Stephen A. Levin Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Peter Struck joined Penn School of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Trodden in a special edition of the Ampersand Podcast on Tuesday. (Photo from Penn Today and Chenyao Liu)
Credit: Chenyao Liu
Penn School of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Trodden hosted Stephen A. Levin Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Peter Struck in a special edition of the Ampersand Podcast on Tuesday.
The Sept. 9 podcast — titled “Deans in Conversation” — is part of the Ampersand series, where faculty from different disciplines discuss a topic of their choosing. During the episode, Trodden and Struck spoke about the enduring value of a liberal education in the world of artificial intelligence, addressing the undergraduate experience as well as the role of classics in modern education.
Struck, who is a Classics professor in the College, discussed how the concept of a liberal education began with the Romans.
“The etymology of our term liberal goes back to the idea that a liberal arts education would liberate you, and it frees you from things,” Struck said. “It frees you from narrow mindedness of all kinds.”
Trodden went on to say that the liberal arts allow interdisciplinary fields to come together. Struck emphasized the importance of nurturing this interdisciplinary thinking amid the rising usage of AI among students.
“If a person takes a skills-based approach to their undergraduate education, it’s an invitation to AI to eat their lunch,” Struck said. “The more productive way forward is to discern what’s distinctive about our human intelligence and to nurture and strengthen that.”
The episode also highlighted Penn’s focus on real-world experience, citing that 92% of College students have at least one internship before graduating. Struck credited this figure to the College’s focus on “complexity of thinking.”
Both deans took time to explain new initiatives they’ve been involved in — with Struck highlighting his involvement with College Foundations, and Trodden focusing on his work with Living the Hard Promise Initiative.
“It was the students who came up and they asked the most remarkable questions, and they were not softball questions,” Trodden said regarding discussions during the Living the Hard Promise Initiative. “They were very, very difficult. And so they’re clearly ready for this, I would say.”
The podcast wrapped up with both deans sharing their concerns as well as hopes for how Artificial Intelligence will affect their respective fields. Trodden, who is a cosmologist and professor of physics and astronomy, shared his thoughts about AI in data analytics.
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“I worry a little bit about whether people will have the requisite skills to figure out whether the patterns we find are meaningful,” Trodden said. “That’s a small part of my pessimism, but I‘m often optimistic.”
Struck touched on the role that institutions like Penn will have as AI continues to take on a more prominent role in higher education.
“We’re going to need wisdom and an ability to make very tough calls,” Struck said. “There’ll be great advantages that come from certain things that we adopt, and there’ll be other things that’ll be deleterious to our society. We’re going to need institutions and structures that can help us adjudicate those things.”
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