Michelle Malinovsky is helping lead the conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the Onondaga Community College campus and across the wider State University of New York (SUNY) system.
Malinovsky, who is an English Professor and Librarian, is one of 20 faculty and staff members from across the state selected for the first class of SUNY AI for the Public Good Fellows. Their mission is to help SUNY campuses integrate AI literacy into the classroom, with a focus on ethics, critical thinking, and responsible use.
"This aligns with work I've been doing, and I'm really excited about the opportunity to work with other faculty and other colleges to make it a larger conversation and find out what is working at other institutions," Malinovsky said.
Higher education, Malinovsky believes, is at a crossroads. "AI is the wild west, and it changes so fast. But it's not going away. Our challenge is to help students build the skills to navigate it responsibly, to think critically, ask better questions, and make ethical choices in a world that prioritizes speed and convenience."
At OCC, she's become a leading voice in shaping how her colleagues respond to that challenge. She hosts bi-weekly roundtable discussions with faculty. Topics have ranged from prompt engineering to plagiarism to new AI research tools. "These are open forum discussions with a central focus. It's a space for everyone to share their experiences." Malinovsky has also created professional development opportunities for fellow librarians and organized multiple AI introductory workshops for faculty.
In addition, she serves on OCC's newly formed AI Community of Practice committee led by Chief of Staff Julie Hart. Its goal is to help employees explore practical, time-saving ways to use AI in daily work. Malinovsky's role is to be the conduit between faculty and college leadership. "I'm that intermediary voice. I communicate faculty concerns, challenges, and opportunities, while exploring and better understanding what the College is doing in talking about AI and share that back with how it will affect classrooms, faculty, and student practice from a faculty perspective."
Values as they relate to students and ethical learning are central to Malinovsky's work. In her dual role as librarian and English professor, she's attuned to how students process information and how easily AI can become a shortcut instead of a tool. "Students live in a world where efficiency is the number one goal. How do we encourage them to engage in the learning process itself? How do we help them develop their critical thinking skills while also being aware AI isn't going away? How do we help them learn to build the big skills to make ethical choices, to take agency over their own thinking and writing, while at the same time teaching AI literacy, digital literacy, and information literacy?"
Malinovsky's deep dive into AI included a course at SUNY Stony Brook titled, AI Ethics, Social Impact and Real-World Applications. "The college has really supported me in this. Long-term I would like to see campus-wide professional development so everyone understands the basics of the ethical considerations. We have to be responsible information consumers. How are we responsibly, ethically, and empathetically engaging with this new technology as a tool? How do we retain that human piece?"
