A University of Texas at El Paso team plans to conduct a survey this spring and act on the data to offer UTEP instructors the necessary help to address the growing capabilities and complexities of artificial intelligence, including ChatGPT.

Jeff Olimpo, director of the campus’ Institute for Scholarship, Pedagogy, Innovation and Research Excellence, said the goal of this study will be to determine how much instructors know about AI and how comfortable they would be to incorporate the technology into their courses.

Armed with that knowledge, the InSPIRE team will develop a multi-pronged, hybrid effort to build on every level of understanding from basic tutorials to in-depth ideas to enhance instruction to include ways students can use AI in their fields of study.

This effort is the follow-up step to InSPIRE’s spring 2023 workshops that led to the university’s initial ChatGPT guidelines. Since then, the team has incorporated other concepts used at institutions within and beyond the University of Texas System.

“We essentially created a Frankenstein of sorts,” Olimpo said.

The latest incarnation included recommendations of what might be appropriate to include in a syllabus such as if AI is prohibited, allowed or allowed with restrictions. The team also created a guide that included a Frequently Asked Questions section that included AI restrictions, and procedures if the instructor suspected a student used AI in an assignment and did not credit the technology. The information was shared with faculty in January after it was approved by John Wiebe, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.

Olimpo called the guidelines “brief, digestible and accessible,” and he stressed that instructors ultimately would decide what was best for their classes.

Gabriel Ibarra-Mejia, associate professor of public health sciences, was among the UTEP faculty who responded to the university’s recommendations. He said like it or not, ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is part of the education equation now and he planned to embrace it to a point.

The professor said he allows students to use it in assignments as long as they cite its use and the reasons behind it such as to develop an outline or to polish the grammar or the report’s flow. What he does not want is for AI to replace thoughts and knowledge, especially from his students who may be health care professionals someday.

“I’m more concerned about how it might replace critical thinking,” said Ibarra-Mejia, who mentioned how he had received student papers where he suspected AI use because the responses had nothing to do with the question. “I’m concerned that the answers I get from a student might be from ChatGPT.”

Melissa Vito, vice provost for Academic Innovation at UT San Antonio, said AI has been around for decades and that ChatGPT is part of the evolution.  She is the lead organizer of an AI conference for UT System institutions this week at her campus.

“The consensus in higher ed is that instructors need to use it, and students need to understand it and be able to use it,” Vito said.

In 2021, members of agreed that AI would influence all industries, but those tech leaders suggested that it would have the most effect on industries such as logistics, cybersecurity, health care, research and development, financial services, advertising, e-commerce, manufacturing, public transportation, and media and entertainment.

A research study released in March 2023 by the creator of ChatGPT, showed that approximately 80% of the U.S. workers could have at least 10% of their work affected by GPT, and that 19% of employees could see at least 50% of their jobs affected by it. The projected effects span all wage levels.

While unaware of any UT System mandates to use ChatGPT, she said institutions are creating opportunities for faculty to learn about it so they can explain its uses better to their students. She said the best path for higher education is to work with the AI industry to address concerns such as data privacy that could restrict access to what is produced and how it is used.

Vito referenced the January announcement of the collaboration between Among the goals of that relationship is to introduce advanced capabilities to the institution, which will help faculty and staff to investigate the possibilities of generative AI, which can create text, images and more in response to prompts.

The UTSA official said the purpose of the AI conference is to bring together administrators, faculty, staff and students with the broadest AI competencies to share their experiences and create a strong framework for how the UT System can benefit from the transformative effects of generative AI academically and socially.

Marcela Ramirez, associate vice provost for Teaching, Learning & Digital Transformation at UTSA, helped develop the conference’s workshops and panel discussions with representatives from sister institutions. They will cover ethical use, practical applications and how AI can be used to help students with critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Ramirez, a two-time UTEP graduate who earned her BBA in 2008 and her MBA five years later, said the content will support faculty who want to update their courses with AI, and help them to be able to explain to students AI’s current limitations and future opportunities.

“What are the lessons learned,” asked Ramirez, who worked at UTEP for more than 10 years. “And what’s next?”

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The University of Texas at El Paso announced Wednesday that it will take a lead role in a new National Science Foundation-funded resource center that will support and strengthen Hispanic-Serving Institutions with their STEM-related grant applications.

The six-year, $7 million grant will establish the Hispanic-Serving Institution Center for Evaluation and Research Synthesis, or HSI-CERS, the nation’s only center of its kind. The center will work to help institutions better study and evaluate ways to verify and improve the effectiveness of NSF HSI-funded projects.

The center will be part of UTEP’s Diana Natalicio Institute for Hispanic Student Success. Anne-Marie Nuñez, executive director of the Natalicio Institute, is the grant’s principal investigator. She called the grant a landmark investment that emphasizes the university’s position as a leading HSI.

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“This particular grant signals UTEP’s leadership in research on effective practices to serve Hispanic students,” said Nuñez, a leading scholar of HSIs and diversity in science. “UTEP gets positioned and recognized as a leader in creating knowledge in that area rather than having outsiders create that knowledge. As for the community, it’s really important that those of us who are on the ground here are creating that knowledge.”

Nuñez said the new center will assist other institutions that may lack the human or financial resources, as well as the capacity, to understand what they can do to create more equity in STEM, and more effectively reach students from diverse backgrounds. She added that through this work, UTEP will provide the first portrait of the collective effectiveness of these programs.

According to the NSF, the center will use interdisciplinary efforts to generate a model that tackles complex data through quantitative and qualitative methods. Researchers will develop standardized and comparable techniques to analyze NSF HSI-grant projects. It will create a database that future grantees can use for evaluations and a consistent evaluation framework, as well as offer training on how to use both.

Nuñez’s two HSI-CERS co-principal investigators are Azuri Gonzalez, director of partnerships and operations at the Natalicio Institute, and Amy Wagler, professor of mathematical sciences.

The assessments will help NSF HSI-funded programs that serve Hispanics and other minority students in fields of STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The announcement was made on the patio of the Peter and Margaret de Wetter Center before a crowd of about 40 people made up mostly of university administrators, faculty and staff.

The HSI-CERS grant puts UTEP on the national stage alongside the NSF, said Jacob Fraire, president of the ECMC Foundation. Fraire, who has more than 35 years of professional higher education experience, previously served as director of policy and strategy for the Natalicio Institute. He was part of the team that submitted the grant proposal.

He called Nuñez an HSI expert who deserves a lot of the credit for the successful application that will make UTEP and the Natalicio Institute a focal point for prospective NSF grantees in regard to proposal evaluations for the next six years.

“You don’t have to submit your proposals to UTEP, and you don’t have to go to UTEP committees,” Fraire said. “But you certainly will be encouraged to do so because UTEP will have built the kinds of resources that would add value to your project.”

In addition to HSI-CERS, the NSF also named UTEP as one of five institutions that will lead a second related $7 million project focused on building community and collaborations among current and potential HSI awardees. It is the UNIDOS Network Resource Center for Community Coordination, or HSI-CCC. Florida International University is the lead institution. Meagan Kendall, associate professor in UTEP’s Department of Engineering, Education and Leadership, is one of the co-principal investigators.

Gonzalez said that she looked forward to future collaborations among the institutions through Kendall to expand knowledge of what works and what can be done better.

“Telling the story of Hispanic student impact right is no small feat, but we welcome that challenge because it is a story worth telling and learning from,” Gonzalez said.

Both new centers are part of the NSF HSI Program Network Resource Centers and Hubs.

“Building on past investments, these new centers will help NSF achieve its broadening participation goals in STEM by growing and strengthening the education and research support that facilitates student and faculty success at HSIs,” James L. Moore III, NSF assistant director for STEM education, said in a press release.

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Children and adults who would benefit from various therapies to learn or to regain certain developmental abilities can get that help and more during three consecutive four-day that start July 17 at the University of Texas at El Paso.

For the second year in a row, UTEP’s Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic will conduct its free bilingual sessions from 9 to 11 a.m. in the Campbell Building, 1101 N. Campbell St. Each two-hour lesson will balance work with fun, organizers said.

Twenty-nine of UTEP’s speech-language pathology graduate students, backed by four clinical faculty and a staff member, will assist participants ages 5 to senior adults to work on their voice, fluency, aphasia, social skills, and/or the effects of traumatic brain injury to name a few areas.

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Among the participants who plans to attend all three sessions is Kivana Herrera, a 19-year-old Sunset Heights resident on the global developmental delay spectrum. In other words, it takes her longer to achieve certain developmental milestones. Her focus this summer will be to enhance her speech and social skills.

“She loves it,” said Iris Herrera, Kivana’s mother. “They work on things, but they are made to be fun and exciting, so it doesn’t feel like therapy. We think (the summer sessions) are awesome. We wish there were more.”

Herrera said one of Kivana’s speech therapists recommended in spring 2022 that the family try UTEP’s summer sessions. The mother said those sessions helped Kivana increase the number of words she uses in a sentence.

As a result, the family registered Kivana for the free SLHC, which conducts one-on-one sessions during the academic year. These also are important for UTEP’s speech-language pathology students who learn how to conduct assessments and suggest treatments under the supervision of faculty, who are licensed speech-language pathologists.

Herrera said that Kivana enjoys working with the therapists because most are young, and they can talk about clothes, trips, music and social activities. She added that the UTEP therapists have great personalities, and know how to motivate her daughter to work harder.

Herrera’s praise brought a smile to UTEP’s Deena Peterson, coordinator of the summer sessions and a clinical instructor of speech language and hearing sciences. Those comments echoed the verbal and written feedback Peterson received from families of participants from the previous summer, especially from families of school-age children who do not receive therapy outside the academic year.

Many noted how the sessions made their loved ones more competent and confident in their ability to communicate. They mentioned the enthusiasm of the student therapists and their genuine desire to help. As of mid-June, a good percentage of those registered for the 2023 sessions had participated last summer.

Peterson said that these free activities help El Paso’s underserved community members, who sometimes exhaust their health care benefits. She expects to enroll about 100 people for the summer sessions. The participants, separated by age and therapy needs, will use several of the labs, classrooms and conference rooms on the building’s first and second floors. The participant-student ratio will be less than 2-1.

Susan Magaña and Kristin Apodaca, both second-year speech language pathology graduate students, said they enjoyed the one-on-one sessions as part of the clinic, but looked forward to group therapy to practice behavior management techniques and working with children and adults with different goals. They talked about the upcoming sessions in the main therapy lab, which includes two walls with shelves stacked high with colorful toys, books and games used during the clinics and summer sessions.

“We’ll get to learn a lot at the same time,” said Magaña, a 1987 Austin High School graduate who, with her husband, operated a used car lot and home remodeling business before she decided to return to school after her children reached adulthood.

Her interest in her second career was personal. She raised four children with various disabilities to include hearing loss, dyslexia, high-functioning autism and attention-deficit disorder. In recent years, she witnessed her grandparents deal with their Alzheimer’s disease. In all cases, she saw how effective therapists could be.

Magaña said that the summer sessions were a great way children could bridge the therapy gap between the academic years.

Apodaca, a 2019 graduate of Hanks High School, has been interested in a speech language pathology career since high school when she would attend health fairs with her mother, a speech-language pathologist who was happy to help others improve their quality of life through therapy. One thing she has learned as an SLP student is that therapy is harder than it appears.

“It looks as if we’re playing, but there is a lot of intention behind everything we do because of how the brain and speech work,” Apodaca said. “You have to find the right strategies for the client.”

Apodaca said she looked forward to working with and learning from her clients, as well as the other members of her cohort.

“You know that everyone’s heart is in it,” Apodaca said. “Everyone wants to give back.”

Online registration is the best way to secure a spot, but people who cannot register online may contact the program at 915-747-7250 or speechclinic@utep.edu. Those individuals will need to come early on the first day of the session to fill out the necessary consent agreements.

Peterson said she plans to invite representatives from family resource centers to set up information tables in the first-floor student lounge for parents, guardians and caregivers who must stay during the sessions. After the lessons, the student therapists will debrief the parents/caregivers about the therapy conducted that day and how they can continue the learning process at home.

The work the UTEP students do during the summer sessions will benefit them during the 2023-24 academic year as they will work in school and hospital settings prior to graduation.

The summer sessions will follow a separate activity for children ages 5 to 17 who stutter. will operate from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 10-14 in the Campbell Building. This free, intensive therapy program was organized by the at the University of Texas at Austin.

Peterson, who is familiar with the bilingual camp but not associated with it, said the center involves a lot of resources and a lot of fun to include a live deejay daily. She added that the same 29 graduate students who will be part of her sessions will help at the UT Austin camp.

“It’s awesome,” Peterson said. “It’s going to be fun for the kids. It will be a fun, interactive environment.”

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The University of Texas at El Paso’s College of Education plans to launch a social media campaign next week focused on the impact teachers have on children. Its goal is to interest and inspire more high school students to consider a K-12 teaching career.

The college’s leaders knew they needed to promote the profession after the pandemic, which generated a lot of stress and anxiety among teachers because of health, safety, social, emotional and technological issues. That unease affected relationships among colleagues, students and their families, and led to burnout and decisions to leave the profession.

“I hope this campaign will change the narrative,” said Clifton Tanabe, who marked his five-year anniversary as dean on July 1.

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Tanabe said COVID-19 negatively affected the college’s recruiting, and the number of UTEP’s education graduates dipped. He hoped the campaign, which starts Monday and includes a , would alert prospective students to how fun, exciting and important it can be to work as a K-12 teacher and, hopefully, prepare for that future at UTEP.

However, the enrollment problem went beyond UTEP and COVID. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education stated that U.S. colleges awarded fewer than 90,000 undergraduate degrees in education in 2019 compared to 200,000 a year in the early 1970s. The study also found that from 2012 to 2022, the number of people who completed a traditional teacher preparation program fell by 35%. Another key figure is that students who earn science or mathematics degrees have fallen by 27%.

Tanabe said that the numbers of UTEP students who earned bachelor’s degrees in education consistently fell during the eight years prior to his arrival, but had settled to about 200 graduates annually. The numbers started to go up but then COVID brought them back down to pre-pandemic levels. He anticipated that the bilingual campaign, which ends in December, would trigger at least a 50% increase in a few years.

Raiz Federal Credit Union provided financial and creative support of the project. Raiz hired El Paso-based CultureSpan Marketing to produce a 30-second commercial and three 15-second advertisements that will be delivered to audiences through Twitch, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, social media platforms that cater to teenagers and their friends and family.

Mike Matthews, CultureSpan president and chief creative officer, said that the videos address the profession’s rewards and challenges, and incorporate the human element behind the decision to become a teacher. He expected the message to resonate with viewers.

The 30-second spot involves four borderland educators who imagine their lives as teachers while a voiceover talks about what it takes to be a teacher and ends the commercial with a challenge.

“The journey isn’t for everyone, but it can be for you,” the narrator said.

One of the actors was El Paso native Dulce Falcon, a 2010 Del Valle High School graduate who earned her bachelor’s degree in education from UTEP this past May. The former Miner Teacher Residency Program participant said that the video shoot was fun because it allowed her to reflect on her seven-year journey to become a teacher.

The 31-year-old mother of four said she hoped her participation would inspire and motivate others to follow their dreams and to not give up. She called her higher education journey hard and expensive, but worth it.

Falcon, the third featured actor in the video, recalled how the director instructed her to pretend to be excited because she was thinking about something important that she wanted. She just thought of herself as a teacher.

“That was easy for me because I really was excited,” said Falcon, whose first day as a fourth-grade teacher at Desert Hills Elementary School was July 11. “I wasn’t pretending. Those actually were my emotions.”

As part of the campaign, CultureSpan will track the data to learn where the message succeeds and where it needs to be tweaked. The team also will compile the information from those interactions to create a better digital profile of students who might want to become an education major.

“I think that’s really going to benefit UTEP’s College of Education to really get a deep dive understanding of where these potential students are and help to cultivate them at an early stage, and to notice when there’s that want or desire to become an educator, and just really stoke those flames,” Matthews said during a Zoom interview.

Susana Aguirre, the college’s director of strategic engagement and planning, said the campaign wants to reach those who might want to become a teacher, or any job in the education field to include learning coach, counselor or administrator.

Starting salaries for first-year teachers in the El Paso region range from $50,000 to $60,000 and could be augmented with bonuses and stipends based on what and where the person teaches.

“We know that (teenagers) are not always sure about what they want to do,” said Aguirre, the project’s lead coordinator. “They are not sure if teaching is the correct field for them so targeting those that have that passion will help them make the right decision.”

Alejandro Yu, Raiz vice president of marketing, said his company understands the critical role teachers play in the region’s success. He hoped the campaign would attract more people to want to earn an education degree from UTEP and add to its legacy.

“This partnership is a crucial way to help others to find their purpose,” Yu said.

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Jessica Sotelo was three courses shy of an associate degree in criminal justice from El Paso Community College when she opened a small nail salon in May 2018 on the Westside.

Her goal was to make enough money to put herself through college.

Instead, the then 20-year-old entrepreneur put aside her academic dreams to focus on her business, The Nail Club. Today, Sotelo has two salons and plans to open a third. She also has taken the initial steps to return to EPCC this fall to complete her degree.

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According to an April 2023 report published by the the number of adult Texans in July 2021 with some college credits but no higher education credential rose to more than 2.6 million, which was a 4.5% increase from the previous year. That was bigger than the national growth of 3.6%.

Sotelo wants her associate degree because she likes to finish what she starts, but she also plans to enroll at the University of Texas at El Paso at some point to pursue a bachelor’s degree in finance or accounting to support her business. Her immediate goal is to build a cosmetology team that can manage her salons when she is not there.

“I wanted to work and go to school, but then the business was successful,” said Sotelo, who tried to do both as she set up her first salon during the spring 2018 semester. “It didn’t work.”

Experts believe the pandemic and more employment opportunities with higher wages were among the main reasons behind the increased number of Texans with some college, no degree or credential (SCNDC). For others, the reasons may have included health issues, a lack of funds, or changed responsibilities at home. Higher education leaders hope that many of those people will return to continue or complete their academic journeys.

Tom Fullerton, UTEP professor of economics and finance, said it was important for students to complete their degrees or technical certifications because “that complete package” will enhance their knowledge and make them stronger candidates for jobs where degrees and credentials are needed.

But Fullerton was not dismayed by the increased SCNDC numbers. He referenced a recently published study that showed the percentage of Texans who drop out of high school fell to 15.2% in 2021 from 19.3% in 2012. He said more people finish high school, enroll in college, learn what they need to get a job, and leave college to enter the workforce.

“Once they get a job, they don’t necessarily see the benefit of finishing a college degree, which can be expensive,” Fullerton said.

The UTEP professor said that in a service sector, information-age economy, many jobs do not require technical certification or a college degree, but they may involve training beyond high school. Experts have stated that by 2030, up to 70% of all new jobs will require some post-secondary education.

“The fact that they are taking additional education credits above and beyond secondary school increases their productivity and increases the overall labor force quality for the state,” Fullerton said.

Mark Garrett Cooper, a professor of media studies at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, wrote in a recent opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education that a college degree does not always mean that graduates have the skills an employer wants.

“Anyone paying attention to the non-academic job market will know that skills, rather than specific majors, are the predominant currency,” he wrote.

‘A big concern’

Those behind the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center study countered that it was important to change the SCNDC trend because the U.S. will face a skilled-worker shortage as more employees retire.

According to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the most recent data available, El Paso’s population age 25 and older was 542,747. Of that number, 21% had some college, but no degree. Almost 35% had an associate degree or higher.

While neither EPCC nor UTEP provided the numbers of their stop outs, both shared some of their efforts to contact those former students and entice them to return.

EPCC expanded its Recruitment Services in fall 2020 to include a small, but growing call center that contacts students who have been out of school for a year. The call center clerks are especially interested in those students who are close to earning their degree or credential. In some cases, it could be as close as 15 credit hours for a 60-hour degree.

Depending on the reasons for stopping out, the center will try to connect the student with the campus office to address the situation. For example, if the issue was financial, the student will receive information about the availability of additional Pell grants, scholarships or other financial aid. For students with time conflicts, an adviser may suggest a multidisciplinary studies degree tailored to their interests and their earned course credits.

“Right now, (stopped-out students) are doing OK because wages are up, but what’s going to happen when the workforce changes, and (employees) don’t have a credential behind them,” said Carlos C. Amaya, vice president of Student & Enrollment Services. “I think that’s a big concern.”

Amaya added that a growing number of returning students, especially males, are enrolling in courses for credentials or for an associate of applied science degree, which involves specific technical skills, so they can enter the workforce quickly.

The University of Texas at El Paso created in 2021 its Enrollment Success Center, an arm of the Division of Student Affairs, to provide stopped-out students with helpful information about financial aid and course advice as well as re-enrollment. A university spokesman said that in fall 2022, the institution used all its efforts to re-enroll more than 1,800 students who had stopped out of UTEP.

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Inclusive and equitable institutions that use diversity, equity and inclusion in their hiring benefit everyone, and a recent directive from the Texas governor saying otherwise is “grossly misconstruing” federal anti-discrimination law, a higher education diversity official said.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, came out strongly against a Feb. 4 directive from the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that called it illegal for state agencies and public universities to use diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in hiring decisions.

In a directive,  that DEI has been used in recent years to favor some demographic groups “to the detriment of others.” The directive states that employment decisions should be based on merit without additional DEI consideration.

“The memo and its claims are ridiculous and beyond an attempt for state government overreach,” said Granberry Russell, a licensed attorney who served as senior adviser for diversity to the president of Michigan State University before her retirement in 2020.

DEI initiatives have been used in the United States since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Their goals are to create discrimination- and harassment-free workplaces for people from different backgrounds, and to give them opportunities for professional development.

Granberry Russell said that inclusive and equitable institutions benefit everyone, and that the recent memo from Abbott’s office is twisting federal anti-discrimination laws to fit his and his administration’s political agenda and to silence efforts to advance equity in the U.S., which has struggled with its founding promise of justice and liberty for all.

“They are just one more step in a broader assault on the basic underpinnings of diversity, equity and inclusion, terms that some have sought to turn into dog whistles because they have not   bothered to understand the basic history of America and the principles that can set it on a brighter path forward,” she said.

Granberry Russell said the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to include Title VI and Title VII, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, and federal regulations that interpret these laws, prohibit discrimination, including discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, disability and veteran status.

Officials at the University of Texas at El Paso issued a brief statement in response to an El Paso Matters request for comment about how this DEI issue will affect the campus. Several of its websites speak to the institution’s commitment to DEI because of how it benefits students.

“The university is currently reviewing the matters addressed in the letter,” the email read.

As of Feb. 10, 41 of the 44 faculty and executive employment opportunities asked applicants to include statements of contributions to, commitment to or promotion of DEI and sometimes access or accessibility.

An entry for an assistant professor in social work asks candidates to describe how they promote DEI and accessibility through their service, instruction and research/scholarship, and how the candidates would begin or continue to implement such relevant practices at UTEP and the Department of Social Work.

In a request for applicants for an assistant professor of chemistry position, the entry reads “To sustain and enhance our commitment (to a culture of inclusive excellence), UTEP hires and invests in faculty who value our culture of care and the success of students from diverse backgrounds. As such, we request a “Broadening Participation” statement of how you would approach contributing to that culture of Inclusive Excellence.”

UTEP had the highest percentage of Hispanic tenured faculty among the country’s largest research universities, according to fall 2021 data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. IPEDS showed that 31% of UTEP’s tenured professors were Hispanic, which was more than double the next closest institutions surveyed. Several universities had at least 10% of their faculty identify as Hispanic.

As for other institutions in the state, Texas Tech University officials ordered last week the elimination of DEI consideration in their hiring practices after a conservative group questioned how the institution’s biology department rated candidates on their commitment to DEI as part of the hiring process.

Discussion of DEI became part of a Texas Senate Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 8. Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, the committee chair, said several committee members were concerned with the number of state university systems that used DEI initiatives as part of the hiring process. According to a story in the Austin American-Statesman, she expected legislators to continue discussions on how to stop that practice, and ensure that hiring at the state’s institutions of higher education are based only on merit.

“My point of bringing this up today and having the beginning of a discussion is to let the universities know the budget writers are paying attention,” Huffman said. 

However, and members of the state’s chapter of the NAACP on Tuesday denounced the recent directive and some called for the leadership of the country’s major sports organizations, to include the NCAA, to not host any of their championship games in the state until Abbott rescinds his DEI order to state agencies and universities.

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ChatGPT has been in the headlines for months.  At the University of Texas at El Paso, professors and students are not sure if it is a tool or a threat – or both.

Since its launch in November, the artificial intelligence program has generated concerns over its ability to produce essays, research papers and other written material that appear natural sounding based on someone’s prompts and how it could affect higher education. Instructors appreciate ChatGPT’s abilities, but are leery of how students could misuse the program’s work and submit it as their own.

Those who have tried the free instrument praise its ability to prepare straight-forward responses that are error free in terms of spelling, grammar and punctuation. However, they also noted that the writings often lack higher order thinking and sometimes provided factually incorrect information.

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Greg Beam, associate professor of practice in the Department of Communication, said he plans to use it in his introduction to the Art of the Motion Picture course this spring. He called ChatGPT’s responses to his prompts “mechanically immaculate,” but bland in word choice, and lacking context and insights.

A UTEP instructor for more than five years, Beam characterized the program as an academic tool that could be abused so he and other educators will need to explain and demonstrate its proper use. He plans to let students use it to augment course instruction and brainstorm ideas. Additionally, he may assign the program’s writings to students as a critiquing exercise.

“Rather than allowing it to be this forbidden fruit that’s hanging out there that they’re told not to take a bite of, I’m going to say here’s how to use it responsibly because I think it could actually be a very useful resource,” Beam said.

Andrew Fleck, associate professor of English and president of the university’s Faculty Senate, is more cautious. He does not plan to use ChatGPT in his spring classes. Instead, he has asked the Faculty Senate’s academic policy committee to review the university’s statement of academic integrity, which should be in every course syllabus, to determine if it needs to be updated regarding students’ reliance on artificial intelligence to produce their work.

UTEP officials did not respond to a request for comment on any steps the university planned to take regarding .

Fleck, a higher education faculty member for 30 years, recalled how colleagues raised similar concerns as internet search engines became popular in the 1990s. He said some students used technology to cheat, while faculty used it to catch offenders. Since ChatGPT started, other programs have popped up with claims that they can detect AI-generated writings.

“I’ll be curious how it kind of plays itself out in the next year or so,” Fleck said. “It certainly does pose certain kinds of risks, but I guess the question is how effective will ChatGPT be eventually in replicating human thought and human communication.”

UTEP Provost John Wiebe said advances in the accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI) have triggered faculty conversations at higher education institutions around the world to include UTEP. He said that after consultations with Faculty Senate leaders about the opportunities and challenges that faculty and students face because of ChatGPT, several faculty committees will work on the topic.

“AI is a tool that can be used to enhance learning, but can also be used in ways that violate UTEP’s Academic Dishonesty policy,” Wiebe said. “We will work to help faculty understand the issues and how their colleagues in other places are responding.”

Deki Peltshog, a sophomore computer science major, said she learned about the new artificial intelligence program through friends and social media, and used it during the winter break. ChatGPT amazed and amused her with its ability to respond to her requests for a song about cats and a poem about eating pizza at night.

The Bhutan native also tested the program’s grasp of languages. ChatGPT has a multilingual vocabulary of more than a billion words. She asked it to translate a simple question into her native language of Dzongkha. She said ChatGPT apologized after she informed it that it gave the wrong answer.

Peltshog, whose spring courses are in math, coding and engineering, said she does not plan to use ChatGPT this semester because she does not trust its grasp of facts. However, she sees its potential as a more direct search engine after it becomes more reliable and updates its content beyond 2021.

“It could become a personalized tutor,” she said. “It would make studying more efficient.”

While some educators see the new program as a threat to academic honesty, others point out that it is just the latest method in a line that includes ghostwriters, research paper mills, exam banks and professional test takers. Critics also point out that such programs could limit a student’s growth as a critical thinker and problem solver.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company that developed ChatGPT, seemed to concur in a Dec. 10, 2022, tweet. He said that the company’s new program is “good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness. It’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now. It’s a preview in progress.”

José de Piérola, professor of creative writing at UTEP and director of the department’s graduate studies program, said that colleagues might be giving ChatGPT too much credit.

De Piérola, a computer programmer and consultant for 20 years before he started on a literary path, said there are 20 to 25 artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT. While the new program is superior, it mostly produces generic information about the subject. His point was that you cannot replace human skills when creativity is needed.

The human element was key to Jess Stahl, vice president of data science and analytics at the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities in Redmond, Washington. She participated in a Dec. 19 Zoom conversation about ChatGPT that attracted more than 250 participants from around the world.

Stahl, whose research focuses on initiatives that will enable academic institutions to benefit from innovations in technology, data science and artificial intelligence, said instructors should humanize their relationships with students and not try to compete with AI in terms of content. She also advised institutions to build their social and professional networks, and other resources that students could not access elsewhere.

Stahl said that faculty must rethink what they do professionally in and out of the classroom and decide what they can do better than the most advanced technology.

“It won’t be imparting facts, and it won’t be presenting curriculum, and it won’t be evaluating learning, and it won’t be preventing cheating, and all those things,” Stahl said. “What it is going to be is how human and important and valuable can you make your relationships with the learners so that you are doing that skill better than an advanced technology like ChatGPT that can mimic a very fake relationship.”

As a personal aside, de Piérola encouraged students who will see ChatGPT as an academic shortcut to not lose sight of the true goal of a college education and that is to become the best version of yourself.

“That’s why you go to a university,” he said. “If you do that right, then you will get good grades, and a degree, but if you don’t do those things, the rest really doesn’t matter. You’ll just be the same person you were before you went to the university and that would be sad in most cases.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

President Heather Wilson announced the one-time merit payment in an employee email Thursday. The payments will go out Feb. 15 to faculty and staff who are eligible for benefits and have been employed since Aug. 1, 2021. This does not include some adjunct professors and some part-time employees.

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“Not only have you continued to teach and advance knowledge, but people worked exceptionally hard to ensure that all students were advised and registered for classes this semester, including a significant number of students who had paused their educations during the pandemic,” Wilson wrote.

Due to these efforts, UTEP will “be very close” to its expected enrollment number for this semester, Wilson wrote. That number was not provided in her email.

Since the start of the pandemic, UTEP after more than two decades of continued growth.

Wilson also noted that additional funds became available due to decreased department expenditures, largely due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

Yannick Atouba, a communication professor, said he is grateful for the unexpected payment but recognizes it was an appreciation gift and not a pay increase.

“I was very happy when I saw the email but then I saw that it said ‘one time’ so I was like, ‘oh’,” Atouba said.

Employed by UTEP since 2014, he last received a pay increase two years ago, he said and hasn’t received word from his department or the university as to when he can expect another bump in pay.

“I understand if the pandemic caused certain things but it’s the lack of communication about these things,” Atouba said. “It’s a bit unsettling because this could easily go on for many years and it’s like, ‘is no one going to say anything about this?’”

Diana Martinez, an adjunct professor who has taught history and humanities courses at UTEP since 2010, said the bonus would have especially benefited lower-income employees, like adjunct faculty. Because she’s ineligible for university benefits, she will not receive the bonus.

“Many of us are still trying to financially recover (from) when we were living paycheck to paycheck without benefits before the pandemic,” Martinez said. “There is equality and then there is equity.”

This is the first employee bonus given under Wilson’s tenure. She assumed the university presidency in August 2019.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.