Dear Friends,
As everyone in our community is aware, Generative AI (GenAI) is creating rapid change in academic and professional landscapes, with particular implications for writing instruction, development, and processes. Negotiating this change is a challenging process for all of us. We hope that the Writing Center can remain a stabilizing, friendly, and safe space where we can have transparent conversations about the writing process, including the role of GenAI. We appreciate you sharing your experiences and perspectives with us, and we’ll be here to listen and offer guidance where we can. Here are some things you should know about the Writing Center and GenAI.
1. All of our consultants are students at different levels; they are also in the same sticky situation you are in, so they can be great dialogue partners for “talking it out.”
2. Nobody in the Writing Center is a GenAI expert, though we have been keeping abreast of emerging research and developing practices to adapt to changing communication and learning conditions.
3. While the Center has chosen to act in alignment with UB's Writing Program and critically engage with issues arising with GenAI, individuals in our Center hold different personal stances related to GenAI and writing. Some of our staff hold a “refusal” stance in which they prefer not to interact with GenAI or read AI generated texts. You can learn more about that stance by talking with them.
4. We also recognize that each student who visits the Center may have a well-considered and evolving stance toward GenAI. Please know that your stance will be respected, and we would love to learn from you.
5. The Writing Center is a good place to have respectful conversations about GenAI or anything else related to writing and learning.
6. As a safe space, we do not like to take part in policing and surveillance of students’ use of tools. We do not have institutional access to Turn-it-In.com or other paid AI checkers. We assume you know whether or not and how you have used GenAI in your writing process.
7. We find it demoralizing to read and provide feedback to texts that are produced by GenAI that are presented to us as written by you. We prefer that you be transparent with us about your writing process and see how we can help you on that basis. We certainly will not help to “humanize” GenAI outputs to evade AI detection.
We encourage everyone to become informed, monitor the state of your discipline, clarify your own values, and share your perspectives. While we all will pay attention to the policies of faculty in the context of coursework, we also must develop our own stances and strategize our response to the rise of GenAI, as it will impact our futures.