University Seminars, an ongoing faculty forum for interdisciplinary exchange, is launching a new iteration this year—AI and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning.
The seminar series, sponsored by the Office of the Provost, has brought together faculty from across the institution to engage deeply with topics of shared interest, fostering sustained conversations.
The meetings are meant to be "low key and intellectually wide-ranging," a means to get people together to start talking without a clear mandate for an outcome, says Barbara Will, vice provost for academic and international affairs.
"The University Seminars are really a chance for people to come together to explore ideas across disciplinary boundaries," says Will. "On the one hand, we have the Medieval Seminar that's got a long and venerable history at Dartmouth, and now, there's the very contemporary AI and foreign language learning seminar."
The Medieval Seminar, which gathers scholars interested in the premodern world (circa 300—1700), has been meeting in some capacity since the 1960s.
"This is a forum to share work in progress, so that we have a core understanding of what type of scholarship is happening. Countless connections, ideas, projects, and teaching inspirations have come out of these relationships," says Cecilia Gaposchkin, the Charles A. and Elfriede A. Collis Professor in History, who co-convenes the seminar, which meets on the third Wednesday of each month during term.
There have been instances of the seminars reshaping departmental offerings as well. The 2023-2024 University Seminar coordinated by Anne Gelb, the John G. Kemeny Parents Professor of Mathematics, has led to the creation of a new PhD program in computational science and modeling, which integrates computing, mathematical modeling, and experimentation.
With the new seminar on artificial intelligence and foreign languages, Tania Convertini, research assistant professor and language program director of Italian, and Roberto Rey Agudo, director of the Spanish and Portuguese language program and senior lecturer in Spanish, hope to create a space for rich and reflective conversations about AI and its role in pedagogy.
Soon after the release of ChatGPT, they convened a panel discussion at the Leslie Center for the Humanities to explore its impact on language learning.
"There is so much conversation around AI everywhere on campus, but the discussions are often fragmented," says Convertini. "The University Seminar seemed like the perfect space for reflection that is really shared."
Languages are at the center of this conversation, says Convertini, as AI tools with translation and writing abilities raise questions about the need for language learning. There is a need to understand the role of AI—not instead of learning, but for learning, she says.
"Learning a language gives you an entry, a portal, to much more than just communication. It's an entry into a culture, into experience," says Convertini, who sees AI as an amplifier rather than a replacement.
"As you learn a language, AI can really help you to become better at it, more proficient, more accurate. It cannot replace, in any way, you being able to speak or you being able to navigate an intercultural situation," she says.
But given that AI is here and poised to stay, it is time to move beyond the binary of either fully embracing or completely rejecting the technology, the coordinators say.
The seminar series aims to explore not just what faculty can do in the classroom with AI, but also discuss assessment, inequalities in language representation in AI models, and critical digital literacy for students and faculty, Rey Agudo says.
"This is not a seminar for the converts but really a space to welcome critical voices and engage in what we hope will be a productive dialogue," says Rey Agudo.
The AI and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning seminar series will meet on the last Thursday of every month from February to May. Roopika Risam, chair of Film and Media Studies, will be the inaugural speaker at the Feb. 26 meeting.
The Provost's Office has also formed a Faculty Leadership Group on Artificial Intelligence to define a principled, evidence-based strategy for where AI can meaningfully accelerate Dartmouth's mission, and where deliberate restraint is essential.
"As chair of the Pedagogy Subcommittee for the AI Leadership Group, I'm eager to learn how faculty are adapting their teaching practices for language learning in the age of generative AI—whether that means embracing new tools or encouraging students to work without AI. I'm excited to think collaboratively about how Dartmouth can support and sustain their work," Risam says.
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The Office of the Provost is inviting proposals for next year's seminar series via email to Office.of.the.Provost@dartmouth.edu by March 15, 2026.