Newsroom | The Case: Two Rivers

Board Presses University for an AI Plan as Faculty Split on the Path

Regional Desk

Two Rivers State University leaders left last week's board meeting with a homework assignment and a deadline. During an otherwise routine session, a board member set aside the agenda to ask the provost a direct question: what is the university's strategy for artificial intelligence. The room, by several accounts, went quiet.

Provost Marcus Hale told the board a plan would be ready by the fall strategic-plan checkpoint. In an interview afterward he framed the moment as overdue rather than unwelcome. "Our people are already using these tools," he said. "The question is whether we support them on purpose or by accident."

That support has so far grown from the ground up. A volunteer faculty group has met for months without a budget or a formal charge, and by the university's own rough count, dozens of instructors already fold AI into how they prepare courses and give feedback. The information technology office has quietly purchased a small set of licenses to see what works.

The enthusiasm is not universal. The chair of the faculty senate, Dr. Susan Reyes, said she supports thoughtful adoption and worries about the order of operations. "A policy that faculty had no hand in is a policy faculty will route around," she said, pointing to a patchwork of academic-integrity practices that vary from one syllabus to the next.

Students are navigating the gray zone in the meantime. Aaliyah, a first-generation student who commutes and works while enrolled, said she uses free AI tools to keep up and does much of her coursework on her phone. She said no one has told her clearly whether that counts against her. "Tell me the rule first," she said. "Then tell me the tool."

The university's chief information officer, Janelle Ford, urged patience on the technical side, citing unanswered questions about where student data would travel. A regional workforce grant with an AI component and a near-term deadline has added urgency to the timeline.

For now, the plan is a promise with a due date. What fills it is the open question.

The Broad Access Briefing

A campus with a deadline

A short segment on higher education. Two hosts, roughly two minutes.

Host AToday's campus is one a lot of our listeners will recognize. Call it Two Rivers State. Broad-access, regional, most students commuting, a lot of them first in their families to go to college. And this month, AI landed on the board's agenda.

Host BLanded is the right word. A board member basically asked the provost, on the record, what's our AI strategy. And the honest answer was, we're working on it.

Host AWhich is where a lot of institutions actually are. There is real activity. Faculty using the tools on their own, a volunteer group meeting after hours, IT buying a few licenses to test the water. What is missing is the connective tissue.

Host BNo plan, no budget line, no shared picture of where they even stand. And the interesting part is the disagreement inside the building. You have a champion who wants to move now before he loses his early adopters. You have a senate chair saying move, but bring faculty with you or the policy won't stick.

Host AAnd a CIO asking the question nobody in the room wants to answer, which is where does the student data go.

Host BMeanwhile the students are just quietly using the free tools and hoping they don't get called in for it.

Host ASo the question we would put to anyone working on this. It is not whether Two Rivers should engage with AI. That ship has sailed. It is what you actually hand an institution like this that it can use on Monday, with the staff, the budget, and the time it really has.

Host BResources that survive contact with reality. That is the whole game.

Host AThat is the whole game. More after the break.

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