Working Paper: How Are Faculty Reacting to ChatGPT?

Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT have exploded into our cultural awareness this year. Across post-secondary institutions, it was immediately apparent that faculty were eager to explore and discuss what this potentially disruptive technology might mean for them, their courses and their students. We wanted to create an opportunity for that discussion and to get a truer sense of initial faculty reactions than what sensational media headlines were offering. This working paper outlines the results of a facilitated online forum, open to faculty and staff from two institutions in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in January 2023. Our session invited participants to test ChatGPT, reflecting on its strengths and limitations, and then talk through the potential impacts on instructors, our students, and post-secondary education in general of different approaches: ignore it, fight it, and embrace it. Analysis of participant contributions to polls, group discussions and a highly active chat space provide a snapshot of how faculty and staff were feeling and what they were doing in response to ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms. While the data seems to indicate a relatively optimistic take at this early point in the AI revolution, excerpts from discussions and debates do indicate a range of emotions and reactions--a range that will likely only continue to widen with the continuing release of ever more capable AI.