LALS Suggested Guidance on Artificial Intelligence and Instruction
Introduction
Purpose: To be used as a guideline for our engagement with generative AI in our research and teaching and as a resource for writing AI policy statements in our LALS course syllabi.
Background: Discussion about the uses and abuses of AI during our Fall 2025 retreat prompted us to draft a shared statement and resource guide for use by LALS faculty reflecting our critical stance on the use of AI by students and in our classrooms. Faculty are encouraged to use any language or resources in the following text and add to this document.
Statement:
Scholars and universities are increasingly integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into research, learning, and communication systems with little to no regard for its devastating environmental impacts, theft of creative and intellectual property, and violation of rights to private data. While we recognize that AI, designed for increasing productivity by replacing human labor in a capitalist context, may serve exactly that purpose with great efficiency, this technology threatens our very educational mission “to prepare students with a strong foundation of skills and knowledges that enable critical analyses and interventions committed to social equality, racial justice, and human rights; and to promote community and public engagement in order to foster the economic, political, physical, and educational well-being of the Latin American and Latino communities.” Latin American and Latino Studies emerged out of struggles for social justice and as a commitment to documenting, studying, and resisting alongside people experiencing forced migration, displacement, dispossession, and ongoing colonialism. We cannot ignore the ways AI is the latest manifestation of capitalist greed, extractive economies, climate migration, and other structures that disproportionately target Latin Americans and communities of color in the United States. Rather than encouraging emancipatory pedagogies and methodologies, AI invites students to essentially outsource the development of their listening, reading, writing, and critical thinking skills to a machine designed to serve the interest of major economic and political forces. Our pedagogical engagement with AI will be null, minimal, or limited to its critical analysis. We do not accept AI generated or AI assisted work as evidence of learning and highly discourage our students from outsourcing their skill development to generative AI.
Furthermore, we urge students to turn off AI automated search results and AI assistance within their apps and software due to the already mentioned concerns: environmental impact, intellectual and creative rights, and concerns over surveillance, corporate data mining and privacy.
We encourage the practice of asking for consent before employing generative AI tools during collaboration, including but not limited to virtual meetings (Zoom), transcriptions, making of promotional flyers, social media posts.
For further reading:
What happens after AI destroys college writing?
AI is Poised to Rewrite History
AI Prompts Drive Massive Hidden Costs in Energy and Water
How to Turn Off Google AI Search
A Student’s Right to Refuse Generative AI – Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies
The Great Lakes Could Be At Risk Due To Data Centers Powering AI, Study Warns