Who’s afraid of Generative AI? At this in-person (only) roundtable session, we intend to find out by revisiting our post-pandemic practices in the composition classroom. In two of our previous peer-reviewed publications from 2013 and 2014, we questioned the acumen of the “digital native,” as Marc Prensky famously termed the respective generation of university students. To a large degree, and with sometimes surprising results, the collective COVID-era put the technological abilities of these students to the test. At our 2024 NeMLA roundtable, we again assessed this population in light of course design and delivery through the “emergency remote” and “blended” modes of instruction necessitated by the pandemic. When large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, became publicly accessible in 2022, a firestorm ignited across academia, forcing educators to rethink the many of the strategies they have been assiduously integrating into their teaching practices over just the previous couple of years. As early adopters of innovations such as mobile devices and various online modalities, the chairs of this session are cautiously optimistic about the potential benefits of Artificial Intelligence, with a keen awareness of the necessity of treading carefully with these tools.

As with any evolving technology, there seems to be no middle ground: while one camp seems to be willing to jump in with both feet, the other appears to be convinced that Generative AI signals the death knell for academic integrity. Recent experiences tell us that the future likely resides somewhere between eschewing and endorsing AI in the writing “classroom,” however we define that space today. We welcome submissions from a range of pedagogical contexts for this roundtable including basic composition, first-year writing, as well as business and professional communication to identify responsible, ethical, and pedagogically sound methods of using AI to assist our students in achieving their writing goals.

The chairs of this roundtable session are soliciting experiences and ideas related to the use of Generative AI tools in composition instruction at the university level. While we acknowledge that an increasingly large degree of expertise with Artificial Intelligence will be required of our students upon completion of their undergraduate studies and joining the workforce, we are also acutely aware of the trepidation among university educators to integrate these tools into their curricula.

Chairs:

William Magrino Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Peter Sorrell St. Vincent College

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words directly to the NeMLA portal by September 30, 2025: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21775

March 5-8, 2026
Pittsburgh, PA