Student Senate hosts AI Panel featuring Concordia professors to foster a better relationship between professors and students

President Dr. Bernard Bull, Rev. Dr. Peter Jurchen, Professor Tobin Beck, Professor Michael Scheer, Dr. Shanna Opfer, and Dr. Marcus Gubanyi answer student questions about AI.

Photo credit: Adreanna Pronschinske

By Adreanna Pronschinske

The Student Senate hosted a panel of Concordia professors to talk about AI and its place in higher education on Tuesday night in Weller Auditorium. Student Senate vice president Naa Kordai Addy said the goal was to bridge the gap between students and professors and despite the small turnout there were multiple students who attended that were very interested.

“One of [the Senate’s] goals is to foster a better relationship between professors and students,” Addy said. “We have such great professors here on campus and we get to tap into the wisdom that they have, so being able to listen to them tell what their thoughts are and even share their fears with us, I think that was great to be able to experience that.”

Addy said that the Senate will have to, “brainstorm some more,” to come up with events that students will want to attend.

The panel included Assistant Professor of Lutheran Education Rev. Dr. Peter Jurchen, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Political Science Tobin Beck, Center for Liturgical Art Director Michael Scheer, Chair of the Education Department Dr. Shanna Opfer and Assistant Professor of Computer Science Dr. Marcus Gubanyi.

University president Dr. Bernard Bull prepared a list of questions in advance to ask the members of the panel. Some questions focused on how to apply AI in the classroom and others focused on how AI might look in the future. Bull opened the discussion up at the end to students to ask any questions that they had about AI.

Although the event’s turnout was small, many of those who attended hung around afterward to ask panel members more questions they had. Senior David Marin, a computer science major, said that he gained wisdom despite already knowing “more than the average person” about AI.

“Dr. Gubanyi has helped us to understand. Computer science professors in general, Dr. Einspahr and Dr. Sylvester, have helped us understand that we should think about how AI is affecting the way we learn,” Marin said.

A few students said they use AI to help them with their homework on occasion.

Marin said, “I’ll tell it to show me how to do something. I’m not asking it to do my homework…For example, I’ve asked ChatGPT to explain how the professor got the answer so that I could understand it.”

Addy said she has used AI in the past to help in her statistics class.

“AI explains it and then I try to apply it. Because after that, I’m going to sit in class with the exam in front of me, and I need to be able to answer. As long as I’m able to learn it, as long as I actually learned it before taking the exam, I do well,” Addy said.

Beck congratulated the Senate on organizing the event. “It’s good for us to think about these things and make students aware and get them involved in thinking about it and discussing it.”