{"id":16732,"date":"2026-04-27T04:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/?p=16732"},"modified":"2026-04-27T04:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:11:15","slug":"much-ado-about-ai-student-protest-apathy-and-desire-for-direction-at-lvc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2026\/04\/27\/much-ado-about-ai-student-protest-apathy-and-desire-for-direction-at-lvc\/","title":{"rendered":"Much ado about AI: Student protest, apathy, and desire for direction at LVC"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"dslc-theme-content\"><div id=\"dslc-theme-content-inner\">\n<p>By Jakob Strohl \u201926, staff writer&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around a week ago, students were&nbsp;met&nbsp;with a flurry of orange sticky notes as they walked into classrooms and buildings around the college. The green scrawl across all of them: \u201cAI is not inevitable.\u201d&nbsp;Though even&nbsp;a&nbsp;cursory scan of&nbsp;the&nbsp;laptop&nbsp;screens&nbsp;illuminating&nbsp;Mund\u2019s&nbsp;living room&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;evening hours&nbsp;reveals&nbsp;something&nbsp;shameless, rampant&nbsp;\u2013 at least&nbsp;illusorily inevitable.&nbsp;Students huddle around&nbsp;Gemini or ChatGPT&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;tasteful&nbsp;sans-serif&nbsp;subheadings,&nbsp;indented equations,&nbsp;and emoji-punctuated&nbsp;lists&nbsp;populate&nbsp;the&nbsp;displays&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;some copying down notes from the digital oracles&nbsp;while others&nbsp;submit&nbsp;endless trains of documents and screenshots&nbsp;for their consideration.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;hard to put a finger on what exactly this&nbsp;scene&nbsp;is. To&nbsp;the&nbsp;pedant,&nbsp;it is most assuredly an epidemic or scourge.&nbsp;To the&nbsp;proponent, it is&nbsp;the dawn of a more democratic era of education.&nbsp;To the&nbsp;average&nbsp;student,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;something different altogether,&nbsp;often&nbsp;something&nbsp;far&nbsp;less philosophically loaded.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAI is a tool,\u201d said Chaz Rokosz, a senior political science major. \u201cLike any tool, it\u2019s designed to be beneficial but can be misused.\u201d&nbsp;His responses&nbsp;to&nbsp;an interview about&nbsp;LVC\u2019s&nbsp;AI policy forays&nbsp;were&nbsp;incredibly blunt and reflect a position that appears&nbsp;to be widely held&nbsp;among the student body&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;not so much&nbsp;one&nbsp;devoid of nuance, but&nbsp;a more&nbsp;pragmatic, apathetic&nbsp;acknowledgement&nbsp;that AI simply&nbsp;<em>is&nbsp;<\/em>without any&nbsp;socially revelatory appeal.&nbsp;\u201cAs with all forms of human progress, we&#8217;ll have to see if we can find an effective way to manage its usage and mitigate the downsides\u2026&nbsp;accept that it is a tool that isn\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rokosz\u2019s point about AI not going anywhere is&nbsp;one&nbsp;oft-echoed&nbsp;by artificial intelligence researchers&nbsp;and field experts who&nbsp;increasingly&nbsp;view the technology as one of general purpose&nbsp;and&nbsp;predict its global impact to&nbsp;unfold&nbsp;on a scale&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mitsloan.mit.edu\/ideas-made-to-matter\/impact-generative-ai-a-general-purpose-technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">similar&nbsp;to that&nbsp;of the steam engine&nbsp;or electricity<\/a>.&nbsp;And&nbsp;as&nbsp;with any&nbsp;general-purpose&nbsp;technology, there is&nbsp;simply&nbsp;no way to safely ignore the problem&nbsp;of legislation.&nbsp;Truly, it is the mandate and duty of any institution&nbsp;to clearly, accessibly lay down expectations and define&nbsp;appropriate use&nbsp;cases, and from the perspective of many students,&nbsp;that has not&nbsp;yet&nbsp;been done&nbsp;at Lebanon&nbsp;Valley&nbsp;with artificial intelligence.&nbsp;Though it most certainly can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In multiple casual conversations with students&nbsp;and faculty, two&nbsp;formal&nbsp;interviews&nbsp;with Rokosz and a senior&nbsp;in&nbsp;a&nbsp;STEM&nbsp;field&nbsp;who wishes to remain anonymous,&nbsp;and upon review of some available college materials online, the issue&nbsp;appears to be&nbsp;in three parts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There is no&nbsp;central, student-facing AI policy&nbsp;that&nbsp;sets&nbsp;uniform&nbsp;investigation, appeals, and&nbsp;punishment structures&nbsp;and binds a devolved system&nbsp;to certain predictable&nbsp;standards&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An institution&nbsp;that&nbsp;cannot guarantee a basic level of education on&nbsp;appropriate use cases for AI&nbsp;and literacy&nbsp;on the technology&nbsp;may&nbsp;end up punishing ignorance&nbsp;rather than malice.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>With no real guidance outside of&nbsp;hackneyed \u2018principles,\u2019 faculty and administrative&nbsp;knowledge and use&nbsp;vary wildly from&nbsp;complete&nbsp;illiteracy and open hostility&nbsp;to&nbsp;a&nbsp;near-universal&nbsp;acceptance and application&nbsp;that appears&nbsp;confusing at best&nbsp;and hypocritical\/non-functional&nbsp;at worst.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8212; A&nbsp;policy for&nbsp;students &#8212;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where it was&nbsp;consistently&nbsp;suggested that LVC&nbsp;is lacking&nbsp;compared to other institutions&nbsp;is&nbsp;in a clear&nbsp;academic&nbsp;AI&nbsp;policy&nbsp;for students.&nbsp;Multiple conversations have yielded similar&nbsp;conclusions, chief of which being&nbsp;that the school, in&nbsp;failing to delineate&nbsp;appropriate use,&nbsp;legitimates too many contradictory pedagogical philosophies.&nbsp;It is&nbsp;not&nbsp;necessarily&nbsp;the case&nbsp;that students crave bureaucratic efficiency and due process&nbsp;(as much as one might think those would be important)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;it\u2019s that students cannot get a read on whether Lebanon Valley and its administration encourages responsible use&nbsp;in the classroom with guardrails&nbsp;yet-undefined&nbsp;or adopts the&nbsp;yet-tacit&nbsp;posture that AI very often cannot be responsibly used&nbsp;and has&nbsp;little place in the learning process.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deference to professors and departments is not a policy&nbsp;per se, as it does not make explicit the&nbsp;real&nbsp;bias of the institution \u2013&nbsp;whether&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;absence of&nbsp;a general statute,&nbsp;more ambient, daily&nbsp;AI use is&nbsp;assumed&nbsp;acceptable or not.&nbsp;When this cannot be gauged,&nbsp;due process cannot be guaranteed:&nbsp;Ignorant use&nbsp;in even menial (or spillover academic) tasks&nbsp;could&nbsp;be&nbsp;punished&nbsp;without&nbsp;anything&nbsp;more than tangential&nbsp;cause&nbsp;or&nbsp;may,&nbsp;conversely,&nbsp;be used&nbsp;by students&nbsp;to justify&nbsp;academic dishonesty&nbsp;by simply claiming they \u201cdidn\u2019t know it was wrong.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When interviewing&nbsp;Rokosz, the&nbsp;anonymous&nbsp;STEM major, and&nbsp;lightly polling others&nbsp;on the matter of preference in a&nbsp;school-wide&nbsp;policy \u2013 if AI should, in fact,&nbsp;be&nbsp;presumed&nbsp;permissible&nbsp;in college life&nbsp;when no explicit rules have been made &#8211;&nbsp;two main arguments&nbsp;crystallized and&nbsp;led to an&nbsp;interesting&nbsp;revelation&nbsp;about the&nbsp;utility of&nbsp;such a policy in&nbsp;influencing&nbsp;the&nbsp;campus demographic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To start, significant common ground between Rokosz and the STEM major was found in rebuttal to the&nbsp;perception&nbsp;that AI is merely a vehicle for cheating. When asked to \u201cestimate the percentage&nbsp;of students you believe use AI to gain unfair advantages on assignments,\u201d both pegged it at the same rough 10% in their respective fields, with the STEM major saying they\u2019d imagine the&nbsp;actual percentage&nbsp;of what would colloquially be labeled as academic dishonesty at&nbsp;\u201ccloser to 40-50% across the whole college,\u201d&nbsp;though&nbsp;\u201cmostly on small or&nbsp;\u2018busy-work\u2019-type assignments.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keenly interesting is that, while both students took clear issue with those who used AI to gain advantages at the expense of others, they recognized that ubiquitous use (what Rokosz guessed is likely over 90% of students on campus) on \u2018mindless\u2019 tasks could hardly be considered the same kind of evil. This is deeply upsetting to traditional notions of what does and does not deserve punishment, as academic integrity &#8211; something that has been held as somewhat of a sacred principle &#8211; was to be punished in principle and not in function or form. In these interviews and informal conversations, however, it was suggested that the real, necessarily punishable offenses occurring with the illicit use of artificial intelligence were those that directly cost other students relative successes, grades, and opportunities and replaced critical thinking wholesale.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cUnless there\u2019s some kind of curve where someone else\u2019s score affects yours, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s actually that big of an issue,\u201d the STEM major said.&nbsp;\u201cOverall, I think the negative aspects of AI impact the individual far more than they&nbsp;impact&nbsp;the group currently.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, simply subverting the normal learning process on low-stakes assignments or even misrepresenting one\u2019s total ownership of \u201cbusy-work\u201d material might not be enough for the zealous inquisition some students worry about happening in certain classrooms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, both interviewees stressed the new, critical role AI has taken in serving populations that have long been underserved in traditional pedagogy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs someone with a learning disability, it\u2019s definitely helped level the playing field,\u201d said Rokosz.&nbsp;\u201cWhat would take me three days to do because of tedious work&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;like checking grammar or citations&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;takes half the time. I can focus on the quality of my arguments rather than my formatting.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The STEM major echoed this sentiment: \u201cAI can be incredibly helpful to students who need to engage with course material differently than the typical student.&nbsp;I think AI can increase engagement with course material, or clarify concepts when a professor&nbsp;isn\u2019t&nbsp;available, and these uses&nbsp;shouldn\u2019t&nbsp;be classified as academic dishonesty.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When prompted to define academic dishonesty, the STEM major added that it&nbsp;is&nbsp;\u201cusing AI to do work for you\u202f<em>without<\/em><em>\u202f<\/em>getting permission from your professor\u2026 or&nbsp;when you claim you did work you&nbsp;didn\u2019t. Using AI as a learning aid&nbsp;doesn\u2019t&nbsp;fit&nbsp;either of&nbsp;those&nbsp;criteria\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&nbsp;being said, among&nbsp;the broader student population, another opinion&nbsp;seemed to form&nbsp;that potential grade inflation due to AI use may disproportionately&nbsp;impact&nbsp;prospective graduate students, especially if those students are avoiding using AI to the same degree out of fear of academic repudiation. The STEM major noted that the above discussion on relative harm \u201cfalls out the window when looking at situations like grad school applications where GPA does actually matter.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this presents its own set of significant questions and difficulties. The disparity in prompt efficiency among students, lack of basic literacy, and&nbsp;lower&nbsp;opportunity cost&nbsp;of doing&nbsp;work for gen-ed courses&nbsp;brought by AI means that any sanctioned AI use <em>at all<\/em> in programs with varying tolerances could precipitate potentially concerning levels of grade inflation. If a steady, competitive institutional GPA is something of a common good or right, as was suggested by multiple individuals, AI policy might be formed with the same deliberation the federal reserve uses when it crafts monetary policy.&nbsp;In this sense, an outcome or harm-based view of proportional punishment cannot be taken to the logical extreme&nbsp;as a principle, and it would behoove the institution to straddle a middle ground now before policy becomes a firefight and not something crafted with care.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8212; Two competing views&nbsp;&#8212;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In deliberating on such a policy, the college&nbsp;would&nbsp;do well to bear in mind that these&nbsp;undercurrents in student opinions illustrate a stark divide in how they view the utility of education&nbsp;and&nbsp;LVC\u2019s role in their future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The subset that views a bachelor\u2019s degree as a vetting process for workplace preparedness&nbsp;and sees Lebanon Valley as&nbsp;a kind of notary and&nbsp;early-career&nbsp;brokerage firm, allowing them access and networking into the&nbsp;job market, views AI in a far more favorable light than other populations.&nbsp;To them,&nbsp;the traditional&nbsp;wariness of&nbsp;misrepresentation is eclipsed by&nbsp;the potential for&nbsp;productivity&nbsp;and the preference&nbsp;of&nbsp;employers&nbsp;for&nbsp;AI natives.&nbsp;Not&nbsp;predispositionally&nbsp;accepting AI use is&nbsp;seen as&nbsp;a&nbsp;hindrance&nbsp;and&nbsp;penalizes advancement&nbsp;and adoption.&nbsp;This position is&nbsp;made&nbsp;extremely visible&nbsp;by&nbsp;the media, business lobbies, and a&nbsp;consortium of students and student organizations that&nbsp;want college to prepare them for success&nbsp;immediately&nbsp;outside their campus gates.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand,&nbsp;and far less visible,&nbsp;the population most inclined towards a heavily punitive policy that assumes&nbsp;AI\u2019s disallowance if not otherwise&nbsp;stated&nbsp;is overwhelmingly&nbsp;composed of those angling for graduate degrees. To them, Lebanon Valley&nbsp;cannot water down its curriculum,&nbsp;tolerate grade inflation, or&nbsp;meaningfully&nbsp;rehabilitate&nbsp;proven&nbsp;cheaters&nbsp;because&nbsp;this&nbsp;directly devalues&nbsp;the&nbsp;prestige of their program and&nbsp;harms&nbsp;their ability to apply to graduate schools.&nbsp;The solution offered is not&nbsp;one of cautious&nbsp;integration, but alternative research opportunities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To their point, there are other evidential forms of sustained thinking and project management that are not entirely vested in a student\u2019s capacity to survive college for four years with no hardship or adversity, as GPA is&nbsp;generally a&nbsp;metric of. Individual capstone projects and theses are more significant indicators of these virtues in a student and are far more revealing of the critical engine behind their research than GPA is, which&nbsp;may&nbsp;likely&nbsp;be&nbsp;inflated by AI outsourcing whether the institution&nbsp;attempts&nbsp;to preserve it or not.&nbsp;To them, what matters is how long the college will&nbsp;attempt&nbsp;to stave&nbsp;that inflation off, whether&nbsp;they will&nbsp;provide alternative opportunities for mentoring and&nbsp;graduate&nbsp;signaling, and&nbsp;if LVC will&nbsp;seize the AI moment as an opportunity to gain institutional prestige.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The dissonance&nbsp;between these two camps&nbsp;suggests&nbsp;that any AI policy duly considered must&nbsp;understand&nbsp;that it will telegraph&nbsp;Lebanon Valley\u2019s&nbsp;preference towards a&nbsp;particular&nbsp;viewpoint&nbsp;and advertise its institutional values to two disparate groups of&nbsp;prospective&nbsp;students.&nbsp;More critically, it could very well bring about demographic change, aligning LVC with&nbsp;more intensive programs and prioritizing prestige through graduate placement or&nbsp;incentivizing career opportunities and work placement&nbsp;in fields dominated by AI.&nbsp;Right now, until GPA becomes obsolete as a&nbsp;tool used to diagnose and rank the value of students,&nbsp;it is very difficult to balance the two views, and any policy becomes a balancing act&nbsp;\u2013 likely for the better part of the next decade.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8212;&nbsp;Avoiding&nbsp;arbitrary&nbsp;punishments &#8212;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Across formal interviews and informal polling, students&nbsp;agreed that punishment can neither be justified nor rehabilitative when there is no defined policy guiding it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to expect children to have the foresight to use AI in a constructive way when they\u2019re already trying to navigate a difficult time in their lives\u2026,\u201d said the STEM major.&nbsp;\u201cI think college students are old enough to make their own decisions on how they want to use AI, but they should first be educated about the potential outcomes of those decisions.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rokosz&nbsp;concurred: \u201cTeach students ethical uses of AI rather than ban its usage entirely.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several&nbsp;floated&nbsp;the idea of a course that&nbsp;operates&nbsp;like an FYE and&nbsp;clearly outlines college expectations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d&nbsp;love&nbsp;if there was a mandatory, 1-credit seminar course that students had to take that fully outlined the uses and detriments of AI in an academic environment,\u201d&nbsp;said the STEM major.&nbsp;\u201cI think this would have a far more positive impact on student AI usage than simply banning it everywhere and sending a blanket message that&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;\u2018bad.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When discussing the importance of such a course&nbsp;in&nbsp;maintaining&nbsp;fair,&nbsp;equitable&nbsp;treatment of AI users in the academic setting, the STEM major added that&nbsp;the hypothetical&nbsp;course is one of the only ways that an AI policy would be intelligible&nbsp;to students.&nbsp;\u201cVery few students are going to use AI responsibly just because a college policy told them to. I think a much higher&nbsp;portion&nbsp;of students will willingly choose to follow the AI policy&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;and not try to skirt around it&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;if&nbsp;they\u2019re&nbsp;able to fully understand the impacts of resigning their ability to learn.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The preponderance of those&nbsp;asked about their vision for a schoolwide policy said some form of education and literacy should be mandated.&nbsp;Primarily, this would function as a safeguard against student rights violations, as it was noted by&nbsp;a few who chose to elaborate&nbsp;that the school cannot reasonably punish students if there is no reasonable expectation they understand the policy,&nbsp;its&nbsp;purpose, or&nbsp;even the technology the policy is discussing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The STEM major concluded&nbsp;with their outlook on the future of AI in academic life.&nbsp;\u201cDepending on how our education system decides to handle it, the future will either look very bright or very bleak when it comes to AI in schools. My main concern is that blanket rules will be made&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;AI usage without considering the nuances of something like an LLM.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think I remain skeptically hopeful,\u201d said Rokosz.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8212; Faculty and&nbsp;administrative&nbsp;use &#8212;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last major area of concern that came up in conversations was&nbsp;that of&nbsp;faculty&nbsp;and administrative use. It was posed that students are currently expected to navigate many individual syllabi where&nbsp;faculty&nbsp;have been&nbsp;devolved&nbsp;broad authority to fashion policies that often&nbsp;outline radically different teaching philosophies.&nbsp;Under the college\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lvc.edu\/registrar\/college-catalogue\/academic-policies-procedures\/honesty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">academic honesty policy<\/a>, punishments&nbsp;for first time offenders are entirely&nbsp;organized&nbsp;by professors&nbsp;\u201cup to and including failure in the course\u201d with wide latitude for&nbsp;forgiveness.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The issue many students take with this is that&nbsp;classes are not discrete ecosystems where&nbsp;learning follows a set of laws the moment a problem set is&nbsp;started or a book is cracked open.&nbsp;When knowledge of what does and does not qualify as academic honesty is&nbsp;expected \u2013 copying and pasting from an academic journal is&nbsp;obviously unethical \u2013 the&nbsp;expansive jurisdiction of professors&nbsp;is justified, as they are&nbsp;often the most immediate point of contact with the offending student, are uniquely aware of the&nbsp;context to their actions, and have a specialized understanding of&nbsp;what&nbsp;their field expects and what their department needs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to AI, many students&nbsp;believe&nbsp;that&nbsp;concepts like plagiarism&nbsp;and&nbsp;answer lookups&nbsp;that have always been&nbsp;relatively black-and-white&nbsp;are now far&nbsp;too&nbsp;grey to be&nbsp;determined&nbsp;at the faculty level. If semantics determine guilt, and each professor has a fundamentally different understanding of what artificial intelligence is&nbsp;\u2013 some going as far as to&nbsp;paint&nbsp;it&nbsp;as&nbsp;an academic antichrist&nbsp;or boogeyman&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;they ask if it is appropriate for one&nbsp;mercurial&nbsp;person to have complete control over both the definition of cheating and its punishment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An AI honesty&nbsp;board&nbsp;comprised&nbsp;of students, professors, and&nbsp;at least one&nbsp;expert in AI&nbsp;is seen as a far more responsible&nbsp;option&nbsp;for&nbsp;identifying&nbsp;legitimate cases of cheating and proportional punishments. This plan&nbsp;diversifies the&nbsp;perspectives&nbsp;offered on what it means to cheat;&nbsp;offering input from peer-to-peer, academic, and institutional&nbsp;viewpoints;&nbsp;while being much more&nbsp;cognizant&nbsp;of&nbsp;both&nbsp;the ways&nbsp;students circumvent&nbsp;the rules and responsibly use AI to advance their studies. It&nbsp;also&nbsp;diffuses responsibility in decision-making so&nbsp;that&nbsp;no one person is implicated&nbsp;for bias or ignorance&nbsp;in a decision that is&nbsp;ultimately&nbsp;unfavorable&nbsp;to a student.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless of policy specifics,&nbsp;what stood out&nbsp;across many conversations,&nbsp;and what&nbsp;truly rankles&nbsp;the student body, is&nbsp;that faculty and administrators are given&nbsp;what many view as carte-blanche to use AI in developing course materials,&nbsp;sending&nbsp;memos&nbsp;and&nbsp;emails,&nbsp;creating&nbsp;advertisements,&nbsp;planning events, and reviewing&nbsp;communications that are all directly related to the quality of student\u2019s education and experience.&nbsp;The rather trite argument used to dismiss this sentiment is that students are benefitting from the efficiency,&nbsp;time saved, and costs cut&nbsp;by&nbsp;AI as the institution grows&nbsp;nimbler and more responsive&nbsp;to feedback and professors have more time to mentor, but functionally, students see very little benefits.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some&nbsp;expressed&nbsp;that professors&nbsp;allegedly using&nbsp;AI&nbsp;inappropriately&nbsp;cannot be&nbsp;relied on&nbsp;for field&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;and guidance. A few have said that once a member of the faculty or staff&nbsp;gains the reputation of unethically using AI, they are&nbsp;often dismissed by the student body as&nbsp;not&nbsp;credible or&nbsp;borderline&nbsp;fraudulent.&nbsp;It has&nbsp;even&nbsp;been suggested that students who feel&nbsp;they might be called out by professors,&nbsp;accused of cheating, or graded poorly&nbsp;should&nbsp;save&nbsp;evidence of their&nbsp;suspected&nbsp;AI use&nbsp;in&nbsp;generating class materials or grading&nbsp;to&nbsp;secure&nbsp;equal treatment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In recent months, the divide has&nbsp;deepened.&nbsp;As my colleague Ryan Talton&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2026\/02\/13\/students-express-frustration-over-use-of-artificial-intelligence-in-lvc-marketing-and-communications\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>,&nbsp;LVC\u2019s&nbsp;Marketing and Communications department&nbsp;doubled down on&nbsp;their&nbsp;AI use&nbsp;in multiple social media posts,&nbsp;turning off&nbsp;comments&nbsp;when&nbsp;outrage from students&nbsp;followed&nbsp;over what they perceived to be&nbsp;lazily&nbsp;outsourcing work to AI that could have been given&nbsp;to digital communications majors&nbsp;as educational opportunities.&nbsp;Shortly after this incident,&nbsp;Brian Boyer,&nbsp;supervisor of&nbsp;campus&nbsp;safety,&nbsp;caused a firestorm on&nbsp;the anonymous social media app&nbsp;Yik Yak&nbsp;after&nbsp;ironically&nbsp;emailing students&nbsp;an AI generated photo&nbsp;in a parking update&nbsp;that&nbsp;some&nbsp;lauded&nbsp;as \u201chilarious\u201d&nbsp;and others&nbsp;decried as tone-deaf&nbsp;and \u201cunnecessary.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With little to no guidance from the school in the form of a centralized policy, the buzzwords among the student body are \u201claziness,\u201d \u201carms-race,\u201d and \u201chypocrisy,\u201d none of which have any place in discussions surrounding&nbsp;the college\u2019s academic and administrative elites.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8212;&nbsp;A&nbsp;most&nbsp;brazen&nbsp;neo-luddism?&nbsp;The disorganization of LVC\u2019s anti-AI front &#8212;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We finally culminate in a mild rebuke and constructive interrogation of the movement that saw sticky notes plastered to the walls and hung precariously like spiders in every dark corner and crevasse of the school.&nbsp;Regarding&nbsp;them, a question has sat in the back of my mind and those of many other students \u2013 what exactly was the protest about?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Surely it cannot&nbsp;have been&nbsp;the technology&nbsp;itself. Yet \u2013&nbsp;whether or not&nbsp;this was intentional \u2013 it has been taken as such. As&nbsp;a&nbsp;political heuristic, protests&nbsp;accomplish&nbsp;the most when they are limited to policy&nbsp;objectives&nbsp;or social ills caused by something&nbsp;that may be&nbsp;<em>redressed<\/em>,&nbsp;yet&nbsp;this redressability issue is precisely why the thing appeared so disorganized: the school must have some purview to change things.&nbsp;Right?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was&nbsp;wholly unclear&nbsp;as to what, other than an ecstatic love letter to the freedom of expression, was&nbsp;desired&nbsp;by the group or individual&nbsp;that LVC or the students at large could meaningfully improve upon. Was it&nbsp;frustration&nbsp;over the imminent construction of a data center in South Annville? Was it an urging of state lawmakers to adopt stricter rezoning requirements for such a thing? Was it pleading for some type of school-wide policy that is more punitive than current diffuse allowances?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many students had little idea and lampooned the protest on Yik&nbsp;Yak, with anonymous posts suggesting the entire display was \u201ckinda&nbsp;inconvenient\u201d and asking \u201cwhat are we really&nbsp;proving here?\u201d to which they were pedantically reminded that inconvenience is indeed the point of any protest with no further clarification. A similar melee was had on separate posts discussing the factual grounds for the protest and what all students would hypothetically come for if they \u201corganized an anti-AI&nbsp;protest\u201d and held it as a \u201crally on the quad\u2026,\u201d because they \u201ccan\u2019t keep doing nothing [sic].\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s&nbsp;bothersome \u2013 and revealing &#8211; about this confusion is the&nbsp;wafting fetor&nbsp;of neo-luddism on the part of the organizers. The philosophical mire of the AI and anti-AI&nbsp;debate&nbsp;that campus has&nbsp;recently&nbsp;been&nbsp;plunged&nbsp;into&nbsp;is&nbsp;backgrounded&nbsp;by a&nbsp;widely-accepted,&nbsp;highly-educated&nbsp;guess&nbsp;that&nbsp;AI&nbsp;is, in fact, inevitable, at least&nbsp;in a&nbsp;societal-staying-power&nbsp;sense.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, the federal government&nbsp;maintains&nbsp;a&nbsp;tight grip&nbsp;on&nbsp;GPUs produced by&nbsp;private firms like&nbsp;NVIDIA&nbsp;via export controls,&nbsp;is&nbsp;attempting&nbsp;to secure&nbsp;domestic&nbsp;supply chains for&nbsp;rare-earth minerals used in chip&nbsp;manufacturing,&nbsp;and&nbsp;aggressively protects&nbsp;the IPs of large AI&nbsp;trusts&nbsp;like Anthropic and&nbsp;OpenAI against foreign competition. The United States military actively&nbsp;awards&nbsp;contracts to integrate private AI technology with military command structures and interfaces.&nbsp;Rather than being indicative of something with no staying power, this trend is&nbsp;patently&nbsp;illustrative of the&nbsp;government\u2019s (and most of its elected representative\u2019s) expectation that&nbsp;nearly unfettered&nbsp;AI advancement is and will continue to be a national security imperative for&nbsp;the&nbsp;foreseeable future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a bit of a reductio, assuming AI is to be phased out of the&nbsp;private and public&nbsp;marketplaces&nbsp;over the coming&nbsp;years,&nbsp;at the behest of protestors,&nbsp;nearly every company with even&nbsp;modest AI integration would&nbsp;become&nbsp;inefficient,&nbsp;overvalued, unable to provide&nbsp;returns,&nbsp;and cause futures to&nbsp;tumble.&nbsp;As a gentle reminder,&nbsp;the&nbsp;sudden or phased&nbsp;absence of a technology&nbsp;potentially&nbsp;erasing&nbsp;decades of stock market gains and&nbsp;violently&nbsp;shifting national security strategy usually&nbsp;means it&nbsp;is\u2026 inevitable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back on Yik Yak, amid rants about religion and DIY recipes for chicken parmesan at Mund, an anonymous user asked for thoughtful opinions on the topic of AI use, to which&nbsp;several&nbsp;were given.&nbsp;Each one, by virtue of&nbsp;its anecdotal specificity yet&nbsp;obvious throughline,&nbsp;motions at the same&nbsp;fatal&nbsp;disorganization&nbsp;plaguing the protest movement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s crazy that everybody here is paying so much just to have professors use AI to make assignments that students use AI to do,\u201d lamented one commenter, \u201c\u2026it\u2019s actually making us less smart and less good at careers [sic].\u201d A psychology major&nbsp;I spoke&nbsp;to&nbsp;supported&nbsp;this position, suggesting that they have personally&nbsp;observed&nbsp;professors&nbsp;(not necessarily in the major)&nbsp;flagrantly&nbsp;using chatbots to generate content and answer questions without citations. They also noted that discussion posts are&nbsp;largely driven&nbsp;by students using AI&nbsp;and&nbsp;joked that it would be catastrophic to the student-teacher relationship if either discovered text humanizers at any appreciable scale.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The irony&nbsp;had become&nbsp;palpable&nbsp;and was seized&nbsp;upon&nbsp;by another Yik Yak user&nbsp;in&nbsp;a&nbsp;small&nbsp;dissertation on the&nbsp;reasoning ability of AI.&nbsp;\u201cNot enough people realize at its core AI&nbsp;is not capable of thinking\u2026,\u201d they mused, \u201c\u2026 everyone uses it as a substitute for thought and effort in a way that diminishes peoples&nbsp;[sic]&nbsp;ability to research&nbsp;drastically\u201d&nbsp;though&nbsp;it still remains an \u201cemerging technology with&nbsp;legitimate use-cases.\u201d&nbsp;Totaling 31 and 37 upvotes respectively, this response and the one above both surpassed the original&nbsp;question&nbsp;and were extraordinarily well-received by the community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evidentially, the&nbsp;important temperature check the anti-AI protestor(s)&nbsp;neglected to run on the&nbsp;student body was one that reveals deep-seated mistrust,&nbsp;not in the technology&nbsp;itself,&nbsp;but in the&nbsp;specific&nbsp;ways&nbsp;it&nbsp;is&nbsp;<em>permissibly&nbsp;or&nbsp;unquestioningly&nbsp;<\/em>used&nbsp;in the classroom.&nbsp;Now&nbsp;<em>this&nbsp;<\/em>is a redressable issue&nbsp;and one that can be argued effectively with countless testimonials,&nbsp;concrete&nbsp;examples,&nbsp;a large body of studies and statistics,&nbsp;and broad support for articulable policy. This is something Lebanon Valley has&nbsp;definite&nbsp;control over and something it should take seriously&nbsp;in the immediate future, lest they want to be scraping&nbsp;more&nbsp;used stickies off chalkboards&nbsp;and desk chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By Jakob Strohl \u201926, staff writer&nbsp; Around a week ago, students were&nbsp;met&nbsp;with a flurry of orange sticky notes as they walked into classrooms and buildings around the college. The green scrawl across all of them: <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2026\/04\/27\/much-ado-about-ai-student-protest-apathy-and-desire-for-direction-at-lvc\/\" title=\"Much ado about AI: Student protest, apathy, and desire for direction at LVC\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,42],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opinion","8":"category-opinion-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16735,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16732\/revisions\/16735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}