Vol. 115, Iss. 10 | Wednesday, October 8, 2025
The Flat Hat The Weekly Student Newspaper of
The College of William and Mary
flathatnews.com | @theflathat
KYLIE TOTTEN / THE FLAT HAT
Board of Visitors approves campus comprehensive plan, creates three new masters programs SAM BELMAR AND MOLLY MARTIN // FLAT HAT NEWS EDITORS
Wednesday, Sept. 24 to Friday, Sept. 26, the College of William and Mary’s board of visitors met in Blow Memorial Hall for its first meeting of the 2025-26 academic year. All eight committees conducted separate sessions before convening as a full board, passing some resolutions independently and waiting to debate others Friday morning. The board officially approved the campus comprehensive plan, created three new master’s degree programs, evaluated admissions data and brainstormed institutional strategy steps as Vision 2026 nears a close and a new strategic plan emerges. National preeminence and the 2026 U.S. News and World Report rankings undergirded each committee’s operational priorities as it relates to the College’s future, with all committees working against the backdrop of a shifting federal policy landscape, institutional reaccreditation this spring and the “demographic cliff” expected to lower application numbers starting in 2026. Cross-committee collaboration on civic engagement among undergraduates also figured heavily in discussions ahead of the College’s Year of Civic Leadership in 2026 and the United States’ semiquincentennial. Thursday, Sept. 25, the Committee on Academic Affairs convened to approve the addition of two new master’s degrees in nonprofit management and data science. Members also reviewed key performance indicators for faculty performance, considered revamping the COLL curriculum and evaluated class of 2029 admissions data. Academic affairs chair Laura Keehner Rigas ’01 opened the meeting with a contextualization of the College’s 2025-26 academic goals in light of institutional reaccreditation this spring and ongoing
collaboration with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Among these progress points was the 2024 update of the faculty handbook, which Rigas celebrated as a much-needed step for the College’s future. “Last year, this committee delivered on the extraordinary task of reviewing and making long-needed updates on the faculty handbook,” Rigas said. “I’m extraordinarily grateful to all those who worked on that.” Vice Chairman Annemaria DeSalva ’90 was absent from the meeting, but Rigas referenced her recent lecture on the importance of the humanities in the emergent artificial intelligence era. DeSalva’s comments came as the College aims to ramp up its academic offerings related to artificial intelligence, from the School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics’ AI minor to the College’s “ChatGPT Edu” partnership with OpenAI announced Oct. 1. “She had a brilliant lecture a few weeks ago where she laid out the argument that enhanced humanities are needed today more than ever,” Rigas. “And for people to think critically and make good decisions, applying wisdom in a technical age.” In line with the evolving higher education landscape, Rigas addressed a possible update of the COLL curriculum to better align with students’ most pressing needs. “It’s been about ten years since the COLL curriculum has been reviewed, so I’d like the provost and team to think about ways we can approach that in a similar way as we did for the faculty handbook,” Rigas said. “Getting the right people together to think about how the
skill sets and expectations for graduates have changed.” Provost Peggy Agouris then introduced Alyson Wilson, the College’s new vice provost for research, who she said has been a “great addition to the team” since starting in July, and whom she expects to help advance the College’s academic goals. Agouris also detailed the 600-page self-study report that the College submitted to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College as a prerequisite for reaccreditation. Assistant Provost for Institutional Accreditation and Effectiveness Matt Smith finalized the report Sept. 2, which now awaits feedback from an off-site review committee by late November. Following Agouris’ update, the College’s new Vice President for Enrollment Strategy Lisa Keegan delivered a presentation on class of 2029 enrollment data. Keegan shared that admissions numbers remained largely similar to the previous year, with slightly more deposit-enrolled withdrawals and 1% fewer first-generation students than in 2024. The College also enrolled 1.5% more undergraduate students in 2025. Keegan emphasized her long-term goal of boosting the College’s total undergraduate application count to 20,000 students without drastically changing enrollment numbers, resulting in a more competitive acceptance rate. She said the College can accomplish this by increasing its enrollment yield over time, which dipped 1% since 2024. See BOARD OF VISITORS page 3
ACADEMICS
Mixed reactions over ChatGPT Edu launch, students raise environmental concerns
ChatGPT Edu to provide access to more OpenAI resources, students worried about learning outcomes SUSANNAH POTEET CHIEF STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Oct. 1, the College of William and Mary announced the pilot launch of ChatGPT Edu. This comes amid the College’s broader push towards artificial intelligence development, as the College announced an AI minor in August and plans to additionally expand its bachelor's and graduate opportunities in AI. The rollout of ChatGPT Edu also reveals divisions at the college over the use of AI. For many students and faculty, the development raises academic and environmental concerns. Chat GPT Edu will provide select faculty with more OpenAI resources—higher message limits than Chat GPT’s free version, data analytics, web browsing and document summarization. This initiative is sponsored by the School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics, Information Technology, William and Mary Libraries and the Mason School of Business. In an interview with University Communications, Chief Information Officer Ed Aractingi imagined the launch as an
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improvement that will provide access to AI through a central and secure platform. Many administrators characterize the initiative as a marker of the College’s leadership in higher education innovation. “We are creating opportunities to apply the technological power of AI to diverse domains, sparking new ideas, challenging assumptions and integrating a wide range of perspectives,” Dean of CDSP Douglas Schmidt ’84, M.A. ’86 stated in a quote to University Communications. For physics major Julia Larmee ’28, the program reflects how AI has been integrated into all of her classes and research. She uses it for code-checking, but doesn’t always view it as a driver of innovation. “It’s a really great tool because in my research lab, we use it to code—my graduate student uses it to debug his code and fix his code,” Larmee said. “But you can’t use it for everything. We have to be aware of how we’re using it, and double-checking its work.” In the physics department, several of Larmee’s professors have sparked discussions on the bias and ethical uses of AI. “What sources is the AI actually pulling
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from? Is it actually getting the right things?” Larmee said.“If you’re feeding the bot specific studies, how are you avoiding that bias?” A tenet of ChatGPT Edu is that it doesn’t use institutional data from universities to train its models. “To my knowledge, I haven’t seen one like this, because AI has to be getting the information from somewhere to function,” Larmee said. “I was not aware that a model could work like that.” Larmee emphasized the need to learn the fundamental concepts before turning to AI. “In my coding class, it’s really hard to be taught how to code without using AI,” Larmee said. “AI isn’t always right, and so if I’m not learning how to code but AI doesn't know the right way — that’s an issue.” Students and faculty also have expressed concerns over the college’s push towards AI development and the lack of clarity surrounding disciplinary policies on AI. Although the addition of ChatGPT Edu was not sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the move comes amid continued support for the inclusion of AI at the university level, impacting all
departments of the College. Associate professor of religious studies Andrew Tobolowsky expressed his concerns about the impact of AI on the learning environment at the College. “What you see is declining critical thinking skills, what you see is a declining ability to read and understand information,” Tobolowsky said. “This is not me saying that AI has no uses anywhere, but it has no uses in the humanities classroom.” Tobolowsky emphasized that the important part of the humanities is being able to synthesize evidence, gather evidence and turn it into an argument. “The more you involve AI in the process, the less you develop those skills,” Tobolowsky said. Tobolowsky notes in his syllabus that AI usage is plagiarism, but the enforcement of that is difficult to implement. “I’ve had students who clearly did use AI. I asked them to rewrite the paper, and they do it again,” Tobolowsky said. “What am I supposed to do?” Tobolowsky also admitted that the lack of a clear AI policy at the College is challenging when it comes to enacting disciplinary measures, and that the
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inclusion of ChatGPT Edu could only encourage the dishonest use of AI in completing assignments. “The university doesn’t have a clear plan for what will constitute demonstrated AI use if you’re referring them to the Honor Council. It doesn’t have a clear plan for the consequences,” Tobolowsky said. “And now the university is providing them with this technology.” Tobolowsky remarked that much of the College’s push towards AI has highlighted the positive aspects of the technology, not creating a full picture. “A lot of people have this idea that if you have a technology, you can find a way to make people use it in only the best ways, and itʼs just not true.” For Tobolowsky and other professors, those pushing AI development as increasingly valuable to education are missing the scope of the problem. “If talking to ChatGPT about the lessons meant that you understood the lessons better, you wouldnʼt be hearing these complaints from humanities professors,” Tobolowsky said. See ACADEMICS page 4
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