Latest news with #RaviBellamkonda
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What Ohio State is and is not changing to comply with Senate Bill 1
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — With Ohio's sweeping anti-diversity, equity and inclusion bill set to go into effect this Friday, public universities like Ohio State are working hard to ensure compliance. Ohio State University released detailed guidance on how to ensure programs, courses and individuals are following Senate Bill 1. Per the law, OSU's work group for implementation has determined it will remove official options to denote pronouns, alter professional participation guidelines, and discontinue or modify programs to support any identity-based group. See previous coverage of OSU's compliance in the video player above. 'Implementing a new higher education law at an institution with the scale and complexity of Ohio State is no small task,' Ravi Bellamkonda, executive vice president and provost, said. Group aims to stop controversial law banning DEI at Ohio's universities before it takes effect At Ohio State, diversity is literally etched into the steps of its student union. The law does not prohibit the decorative use of the terms 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' focusing its ban on DEI programming. However, universities are not allowed to endorse 'controversial policies,' and the bill does not define DEI. The steps have not been announced as a change, and OSU has its hands full addressing the clearly defined requirements of S.B. 1. Ohio State created an implementation committee of university leaders, faculty, staff and students, which has been developing guidelines since April. 'Every college and regional campus has representation, and students have been in sessions with some workstreams and are being engaged through other facilitated conversations,' Bellamkonda said. 'Engagements with faculty, staff and students will continue to expand as implementation work continues.' Many of these new guidelines are now public. Ohio State, in compliance with the law, said activities and programming can no longer be 'for' a protected class or encourage a specific group to apply. Registered student organizations can cater to specific groups, but are now required to state on their websites and other communications that membership and activities are open to all. Bond set for former Ohio State football player charged in fatal Dublin crash Even if a program is compliant, the university also encourages its colleges and programs to avoid words like 'diversity,' 'underrepresented,' or 'antiracism' because those terms could imply noncompliance. 'Simply changing a name or words will not fulfill compliance with the law unless the activities, position or program have been modified to be in compliance with the law,' the university said. Some restrictions are individual. The university said it will not promote or pay for faculty, staff and students to attend DEI-focused conferences, and conferences hosted at Ohio State should not include DEI trainings or subject matter. University staff members are also told not to assist with third-party DEI trainings or conferences unless they are in their area of expertise. Individual professors' bios and CVs can feature DEI initiatives they worked on, so long as they are clearly stated as unaffiliated with Ohio State. Previous university-affiliated initiatives should clearly state that they took place before June 27, 2025. The university is also discontinuing official opportunities to disclose pronouns, but said students and staff are allowed to voluntarily share their pronouns in email signatures or name tags. Columbus OKs $6 million police helicopter purchase 'Formal options in university business operations systems for community members to voluntarily notate preferred pronouns will be discontinued, unless there is an approved clinical or administrative need,' the university said. As for the 'diversity' memorialized on the steps, Ohio State did not provide comment, and it is not clearly prohibited under the law. NBC4 reached out to the Department of Higher Education for further guidance for installations like OSU's and those at other universities. The Department said it would depend on the individual context of the installations and universities; the law does not prohibit the words but how the university presents them would be relevant. It did not offer specifics about OSU. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Ohio State University going all in on AI to build ‘intuition': Provost
(NewsNation) — As artificial intelligence continues to be hotly debated in the United States, one college is going all in on letting the capability of computational systems perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence. Ravi Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president at Ohio State University, joined 'NewsNation Live' to discuss the school's 'AI Fluency Initiative' beginning this fall. The 'AI Fluency Initiative' will be required of all students at the school. The hope is that the program will help students become bilingual, meaning fluent in their major field of study and applying AI in that area. 'We've been using all sorts of tools to augment learning, augment our understanding of the world,' said Bellamkonda. 'There's no question we live in a data-rich world now, from politics, to news, to manufacturing, to medicine, to all these fields of study and interest for our students. We have lots and lots of data. And the power of AI is to synthesize that data and make meaning out of it.' Regulating AI for ten years in 'big, beautiful bill' no help: Tech expert Pew Research Center said that in 2024, teens reported using AI twice as much as they did the year before. Over half say they think it's okay to use AI for research, while nearly 30% acknowledge it's acceptable to use AI for math problems. Less than 20% added that it's okay to use AI to write an essay. 'We really want to build intuition, judgment, and ethical understanding,' Bellamkonda said. 'When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate? When is it hallucinating? When is it not? And we feel like having that conversation in the classroom with a professor in the context of the subject they are learning is really important for us.' High school students create AI-detecting app to help teachers Apple says it has a new research paper out that says artificial intelligence might not be as intelligent as some want it to be. The company's new research paper claims that so-called 'large reasoning models' and 'large language models' such as ChatGPT give up when trying to solve complex problems. Their researchers say this is proof of limited capabilities that keep artificial intelligence from reasoning the way you or I do. 'We had the same fear, if you remember, when we had calculators,' added Bellamkonda. 'We were afraid that people would store formulas in there and not really understand. That's the challenge we have as educators now is to still make sure that our students have a deep understanding of the subject and they're not just letting AI do all the thinking.' How AI is shaping industries across the US Bloomberg also reported that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is seeking a team to build an AI that could reason on the same level as a human. He wants to hire around 50 people for the project. This comes after Meta delayed the release of a big new artificial intelligence model last month over concerns it wasn't good enough. In addition, St. Petersburg, Florida, is installing AI or so-called 'smart signals' that can connect with tech in some newer vehicles. That tech can alert the driver about upcoming hazards and traffic conditions, such as flooding or a pedestrian in the area. The city is looking to invest more than $1 million in the project. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Axios
11-06-2025
- Business
- Axios
How Ohio State is making AI part of every major
Ohio State University wants to make all its undergrads "bilingual" — fluent in their respective majors and in artificial intelligence. Why it matters: AI is expected to reshape nearly every industry. By weaving it into general education requirements starting this fall, OSU aims to prepare graduates for a rapidly evolving digital world. This is a unique, massive undertaking involving more than 45,000 undergraduate students. The big picture: Other schools have created specialized AI programs and degrees. But Ohio State is taking a more generalized approach as a flagship public university. That's an important step toward making AI literacy more accessible, Hironao Okahana of the American Council on Education tells Axios. How it works: The basics of AI, including " ethical considerations," will be part of the required Launch Seminar course and first year Success Series workshops for freshmen. Additional workshops and an Unlocking Generative AI course will be available to everyone. In the latter, students will "gain essential skills to interact effectively with AI, craft prompts that inspire creativity and explore AI's impact on society," according to a press release. The intrigue: The conversation is quickly shifting. Academia initially focused on "catching" AI users and curbing dishonesty, but things have changed as bots like ChatGPT have become more mainstream. What they're saying: As with any emerging technology, from calculators to computers, educators must learn to adapt, OSU vice president and provost Ravi Bellamkonda tells Axios. "If you can use an AI tool, what should the exam be?" is now the question, he says. "We don't want to sacrifice students' deep understanding of their subjects, but the way we teach will fundamentally change." What's next: The coming months at Ohio State will include lots of training and streamlining of campus resources to help faculty embed AI into their existing coursework. Partnerships with AI companies, so students can access their software, are pending. There are also plans to hire new AI experts, perhaps a tall order, given surging demand for them. The bottom line: A scientist by trade, Bellamkonda admits he is "always skeptical when there's so much hype around something."
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Yahoo
College Says Every Student Is Now Required to Use AI
Forget the debate about whether AI has a place in education: Ohio State University went ahead and announced that, starting this fall, every single one of its students will be forced to use AI in class. We hope your eyeballs are nice and lubricated, because prepare for them to do some major rolling, courtesy of this zinger by the institution's executive vice president and provost, Ravi Bellamkonda. "Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be 'bilingual' — fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area," Bellamkonda said in a statement. "Grounded with a strong sense of responsibility and possibility, we will prepare Ohio State's students to harness the power of AI and to lead in shaping its future of their area of study." You heard that right. Ohio State isn't capitulating to the tech industry — it's benevolently teaching "AI Fluency" to prepare its bright-eyed pupils for a world in which typing "can you do my homework please?" into ChatGPT is somehow an indication of resourcefulness. The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Large language models have become incredibly popular with lazy students — much to the chagrin of their professors, if they aren't using chatbots themselves — and many universities have already partnered with tech firms to integrate the latest AI tools. Duke University, for example, just began offering unlimited ChatGPT access to students, along with its own "DukeGPT" tool. Students are supposedly pretty enthused that they've been given the green light to use AI in class. We wonder why. "A student walked up to me after turning in the first batch of AI-assisted papers and thanked me for such a fun assignment," said Steven Brown, an associate professor in OSU's department of philosophy who's already using AI in his classes, as quoted by NBC4. "And then when I graded them and found a lot of really creative ideas. My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts." By his own admission, Brown encourages students "to write papers using AI however they'd like," including an exercise using AI to create Platonic dialogs between two people taking opposing viewpoints on a controversial topic, which helps "them understand how intelligent and thoughtful parties might disagree about that issue." Brown added that banning AI in class is "shortsighted." "It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created," Brown said, per NBC4. "AI is such a powerful tool for self-education, that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust." This is an incredible claim to make, because "AI" — a catch-all marketing buzzword, let's not forget — is still plagued by factual hallucinations. As in, the tool that Brown is having his students learn stuff with gets the facts wrong all the time, lacking the expertise in a particular field that someone like Brown has. The tech's rapid adoption also means there's little long-term evidence of its benefits in education — whereas there's plenty of worrying signs to the contrary, with multiple studies linking ChatGPT use with plummeting grades, memory loss, and diminished critical thinking skills. But Ohio State, along with many other institutions, are rushing to adopt AI anyway. Starting in the Fall 2025 semester, OSU students will now have to take a mandatory AI skills seminar, tailored to each field of study. As an example OSU provided to NBC4, education majors could be asked to use AI to create a lesson plan, which they'd then evaluate and revise. Then they'd write a reflection — every student's favorite — on their AI usage. Maybe some students could benefit from learning about the downsides of AI from these courses. But on the whole, university policies like these could foster a climate where AI usage is not just openly acceptable but desirable, having students believe they're being empowered by some all-knowing sci-fi tech, when in reality it's still very experimental with a future that is anything but certain. More on AI: Are Children Losing the Ability to Read?
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- The Guardian
Ohio university says all students will be required to train and ‘be fluent' in AI
Ohio State University has announced that all of its students will be using artificial intelligence later this year, requiring them to become fluent in combining conventional learning with AI. 'Ohio State has an opportunity and responsibility to prepare students to not just keep up, but lead in this workforce of the future,' said the university's president, Walter 'Ted' Carter Jr. He added: 'Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, teach and learn. In the not-so-distant future, every job, in every industry, is going to be [affected] in some way by AI.' Ohio State's provost, Ravi Bellamkonda, added that its AI fluency initiative will embed education about the technology throughout the undergraduate curriculum. 'Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be 'bilingual' – fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area,' he said. The university said its program will prioritize the incoming freshman class and onward, in order to make every Ohio State graduate 'fluent in AI and how it can be responsibly applied to advance their field'. The novel embrace of AI in higher education comes as a recent study by the Pew Research Center found 26% of of teenagers used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024 – twice as many as in 2023. But with AI rapidly becoming mainstream, students will not be allowed to use generative AI to pass off assignments as their own work – and faculty staff will be advised on how to maintain academic integrity. Steven Brown, an associate professor of philosophy at the university, told NBC News that after students turned in the first batch of AI-assisted papers he found 'a lot of really creative ideas'. 'My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts,' Brown said. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Brown said that banning AI from classwork is 'shortsighted', and he encouraged his students to discuss ethics and philosophy with AI chatbots. 'It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created,' Brown said. 'AI is such a powerful tool for self-education that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust.' Separately, Ohio's AI in Education Coalition is working to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the state's K-12 education system, encompassing the years of formal schooling from kindergarten through 12th grade in high school, is prepared for and can help lead the AI revolution. 'AI technology is here to stay,' then lieutenant governor Jon Husted said last year while announcing an AI toolkit for Ohio's K-12 school districts that he added would ensure the state 'is a leader in responding to the challenges and opportunities made possible by artificial intelligence'.
