Statistics Faculty Member Serves on Cal Poly AI Symposium Panel
June 2026 / NEWS STORY
by Nick Wilson
A Cal Poly Statistics Department professor served among a university faculty panel that addressed topics related to the use of artificial intelligence technology.
Kelly Bodwin, an associate professor in statistics, participated in an AI Symposium held at Cal Poly on May 7.
The all-day event featured a full lineup of speakers who addressed AI topics related to academic, industry and educational topics, including:
- AI in the Workforce and Industry
- AI in Higher Education
- The Ethical and Human Elements of AI
- Interactive and “Sandbox” Concurrent Sessions on: AI Basics, AI in Arts and Music, Speed Networking with Industry Partners and more.
Bodwin was among a morning faculty panel that addressed how Cal Poly teachers are adapting to and addressing AI as an instructional tool in the classroom.
As students prepare for future careers that increasingly incorporate use of AI to enhance production and revenue streams, questions remain about ethics, responsibility, instruction, learning, exams, industry preparation and more.
Faculty panelists addressed considerations such as best teaching practices, grading assessments and current student perspectives. Some students openly reject the idea of incorporating AI into their lives, citing impacts of the technology on natural resources needed to generate energy to operate AI systems, threats to jobs and decline in authentic creative content. Other students want to better understand AI and use the developing technology to enhance their work and prepare themselves for future careers.
Bodwin expressed her neutrality about the benefits and concerns, saying that she respects student viewpoints. For example, she offers assignments that allow students a choice of using tools such as Chat GPT or Claude to help enhance their knowledge, but they also may select an assignment that instructs them to apply other types of traditional computational methods and platforms, such as R or Python.
Bodwin said that she also has shifted towards issuing pencil and paper tests to best gauge how well students are learning and hold students accountable, versus allowing them to use computers, and possibly AI.
“I think it’s important that students gain a solid fundamental knowledge of the learning material, especially at the introductory course level, to be able to complete work on their own, without using AI as a crutch,” Bodwin said after the event. “I think, at the same time, if a student wants to take on work involving creating 10 separate codes to do something they otherwise likely couldn’t do on their own reasonably, AI can be an effective tool. But I’d want to them to create at least one of those codes on their own.”
