For several years Columbia College has been engaging with the implications of generative artificial intelligence on the Columbia community. From public events in partnership with Theater of War Productions, to faculty discussions of pedagogy, the Core Curriculum — the cornerstone of a College education — has been a locus of discussions from the start. The Center for the Core Curriculum held its first meeting about generative AI in December 2022, just days after ChatGPT was made publicly available.
Since then, numerous opportunities have been created for Core academic leaders and instructors to talk about developments in AI, including how to use it (or not) in their classes. Following discussions with the Committee on the Core, this past spring Dean Josef Sorett charged a faculty working group with holding a series of discussions, which both drew from and built on these conversations, about what the omnipresence of AI means for teaching and learning in the curriculum.
Co-chaired by Clémence Boulouque, the Carl and Bernice Witten Associate Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies, and Dennis Yi Tenen, professor of English and comparative literature, the Faculty Working Group on AI and the Core Curriculum comprised 10 faculty members who teach in the five shared Core courses.
“I am deeply grateful to Professors Boulouque and Yi Tenen, and to all of the faculty who participated in the working group, for the time and careful thought they’ve invested,” Sorett says. “They have helped to ensure that Core instruction will both carry on the best of its humanistic traditions and reflect a deep commitment to ongoing innovation. An evolution in liberal arts education means reading and thinking about the impacts of technology on human society, as well as teaching students to engage with AI in ways that cultivate the critical thinking and habits of mind that remain central to the goals of the Core Curriculum.”
The group had three priorities for the Spring 2026 semester: build awareness of AI’s potential in the Core in order to advance teaching goals and support the best possible learning experience for students; develop clear AI policies and practices for the Core; and design a symposium for faculty and students about AI and undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences, to be held in the 2026–27 academic year.
In April, the working group shared recommendations that reaffirmed the Core’s commitment to human intelligence and human-centered pedagogy — but that also carefully aligned the realities and opportunities of technological change with the Core Curriculum’s guiding values and principles.
Their recommendations include limiting students’ use of connected devices in Core seminars, to lessen distraction and discourage the use of AI during in-class discussions; an enrichment of “human-first” teaching practices, with additional forms of shared “unplugged” inquiry and engagement; and the creation of explicit AI-aware guidelines and resources for students and instructors, with clear policies for every Core syllabus.
“For more than a century, Columbia’s Core Curriculum has cultivated habits of attention, judgment and argument through sustained, in-person engagement with texts, primary sources, and classmates and professors,” the group wrote. “At a time when many forms of thinking are increasingly automated, the Core offers a rare space to practice critical thought, preserving and deepening human-centered, humanistic principles.
“It is important to stress that we do not see these pedagogical practices as a retreat from a world in which AI is assuming an increasingly prominent place. On the contrary, we consider these practices to be the best preparation for responsible and informed engagement with AI.”
The Committee on the Core will discuss the working group’s recommendations this Fall.
Professor Chris Wiggins CC’93, an adviser to Dean Sorett about AI strategy, is an advocate of the group’s “human-first, AI-aware” methodology.
“What makes this work essential is its recognition that the Core represents something worth defending and celebrating: a space where students learn the disciplined practice of collective inquiry,” Wiggins says. “For decades, students have engaged in the demanding and rewarding work of interrogating their own and their peers’ diverse experiences, testing their insights against both canonical texts and each other’sanalyses. The working group’s approach helps us preserve these practices while thoughtfully meeting the current moment.
“Their findings are particularly valuable because they situate the current AI disruption within the broader context of a 20-year attention crisis,” Wiggins continues. “The technologies reshaping our information ecosystem have entered the classroom — including the lecture-based classes in the Core — which rely on sustained attention and collaborative sense-making. Addressing AI’s impact on the goals of the Core requires acknowledging this deeper challenge to its central intellectual practices.”