usage was a little bit helpful in softening my position.”
“I sincerely hope the environmental, social and security risks are also considered and taken seriously when the college creates its AI policy, as the negative impacts of AI are not equitably distributed and those impacted most are often not present in conversations like this,” Burke wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. “The College has a moral responsibility to consider what is at stake here.”
Allison said having more time for discussion in future events would be “amazing.”
“Some of the responses, perhaps given the time crunch of the event, weren’t as fleshed out to the very pointy questions that I think were very well put by students,” Allison said.
In her Oct. 2 campus-wide email, Rosales wrote the Oct. 8 session will “inform” the College’s “future AI programming and strategy.”
“This will certainly not be the last conversation we have on this topic,” Rosales wrote. “It will be important that we continue to listen and learn from each other — especially when the subjects are as contentious and fast-changing as they are with AI.”
Isabela Pierry ’29 is a reporter from New York and is majoring in comparative literature and government.
