The AI discussion in LCC’s Academic Senate

This article is part of The Lookout's LCC x AI series, a multi-part series on conversations surrounding AI and its impacts at Lansing Community College. 

By Carson Lemon
Staff Reporter

The Academic Senate at Lansing Community College is a relatively new part of the institution—only a little over a decade old, established at the end of 2012. The senate researches and recommends actions for the college to take ranging from educational philosophy to institutional policy, new trends in education are often the topic of discussion in their meetings.

Generative Artificial Intelligence software like Chat GPT or Google Gemini has become a hot topic, with an increasing number of students, instructors, and administrators incorporating the software into their work. At LCC, many instructors were unsure of the power they had to limit the use of AI in their classrooms, and they also weren’t sure where to draw the line.

What’s Happened Already?

In the fall of 2024, the senate tasked itself with brainstorming a clear, usable generative AI policy for instructors to include on their syllabus to help alleviate instructors’ uncertainty. The senate ended up approving three options for instructors to use: no generative AI software allowed for classwork, limited generative AI software allowed for classwork, and any capacity of generative AI software allowed for classwork.

Following a period of much discussion around AI, President Robinson attended the Senate’s first meeting of Feb. 2026 and shared his experience teaching a Comp 121 course in the fall 2025 semester. In the meeting notes, he referred to the course as ‘ground zero for AI’ and in his opinion, he found many professors overestimate their ability to detect AI generated work.

As an instructor, Dr. Robinson allowed students to use AI when completing their coursework but stated he was surprised by how many students were not interested in using AI, and how little an impact AI had on composition. To close out his presentation to the senate, Robinson said that he wants students to view AI as a tool, similar to a graphic calculator.

At the same meeting, Senator Adam Richardson spoke about how tech careers at LCC have been adapting to and using AI tools. Tech Careers Associate Dean Dennis Pipper shared that he uses AI daily, for tasks like drafting documents, analyzing data and looking at job descriptions. Pipper clarified that every decision he makes is 100% his own, and when using AI, always asks, “are you sure?” to verify the validity of the answer provided.

Following Pipper, Academic Senate President Tracy Nothnagel shared how she used an AI tool to help transition her eight-week course down to seven weeks. She also uploaded content for an upcoming exam to a generative AI model to create more study tools for her students.

At their second Feb. 2026 meeting, Senator Bill Garlick presented his findings as chair of the Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) committee: There is no perfect AI detection software. He cited rapidly changing and evolving generative AI models making finding a reliable AI detection software an uphill battle.

Additionally, Senator Jessica Hester led a group of faculty and other senators to voice concerns about AI use at the college. They expressed worries that generative AI use may impact critical thinking and writing skills, and pointed to the fact that every department experiences AI use differently than others.

What’s Being Said Now?

In a sit-down interview, Counselor and Senator for the Counseling division Jim Owens commended President Robinson for going back to the classroom, as well as his career long commitment to investigating new technology, “He's been kind of at the front bleeding edge of technology in education for 30 years, so this isn't necessarily new for him,” said Owens. “He has a positive idea about how [AI] could be used.”

Robinson’s vision around using AI as a tool isn’t shared by everyone at the college, but many agree with his philosophy of using generative AI as a tool. Additionally, Academic Senate Vice-President and Art and Design faculty, Laurie Bishop, says she feels LCC has an obligation to teach students how to use AI tools before they enter the workforce.

“It is something that is being used in the world outside of LCC, whether it's a corporation or whether we're talking about students that are going from LCC to a university,” Bishop said. “All these places, from which we are launching you to are using AI in some specific way, if we don't try to incorporate this into the student activity, we could be doing students a disservice.”

Though Robinson is excited and optimistic about the future of AI at LCC, according to Owens, the senate has stayed quite divided, “There's a tradition of academic freedom and the ability to run your class how you want to. That's not exactly how everything works at LCC,” Owens explained. “There are standards in departments and things like that for how you teach and what you have to teach to.”

Although there are drawbacks and nuances, Owens says for the most part, he’s curious about AI. “We have to adapt to technology. I think it's a tool we could use. Even with AI for mental health, sure, there's a place for it,” Owens said. But there's limits, and we don't know what those limits are, honestly, until we go looking sometimes.”

What Does the Future Hold?

As for where discussion in the senate is headed, Bishop says, “We're still in the ‘how do we manage this?’ phase. Addressing AI and the needs and the concerns of faculty is something we have focused on this whole year.” Currently, the sole policy that has come from the senate remains their syllabus AI policy guidelines.

Questions the senate may tackle are how to enforce academic honesty while balancing the use of AI, exploring the ethical implications of a higher education institution of using generative AI, and more. For those interested, prepare for more discussion, debates, and personal recounts of individual experiences with generative AI at work and in the classroom.

For Bishop, her biggest concern—shared by many at the college—is staying informed and up to date with the advances of AI. “I think my concern is, can I catch up? Can I get there?” She continued after a pause, “and if I do, how do I keep up?”