Sweetland is at the forefront of helping students and instructors navigate the rapidly changing landscape of generative AI in academic writing. Recognizing both the opportunities and challenges AI technology presents, Sweetland has developed resources, workshops, and guidelines that encourage ethical, transparent, and meaningful engagement with tools like ChatGPT and U-M GPT. Sweetland’s efforts focus on building digital literacy, promoting critical discussion about authorship and plagiarism, and ensuring that the university’s writing culture adapts thoughtfully and inclusively to the age of artificial intelligence. Therefore, Sweetland was happy to be invited by CRLT to help with the most recent Provost’s Seminar on Teaching, “Generative AI in Undergraduate Education.”
The seminar was held at the Michigan Union on November 10, 2025. It offered a timely and thoughtful exploration of artificial intelligence’s transformational role in higher education. Hosted by U-M’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), the event convened faculty and experts from diverse disciplines to discuss opportunities and challenges posed by generative AI technologies. Sessions covered practical classroom applications, ethical considerations, and strategies for developing critical digital literacy among students. Presenters showcased innovative assignments leveraging AI for research, writing, and problem-solving, sparkling lively discussion about academic integrity and inclusive teaching practices. Attendees appreciated the collaborative atmosphere, with concurrent sessions fostering idea-sharing and resource exchange. The seminar’s blend of expert panels and hands-on examples provided actionable takeaways for integrating AI thoughtfully into curricula.
Sweetland participated in the organization of the seminar in a consulting capacity and in delivering content on the day itself. Sweetland’s Director, Simone Sessolo, presented in a panel titled “Gen AI, Ethics, and Writing Instruction,” together with Clay Walker from Technical Communication and Kara Palmer from Kinesiology. Recognizing the opportunity to teach AI literacy on a large scale, Sessolo’s presentation focused on proposing a new policy for courses that fulfill the First-Year Writing requirement at U-M, which serve around 6,500 students each year: “The guidelines and learning objectives for FYWR courses should explicitly include discussions of large language models (LLMs), including chatbots. These discussions should address their implications for writing, research, and academic integrity, in order to equip students with the knowledge to critically use such technologies in their academic work.” In the coming year, Sweetland will work with departments that offer FYWR courses on how such a policy might be implemented.
Several Sweetland faculty represented the Center in the Resource Room, where seminar participants could have mini consultations about how to integrate AI tools and technologies in the writing classroom. Other organizations present included: The Center for Academic Innovation, Instructional Technology Services, University Libraries, and the Language Resource Center.
The well-organized and engaging event left participants feeling better equipped to navigate the evolving landscape of AI in undergraduate education at Michigan. In the Winter 2026 semester, CRLT will organize a Provost’s Seminar on Generative AI in Graduate Education, and Sweetland will continue to be at the center of these discussions.
