Writing Across the Curriculum and in the Disciplines (WAC/WID)

WAC Speaker Series

Writing to Discern: Naming What We Value in the Age of GenAI
Discussions of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) often gravitate towards one of two poles: praise of technological progress or a critical refusal based on concerns about injustice and harm. However, most faculty find themselves somewhere in the middle, seeing both potential benefits and real risks in the technology. This middle space can be generative for ethical discernment.
 
In this presentation, Dr. Christopher Basgier will outline a practice of writing to discern, grounded in pragmatist ethical philosophy. The practice centers on writing about values (personal, disciplinary, and social) and reflecting on how genAI advances, disrupts, or changes values when used in local contexts, from classrooms to lab groups to professional settings. This practice of writing to discern is adaptable across disciplinary contexts, and it can facilitate open discussion about our commitments and the tradeoffs we are willing to make when we engage in situated use and situated refusal of genAI.
 

Chris Basgier

Christopher Basgier is Director of University Writing at Auburn University, which won the 2025 Exemplary Enduring WAC Program Award. As Director, he consults with departments about integrating writing throughout undergraduate and graduate curricula in support of critical thinking and wellbeing. His research, which spans writing across the curriculum, writing centers, genre, threshold concepts, and digital rhetoric, has appeared in venues like Across the Disciplines, College Composition and Communication, Composition Forum, Praxis, Prompt, Studies in Higher Education, The WAC Journal, and The Writing Center Journal. He is active in national organizations like the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum and the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and he serves as Associate Publisher for Operations and Equity with the WAC Clearinghouse.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of English and World Languages

Thursday, February 19, 2026

6:00pm - 7:30pm EST

Zoom

 

Guidance on AI Text Generators

Â鶹AV Policy and Guidance

This policy includes guidance on generative AI in the "Cheating" and "Plagiarism" sections.

Statements

Resources on Writing and AI

The CWE's Quick-Start Guide to Writing with AI

WAC Clearinghouse Resources for Teaching Writing with AI

AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for Inquiry by Anna Mills (2023)

Composition Studies Spring 2023 issue with section on AI and Writing

Writing Professor Ben Erwin's (2023) Reading List on Technology, Writing, and Generative AI

Crowdsourced Sample Syllabus Statements on AI compiled by Lance Eaton

AI Week

CWE staff provide tips for developing AI syllabus policies and designing writing assignments using AI that promote student learning.

Pamplin College faculty discuss the ethical dimensions of AI and ways to talk about it with students.

Center for Instructional Innovation staff show how faculty can use generative AI programs to support course design. 

Center for Instructional Innovation's Podcast, Speaking of Higher Ed: Conversations On Teaching and Learning

Dayla Learning: Homeschooling the Humanities with Humanity, AI Writing Series

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