New Publication: In the Room Where It Happened
Writing about our recent publication GenAI policy development in higher education
Recently, some friends/colleagues of mine (Esther Brandon, Dr. Dana Gavin, and Allison Papini) and I published a new article with EDUCAUSE Review: In the Room Where It Happens: Generative AI Policy Creation in Higher Education. It was a follow-up to an article we published in December 2023, Cross-Campus Approaches to Building a Generative AI Policy, also with EDUCAUSE Review. In fact, I talked about that first article on this substack back in December of 2023 when it was published.
In March of 2024, we followed up that article with a session at the annual NERCOMP conference on A Round of Musical ChAIrs: Reviewing, Implementing, and Revising AI Policies (feel free to check out the resources document from that session). It was just at the end of this session, that Allison had the brilliant idea for where to take our work next: what happens when the people are chosen for the policy development and it’s the wrong people? We liked the idea and gave it a little breathing room to for us to think more about.
Then, we went into our collaboration mode. We set up short sessions (30 minutes) in a weekly (or sometimes biweekly) structure, where we got on a video meeting, did a brief check-in, and plunged into writing. It’s still so fulfilling to see how quickly an article can grow with 4 people just plugging away in short bursts of time. In a very short time, we had an article that we thought reflected our collective experiences as well as those we had talked to at lots of other institutions.
Given its publication, we wanted to provide a bit of meta-commentary about the experience of writing the article: what drove us, why we wanted it to put it into the world, and why it matters to us. and share it with readers here.
Esther Brandon
If you’re anything like me, you often have Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton playing rent-free in your head. While we included a tongue-in-cheek reference to “The Room Where It Happens,” our article draws a parallel to when people of color and women were historically excluded from the very spaces where crucial decisions were made about their futures. Similarly, if diverse voices—representing different backgrounds, abilities, and expertise—are omitted from the rooms where AI policies are shaped, the resulting frameworks are more likely to perpetuate bias, inequity, and exclusion in teaching and learning opportunities. In my work with faculty and higher education leaders from a variety of institutions, I’ve seen a pattern of success: those including a broad range of stakeholders in AI policy rooms foster creativity, mitigate unintended harms, and enhance belonging. This makes AI policy outcomes more just, robust, and effective. I hope you will join us in building the future of a higher education culture where everyone is welcome.
Dr. Dana Gavin
We started working on this piece early last summer. I just attended a summit on community colleges, online learning, and AI, and I was sad to hear multiple voices express that their institutions either had no policy or had barely begun to work on a policy. Personally, I am in the midst of institutional policy creation at my college, and I feel lucky that we are this far along! I wish everyone with whom I interact was telling about their multi-level policies, crafted thoughtfully and based on good information from the widest cross-section of stakeholders possible. I have very strong beliefs about the use of generative AI, but one of my strongest overarching beliefs is institutions owe it to their stakeholders to be clear in terms of policy and procedure. Ignoring the state of education is simply insufficient to meet the moment for our students and colleagues. I hope our article can help people feel like policy creation is both doable and worth the aggravation that comes along with major group projects. I truly believe that the more work you do on the front end, the less worry and bother you will have in the future!
Allison Papini
My contribution to this piece is grounded in my experiences and observations over the past few years working with GenAI. Engaging with such an emerging technology often means that it's unclear who is informed about or interested in the topic. These conversations create valuable opportunities for those of us in academic support roles to advocate for our expertise and the unique perspectives we bring. Collaborating with my interdisciplinary coauthors has enriched my professional practice and provided space to reflect on both my role in these discussions and my place in the broader conversation.
Lance Eaton
At the time of writing, I was at a different institution than I am now. That institution created a policy but it existed because I pushed to make it happen (and to make it happen by directly including students). Yet in conversations with dozens of institutions and leadership over the past 2.5 years, I found that many were struggling with lots of different challenges to not just make it happen, but to make it happen well. So while we had written the first article and were getting great follow up from it, we still were hearing about limitations and challenges to how to go about it effectively. When Allison encouraged us to take the next step, I certainly realized it was a really great opportunity for us to put our heads together. As folks who are mid-career and been collectively in higher education for probably some 50 years if not more at probably ten or more institutions, it was an opportunity to pull together our own insights and work about leadership in a domain we had all been deeply discussing and learning about the last several years.
We hope that you will take some time to read through In the Room Where It Happens: Generative AI Policy Creation in Higher Education, and share it along or bring it to your own “rooms” to determine how you can make sure there is effective and meaningful representation of as many voices as possible.
The Update Space
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EDUCAUSE Online Program: Teaching with AI. Virtual. Facilitating sessions: ongoing.
Teaching Professor Online Conference: Ready, Set, Teach. Virtual. July 22-24, 2025.
Recently Recorded Panels, Talks, & Publications
“In the Room Where It Happens: Generative AI Policy Creation in Higher Education” co-authored with Esther Brandon, Dana Gavin and Allison Papini. EDUCAUSE Review (May 2025)
“Does AI have a copyright problem?” in LSE Impact Blog (May 2025).
“Growing Orchids Amid Dandelions” in Inside Higher Ed, co-authored with JT Torres & Deborah Kronenberg (April 2025).
Bristol Community College Professional Day. My talk on “DestAIbilizing or EnAIbling?“ is available to watch (February 2025).
OE Week Live! March 5 Open Exchange on AI with Jonathan Poritz (Independent Consultant in Open Education), Amy Collier and Tom Woodward (Middlebury College), Alegria Ribadeneira (Colorado State University - Pueblo) & Liza Long (College of Western Idaho)
Reclaim Hosting TV: Technology & Society: Generative AI with Autumm Caines
2024 Open Education Conference Recording (recently posted from October 2024): Openness As Attitude, Vulnerability as Practice: Finding Our Way With GenAI Maha Bali & Anna Mills
AI Policy Resources
AI Syllabi Policy Repository: 165+ policies (always looking for more- submit your AI syllabus policy here)
AI Institutional Policy Repository: 17 policies (always looking for more- submit your AI syllabus policy here)
AI+Edu=Simplified by Lance Eaton is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
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