Steering committee to guide ethical, strategic AI use at UNM

Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Barbara Rodríguez has appointed a steering committee tasked with providing leadership on the important issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) across academic and administrative units at The University of New Mexico

"AI is reshaping teaching, learning, research and administrative operations across higher education," Rodríguez said. "To ensure that UNM leverages AI ethically, responsibly and in support of its mission, the Artificial Intelligence Steering Committee is charged with coordinating UNM's AI strategy across the academic and administrative units. The committee's leadership will help ensure that AI advances UNM's mission of promoting discovery, supporting communities, and advancing intellectual and cultural contributions."

The committee will be responsible for examining issues around how to integrate AI across UNM's academic and administrative domains.

The committee's responsibilities and priorities are aligned with the UNM 2040: Opportunity Defined strategic goals: Advance New Mexico; Student Experience and Educational Innovation; Inclusive Excellence; Sustainability; and One University.

The committee will be chaired by Mark Emmons, dean of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences, and includes representatives from all facets of the University, including academic units, research, information technology and student leadership.

The committee will focus on five areas:

1. Developing a multi-year strategic framework that identifies priorities, milestones, and resource needs. This will include establishing evaluation processes and providing a clear pathway for scaling successful pilot projects.
2. Establishing a shared ethical understanding and guiding principles by developing a University-wide ethical framework for AI use. This will involve grounding AI use in UNM's mission, values, and commitments while prioritizing fairness, transparency, academic integrity, privacy, academic freedom, intellectual property, autonomy and environmental sustainability.
3. Facilitating communication, collaboration and engagement. This will include leading communication and coordination among colleges and various administrative units and student groups.
4. Coordinating AI efforts across three strategic strands:
   • Teaching and learning: This will span collaborative integration of AI through conducting a campuswide inventory of AI practices and needs, and developing ethical guidance for AI use that is pedagogically sound.
   • Research, scholarship and creative works: This will involve supporting research innovation by mapping AI-related research practices, needs and gaps across disciplines and AI professional development.
   • Administrative and operational applications: This will focus on advancing AI use in administrative functions by creating partnerships with UNM IT to take into account data privacy and compliance, efficiency, transparency and staff support.
5. Recommending resources, organizational structures and governance. This area will include governance and compliance; operational and human resource support; technology infrastructure; funding and sustainability; evaluation and transparency; and external partnerships and community engagement.

The members of AI Steering Committee are:

• Mark Emmons, dean, College of Libraries and Learning Sciences (chair)
• Soraya Abad-Mota, senior lecturer III, Department of Computer Science
• Elisha Allen, director, Online Strategies and Academic Technologies, Information Technologies
• Grace Faustino, Information Technology Services manager, Office of the Vice President for Research
• Sonia Gipson Rankin, professor, School of Law
• Sushilla Knottenbelt, associate dean for Student Success, College of Arts and Sciences
• Victor Law, professor, Organization, Information and Learning Sciences Program
• Melanie Moses, professor, Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering
• Stephanie Spong, director, Teaching Support and Digital Learning, Center for Teaching and Learning
• Alesia Torres, director of Applications, Information Technologies
• Manuel Cisneros, ASUNM senator
• Erin Duddy, instructional media specialist, UNM-Taos
• Laura Hall, lecturer III; division head, Resources, Archives and Discovery, Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center
• David Hurley, associate dean, University Libraries
• Fan Xu, assistant professor, Educational Technology, College of Education and Human Sciences