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We bring you stories and insights in the Lansing region from a student media perspective. Brought to you by Focal Point News in the Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Impact 89FM, The Lookout at Lansing Community College, and The State News.
Welcome to the reporter roundtable, where we will be diving into the latest stories and news that shape our community. My name is Maren, and I'm your host this wonderful morning. Hello, everyone, and welcome back for an exciting new episode. Today, we are here with three wonderful guests.
Speaker 2:Julia Raider, and I'm a general assignment news reporter at The State News.
Speaker 3:I'm Theo Sheer. I'm a freelancer at The State News.
Speaker 4:I'm Alex Walters. I'm a reporter and editor at The State News.
Speaker 5:And I'm Owen McCarthy, and I am also a reporter and editor at The State News.
Speaker 1:Today, we're going to be talking about variety of topics from politics to AI guidelines. And, Julia, I wanted to start with your articles, AI guidelines leave room for interpretation. You wrote about how professors across MSU are using AI in the classroom in various different ways. Can you tell us a bit about your article?
Speaker 2:For sure. So I kind of interviewed multiple professors across departments to see on how they were using AI in their classes depending on if they were in, you know, writing class or more of a business class. I interviewed a really interesting professor that had a lot to say about how they've made their own AI, like, class pretty much. It was completely compiled using AI, but
Speaker 5:And it's about, like, how to use AI. Not only did they, like, use AI to make the class, the class, like, teaches about how to use it. Right?
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It it kind of I guess the class the whole idea is that there are students that are going into the workforce that will be using AI extensively in their jobs. And it's kind of a way to combat the fear of there being AI, AI taking over the world, But instead, you know, using it for good.
Speaker 1:So it's about using it in a positive beneficial way rather than negatively.
Speaker 2:That's how that singular professor was using it. But I also interviewed professors that saw it as more of a somewhat of a threat to how students were thinking through, you know, what they were using. I was about to say articles because, you know, that's what we do. But how students are using them in their assignments and if that can have, like, a long term effect and it could be negative. So
Speaker 1:So how were the students' reactions like? Have any one of you guys gotten a chance to hear from them regarding AI usage?
Speaker 5:I mean, I guess my sense would be just like, not even so much having my reporter hat on, but just like being a student here. I mean, I think it's like pretty widely used. And I think that was a concern of a lot of professors is that there's sort of corner cutting that can go on with AI. And, you know, some professors talk to us about like having to adjust the whole way they even administer their classes, because they've run into these students that are using ChatGPT or Grok to write whole assignments, to write whole essays. And so, Julia, think you talked to some people, some particularly like humanities professors.
Speaker 5:Yep. Yeah, where obviously writing and constructing ideas is the whole point, who talked about sort of moving to more in class writings and essays, which I kind of hate as a student, right? Like they're tough, they're sort of stressful, but some of these professors are saying like, that's the way that we can ensure academic integrity because we can see if they're using ChatGPT or not when we're in person.
Speaker 1:And it honestly differentiates a lot from professor to professor, student to student. And from what I'm understanding, MSU has left that to professors. Right? Some classes might use AI, some classes might not. Correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the policy when MSU is going about constructing the policy, the idea was that it would be widely accessible for any department to use. But departments have gone in and told their faculty to use AI in certain ways or to not use it at all. Just depends on what department you're in. But broadly, how MSU constructed the policy was so that departments have that freedom to do what they would like.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:MSU has given that sort of agency before too. I mean, Owen, you wrote about after the shooting. Right? The way that MSU kind of let professors face with a complicated question, sort of handle things on their own.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah, these were professors who were navigating the return back to Berkey Hall. And you had a pretty vocal constituency on campus that said hybrid classes should be mandated here, so that people don't need, aren't forced to go into this building that might have a negative traumatic association. And so kind of in response to all this MSU just said, well, we're gonna leave it to professors to decide how they wanna handle that in their class. If they wanna go about a hybrid option, go for it. If they don't, that's their right as well, but it's not our business necessarily.
Speaker 5:And, you know, the people I spoke to back then said that that put them in a bind and that it was a contentious enough issue with enough kind of like intense emotions and concerns from students that like, they felt like they wanted some guidance from professors and they kind of felt, or it was from administrators, I should say, these professors wanted that guidance from the university. And these professors felt sort of hung out to dry. But it's interesting in the AI case, we had, I think several professors you talked to Julia who said, you know, you have to give room for interpretation here. The university couldn't have some sort of strict AI policy because the way AI works is so dependent on like whatever field you're in. Like we were saying in the humanities, it's particularly contentious because literally the whole point of humanities is like constructing ideas and organizing them, which like that's what ChatGPT does for better or for worse.
Speaker 5:Whereas like in STEM, obviously that's not what you're doing. There was still people who said that they felt it was wrong, that MSU wasn't giving more kind of clear guidance across the board. But I think the the more general consensus here was that, like, the room for interpretation was valid and warranted in this case.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I kinda agree that, you know, it's a hard thing to leave a boundary on because we still don't know the full developments of AI in a sense. And leaving it to professors can be really useful. And at the same time, I remember back at the time when the shooting happened, certain decisions were left to professors as well. And it led to mixed reviews and mixed opinions.
Speaker 1:Some students were not happy about how things turned out with their classes. Some classes would still continue with the course load or some classes would not. Some classes would just be like, hey, we're taking a break break for a while. And do you think this could lead to some kind of, like, imbalance in a way?
Speaker 4:You know, I wrote about that at the time after the shooting that, you know, Michigan State told its professors basically handle this how you want to. There wasn't some sort of, like, hard guidance on, like, you can have this much homework this week and this many exams that week. And I think in the vast majority of cases, professors acted in a way that, you know, students didn't necessarily have concerns about. But we reported on a number of professors that, you know, I think some professors had a philosophy that, like, the way to come back from the shooting isn't to, like, you know, be nice and not have any homework and all hang out and talk about our feelings. They thought, like, we need to get back to work and focus on school, and that'll clear people's minds.
Speaker 4:And there were students who were really upset about that, who came to the university's administration and complained and said that that was not trauma informed. But I think there's multiple views on this like anything else. And, you know, we've reported over a number of years on, you know, different perspectives on this sort of thing.
Speaker 1:There's no doubt that AI is getting more and more used in our campus right now. And when I was reading, Theo, your article about how AI is now even used in our dining halls, and I thought it was pretty interesting to see how someone came up with that idea to track food waste. Can you tell me about how you did your research and what led you to actually choose this topic for your article?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So I think that, I mean, was a pretty easy story to come across. I think a lot of students noticed if you are around Acres or land in the dining halls there, you might have noticed sometime last month, even before that I think, these strange sort of little kiosks popping up, right where you sort of are supposed to turn into your dishes. Right?
Speaker 3:And suddenly there's this little computer with a little raccoon that's asking you about your meal. I I don't know if did you see any of these when this this happened?
Speaker 1:No. I have actually not been to the dining halls since like when I moved to the apartment for like two years now. And Right. Right. I kinda want to see the kiosks and wanna go to Acres now.
Speaker 3:There are these students from Georgia Tech who made this sort of company service called Raccoon Eyes AI. And what it does, and they've partnered with universities and I think some high schools, you know, couple around the country, to basically track food waste using AI. So they have a sensor at the place where you turn in your dishes, and it's a three d sensor. So it sort of scans the food as it goes past, and it essentially makes a three d model of it. And then AI is used to estimate what type of food it is and also what the weight of the food.
Speaker 3:So basically we know exactly what's being wasted and how much of it is being wasted. And it's very interesting technology. It has a 90% accuracy 90 rate, according to the owners who I spoke to over the phone. Know, and that's, I think there's a bit of an asterisk there, right? It's sort of foiled, I guess, by you know, if you have a napkin covering your food, you know, it the way the napkin, it can't see the food.
Speaker 3:And so now I think in these dining halls you're seeing signs that are saying, you know, make sure to put your napkins off to the side or throw them away. And yeah, so it's this really interesting sort of data analysis of food waste at MSU. And there's two components of it. There's one where there's the actual tracking, and then there's the other part where they're trying to kind of hear more directly from students on why they're wasting the food that they're doing. You know, because we can count as many uneaten meals of Philly cheese steaks is one example that I cited in my But you know, but why is the big question.
Speaker 3:So there are these kiosks in the dining halls that ask about the food that day. You know, was the chicken to whatever, know, did you like this and that ingredient? And students will go up to this and give their input. I think there's another aspect where the kiosk will also kind of spout statistics on food waste. So students are not only giving feedback, but they're also becoming more aware of their own food waste.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And from what I've learned, they're going to be possibly changing the proportions of the food and how it is made. Right?
Speaker 3:Right. Right. Yes. If they're noticing like I said, they noticed that nobody was eating all of the Philly cheesesteaks that they had one day at the dining hall. And why is that?
Speaker 3:Right? And they kind of noticed that there was just like a ton of Philly cheesesteak buns on the plates. So, you know, the idea that they could, maybe they'll glean from that is, you know, they're too big. Maybe they'll do it in smaller portions. So that's, you know, they can really make smarter decisions in the dining halls, you know, in the kitchen to kind of reduce that, save save energy, save money.
Speaker 1:It is a brilliant idea, honestly. And I wanted to ask you guys what you feel about it because in a sense, they're kinda watching what you're eating and your plate in the context of privacy as well. What do you think about it?
Speaker 5:Well, Theo, I mean, you spent some time in your reporting just hanging out to see how much this was being used. I mean, what was your sense of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. You know, I'd be curious to see the actual numbers of how many people really engaged with this new idea, but
Speaker 5:Or use the kiosk, right?
Speaker 3:Use the kiosk.
Speaker 5:Everyone's kind of using it technically when they set their thing down on the conveyor belt that goes by.
Speaker 3:But the real question is, yeah, are they going to talk about their dining experiences? And my experience, I went to Landon Hall and I just sort of sat there for an hour near the kiosk. And in my time there, in a full hour's time, I saw one student go up to the kiosk, you know, very timidly, and after thinking for a little bit, pressed the button marked good. He was responding to a question about whether he liked today's food, he said good. And that was it.
Speaker 3:So I'm not sure exactly where they're at now. I know on the data side of things, we're already sort of seeing some results. I know those little brochures that they have at the dining halls, I think on this week's brochure, they have some statistics. So for example, at Acres, they wasted three eighty eight pounds of food. I think that's altogether, it doesn't actually give a timeframe there.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so I think it'll be very interesting. Before they had this initiative, they had this thing where they would actually manually weigh all the waste on everybody's plate. They did this at Acres for a couple years back in the day, where you would just give your plate, not to this AI camera, but to an actual person who would scoop it up, weigh it, mark it down, and they did this for just everybody who ate there that day. So it a lot of work and not really a very comprehensive look at food waste.
Speaker 1:Is it available in all of the dining halls, by the way?
Speaker 3:Just these two, yeah. So it's just in these two dining halls, and it's going to last for the academic year, and then they're done. And that's sort of the end of the experiment. They hopefully will take lessons from that.
Speaker 1:So we don't know if it's a permanent thing. This is just to see how it goes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No, it is a temporary thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We can see that AI is getting incorporated into our campus more and more. So what are you guys' general thoughts about that?
Speaker 3:I mean, think just in general, AI is very clearly not going away. So, you know, the professors that you spoke to, the, you know, MSU as an institution, they're very much recognizing that. I think, you know, if you can't beat it, not that you would want to, you know, you work with it or you use it to your advantage. So I think it's really everywhere, right? And it's in so many different forms.
Speaker 3:Think Owen, you had a really good point about, you know, it's so general. So it's very hard to really make any one blanket statement about AI. Right? I mean, even just the word artificial intelligence, very much associated with chatbots, whatever, the Microsoft Cloud or ChatGPT. But I mean, means so many different things.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:AI is becoming a bigger part of our lives for sure. There's new apps that can actually create yourself. You can create yourself and turn into many different roles. You can be a princess, you can be a ballerina, you can do anything. It's actually crazy.
Speaker 5:I think we feel I mean, as journalists, think we have kind of a interesting perspective on it in that like, you know, we're told that journalism is one of the jobs that AI might be able to do in some capacity. And so I guess there's those questions for us. I mean, don't, we're about to graduate soon. So I'm not like stressing about it too much thinking like I'm gonna apply for a job and then the posting is gonna go away because an AI took it. But it's certainly in the journalism business, big conversation right now of like, exactly how is this tool gonna be used intelligently and in a way that doesn't hurt workers.
Speaker 5:So I guess we will see.
Speaker 1:So there's no doubt that AI is becoming a bigger part of our lives and thank you for sharing your inputs about it. Now we're going to talk about a different topic about the nation's policies, how it affects MSU, and how MSU responds to it. Can you guys tell me a little bit more about your article, Alex and Owen?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I think Owen and I started looking at this because we were fascinated by a dynamic that exists where if you are an American institution of higher education, you are kind of faced with a not fun choice right now. Where on one hand, you you feel like you're under attack. Like, colleges are very upset Mhmm. That the avenues they previously had to pursue funding are being cut at the federal level and in certain states.
Speaker 4:Not necessarily in Michigan, but, like, that was a discussion. And there's, a general public sentiment where you're being demonized. And, like, the academy is looked at as a bad thing by many Americans. So on one hand, it's like you feel like you're being attacked. But on the other hand, if I'm at college and I, you know, go around and I'm loud mouthed and I'm talking about how bad this is and saying how great I am and how evil it is to attack me, you become more of a target.
Speaker 4:And we've seen this with certain institutions, like Harvard, for example, that put up, you know, a real fight against the Trump administration and is now embroiled in a more complicated legal situation than maybe anybody else in the country. And so we were really curious about, like, you know, inside MSU, are they feeling this tension? And if so, like, what do you do in a situation where on one hand you wanna defend yourself because, like, you have simply less money than you used to? But on the other hand, any, like, bold defense you do could make things even worse for you. And so we talked to a of people inside MSU, and, you know, what we found is pretty interesting.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And so what we found is that MSU's leaders are very much so aware of this dynamic. So much so to the point where the president we're told has sort of a term for how to respond to it, is threading a needle. So it's this idea that you wanna push back where you can, but you do it quietly and carefully so as not to draw more attention to yourself. So what this ends up looking like is, for example, when MSU issues statements publicly about the Trump administration, they actually don't even say the word Trump.
Speaker 5:They take the name out of it because as it's been explained to us, if you say the word Trump, it risks sort of eliciting like an emotional political response in people, which is not what you want. So it also manifests in MSU, if some research funding gets cut, MSU hasn't chosen to by itself file a lawsuit to challenge that. They wanna group up with other universities who have been hit with the same reduction in funding, or sometimes even join up with these like associations of universities, like nationwide organizations. So that way you're sort of like a part of a group, a part of a pack that is taking a stance, but you're not going out on your own and sort of drawing all the attention onto yourself.
Speaker 4:Sort of safety in numbers.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly. Alex, and then we wrote about more lobbying spending, for example. MSU, there's a slight kind of uptick in the amount of money it's spent to sort of talk to the power players about why MSU matters and why its research matters. The president of MSU himself has gone to Washington a number of times to talk to these legislators. And then there's even these kind of interesting tactics.
Speaker 5:Not that the other ones aren't interesting, but I found this one.
Speaker 4:I'd like to think everything in our story is interesting.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but there was one, MSU has launched this platform called Spartan Advocate, which is a thing where you can go onto this and contact your elected official and quote, share how federally funded research and financial aid have impacted your life. And they've encouraged,
Speaker 4:like, students, alumni, employees, go on there, not as MSU, but as I'm an MSU student and I'm upset about this thing helping or affecting MSU.
Speaker 1:Is that also anonymous, or do you, like, report specifically
Speaker 4:No. I mean, it would be like, it helps you do things like maybe call your, like, congressman as, like, a constituent and say something about a piece of legislation. Yeah. But it's another way of like MSU is trying to push back on things, but not in a way where it's like, I'm MSU and I'm mad about Trump. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Because they don't wanna incur this
Speaker 1:It's kind of like this neutrality on like outside, but they're taking a stance in inside and kinda trying to solve it without, you know, having a huge lawsuit and dealing with that if it makes sense. Correct?
Speaker 4:I mean, that's I think yeah. I mean, that's sort of the balance they're trying to strike is, like, how do you simultaneously take I mean, I talked to one person inside the administration who framed it as, actions speak louder to words than words. And it's up to you whether or not you think that's actually the case. And we talk to people who think that that's super smart and is a great way to go about this. And we talk to people who say that it's cowardly to, like, not actually speak out and just kind of quietly hire lobbyists and tell your students to call their congresspeople.
Speaker 4:And so you know, there's people on both sides of that. But as I think those inside the administration strategizing would describe it, yeah, they're striking a balance.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And like the kind of a important example, I think, of where this thinking about being very careful gets sort of put to the test and sort of raises some suspicions among some, is when an institution's professor themselves specifically sort of gets into a battle with Trump, which has happened at MSU. Lisa Cook, who is on the Federal Reserve, has been in this very high profile, high stakes battle with Trump over allegations of mortgage fraud that haven't really been proven, and Trump has tried to oust her from the Federal Reserve over this. Lisa Cook is an MSU professor, has been on leave for a while, but has been here for quite a while. Economics and James Madison College is where she's been.
Speaker 5:And the people we talked to said, this is one of those cases where like, do you be quiet about this one? Or do you be careful? Or do in order to sort of appease your faculty and give them some faith and confidence that you're pushing back, do you come out and say, Lisa Cook is one of ours and we support her. MSU ultimately decided not to say anything. But that's one of those examples where this sort of strategy I think sort of gets put to the test.
Speaker 5:And there's people with sort of varying opinions. As one expert said, I think reasonable minds could come to different conclusions. He said, you could say this does not directly impact the university, I imagine faculty colleagues would prefer there to be more vocal support.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And our sense from, you know, talking to our sources who are inside the administration is that that's like the calculus they're doing every day with every decision. Is like, is this a case that we actually need to act, that we actually need to speak, or is this one that we just stay quiet about? Because they're worried. They're like, are we gonna be the next school to have some super nebulous title seven investigation opened up?
Speaker 4:Are we gonna be the next school that, like, the DOJ is looking into? Are they gonna force our or try to force our president to quit, like what's going on at George Mason University? And so it's like, I really think they are weighing kind of like, is the juice worth the squeeze on every time they make a
Speaker 1:cons in a way.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 1:So there's different opinions from everyone, from the in a sense then. There's not like this one established opinion, hey, they're doing good or they're doing bad, and it's up to interpretation in a way. Correct?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah. There's certainly just as there's no like surefire playbook of how MSU is responding to this. There's also no consensus about how exactly MSU should. I would think there's, my sense is that there's a good deal of like understanding among faculty and people who sort of observe higher ed.
Speaker 5:There's a good deal of understanding about why a university might wanna keep a low profile right now. Because universities have seen what has happened when they don't keep a low profile like Harvard as we mentioned and other institutions. Do
Speaker 1:you think it's also a way to kind of balance having this continuous effect of educational life for students, and then for them to not be able to kinda be stressed about a huge lawsuit, and kinda be like, hey, our university is going through this. Do you think they're kinda thinking of the students well-being as well in that or just the university?
Speaker 4:That's not something we ever heard from anybody. Mhmm. But who knows? Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I don't I don't know. I mean, certainly there's implications with all this the Trump administration's actions. I mean, there's implications for students when MSU loses funding and is now adjusting its budget and there's concerns about financial aid, for example, or research funding that's being cut where a grad student might be able to work on that project. So it's not like the Trump administration's actions and MSU's response are like, have no implications for students.
Speaker 5:But at least when in reporting this story out and thinking about how MSU responds to these things, we didn't really hear from people that like the students were
Speaker 4:first I mean, if anything, I don't necessarily think I've heard or that I see an argument that MSU is trying to, like, shelter students from some sort of stress through this. Mhmm. If anything, MSU has sort of put students into the fray as one of its tactics, like we talked about with Spartan Advocate. If you are, for example, a student who is on financial aid, you may have been stressed last year that the Trump administration is making changes that could affect your ability to get that funding. And what MSU did is send you an email and said, get on Spartan Advocate.
Speaker 4:Start calling people in Washington and telling them how important financial aid is to you. And so it's like, don't know if MSU has really I don't think this is some sort of elaborate tactic to protect students' stress. If anything, in the few times when it really has directly clashed up against students, MSU has hoped that they will get involved and that they will channel their stress about it into, like, advocating on the university's behalf. We did not talk to anybody for our story who was willing to talk on the record openly about, you know, I'm an important person in MSU's administration, and here's the kind of, like, secret tension that we're feeling because we don't want Trump to notice us. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And we were kind of understanding of that because, like, who wants to be in the newspaper being like, I don't want this guy to know who I am. Yeah. But we did talk to a number of people in the administration who were willing to talk on background and be cited just as, like, people familiar with it who because we gave them that ability to talk with some partial anonymity, they were very open about the thinking behind closed doors. And, you know, that's a compromise that we make. And, obviously, in a perfect world, we would have the name of every one of our sources in the story.
Speaker 4:But it was one of those Yeah. Examples of a time when, like, it's necessary to give people some manner of anonymity so that they can talk openly about a very uncomfortable thing.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, we're coming to an end of our episode, and thank you so much for being in our episode today. I wanted to also thank our station manager, Faith Fleckinger, general manager, Jeremy Whiting, and program director, McKenna Lowndes, and, of course, our beloved listeners. If you're interested in listening to our archive of stories and other episodes, you can find us at our website at impact89fm.org under the news section. See you next episode.