> [!summary]+ Summary > This page describes the motivating background, timeline, purpose, and outcomes of a key community I established while leading genAI activities at GWU Center for Teaching Excellence. # genAI Faculty Advisory Council When I joined George Washington University (GWU) in July 2020 a core part of my charge was to create new programming to up-skill faculty digital fluency. A driver for this was that GWU had become an [Adobe Creative Campus](https://www.adobeforeducation.com/higher-ed/creative-campus) the previous year and the university wanted to get value from this. Soon enough COVID-19 changed those plans, and then in November 2022 OpenAI ChatGPT changed everything for my mission. In addition to my existing mission, I was tasked with taking on the role of leading the response to generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) for GWU Libraries and Academic Innovation (LAI). One thing that was clear from the start was that we needed a community. Being housed in the library, a central component of academics and research, I was in the perfect location to initiate this. And as a former educator, I valued this. I believed that I could provide leadership to form a community, create conversations around teaching, and help lay the groundwork for innovation. Such thinking is rooted in my [[teaching philosophy]]. ## Establishment timeline I started the process of forming a community through a series of faculty interviews in spring 2023. I spoke one-on-one with faculty across the entire campus in-person and over Zoom. The differences in opinions were astounding and a broad spectrum. On one end enthusiasm and on the other fear. While conducting interviews I began drafting our strategic plan. This was completed by late-spring 2023 with a full section on **guiding councils**. For one, the **establishment of a faculty genAI innovation council** with a purpose to "…identify policies and potential methods related to GAI in teaching, research, and productivity. It may also lend to providing guidance on out-of-class administrative workflows". With faculty gone for the summer, I waited until fall 2023 to first launch some programming, engage with more faculty on the topic, and then by mid-fall began to propose and gather faculty interest with a potential genAI community/council out of the library. The response was positive. Over November and December 2023 I reached out to faculty, and other directors and deans that I knew to identify 2-3 faculty from each GWU college/school that I should contact. I sought optimists, skeptics, and those not sure how they leaned. By January 2024 I had 20 faculty on-board from all but 1 college/school. | CCAS | CSAD | GWSB | GSEHD | SEAS | SMPA | SMHS | SON | CPS | MISPH | TSPPPA | GWLAW | | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----- | ---- | ---- | ---- | --- | --- | ----- | ------ | ----- | | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | *Note: Scroll right on the table to see more.* ## Purpose and objectives A central idea behind the purpose of the council was that **genAI would only become more established in teaching and learning and thus we should explore together what this should look like across disciplines**. One important note is that a clear directive from my leadership was to participants focused on pedagogy, and not drift into policy. I was happy to do this as it helped me to communicate a clear scope. ### Purpose The original purpose of the genAI FAC community was as follows: > "The purpose of the generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) Faculty Advisory Council is to **collectively explore and define new human-AI partnered pedagogies**. Through bringing together a diverse group of faculty representative of each college and school at GWU, this group will aim to create starting points for faculty across the university to begin effectively integrating genAI into their teaching practice whereby students can learn effective, appropriate and skillful ways of leveraging GAI in their learning." ### Working objectives Additionally, the council had 3 agreed upon initial objectives: 1. Identifying and designing pedagogies with genAI 2. Providing genAI guidance and awareness 3. Generating community support ## Results We met 5 times during the spring 2024 term, with the first being a kick-off session. These meetings included a report-out of genAI related work happening in LAI, a presentation and conversation around a central topic, and announcements from various members what was happening in their departments. Later we met 3 times in the fall 2024 term before changes from the interest of new leadership. The group continued and expanded into 2025 and helped the community in a few ways. 1. Connected faculty and formed new working partnerships. 2. Saw faculty assist me in AI literacy programmatic efforts. 3. Brought awareness to genAI events on-campus. 4. Helped bring in an increase in requests for pedagogical assistance from my department. 5. Input provided to multiple guidance documents for genAI in teaching. ## Naming and other changes The original name for this community was the **LAI genAI Faculty Advisory Council**. After an article was published about the group in the [GW Hatchet](https://gwhatchet.com/2024/02/15/libraries-academic-innovation-office-forms-ai-advisory-council/) (and [elsewhere](https://iblnews.org/the-george-washington-university-forms-ai-advisory-councils-in-each-school/)), I was asked to change the name to **LAI genAI Faculty Advisory Group** because of concern that the word *council* communicated policy orientation. The latter however had an unfortunate acronym. By spring 2025 new leadership wanted to change the name another time to **Generative AI in Teaching (GAIT)** and change the focus talking about genAI as a teaching tool.