When: October 15, 2025 | 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Where: Room FSC 4001
This event is open to all and will be held in person only.
Seminar Abstract
If this title fills you with dread, then let me balance out that sentiment with my firm belief that UBC as an institution is well-positioned to rise to the challenges of this rapidly shifting landscape, but it wont be easy. It is less than 3 years since ChatGPT became widely available and rapidly adopted, both as a standalone tool and through integration into other digital platforms and tools. In that short space of time, students have taken up these tools widely, faculty have struggled with the implications for integrity of assessment and assurance of learning. And institutions have tried to keep up with rapid advances in tool capability running on a very different clock speed to that of academia. I will try and offer some insight into how the institution is trying to navigate this, the challenge for Faculties and academic units, and the implications for individual educators teaching their courses.
Speaker
Simon Bates is UBC’s first Vice-Provost and Associate Vice President, Teaching and Learning and was appointed the first tenured Professor of Teaching in 2012, when the Educational Leadership stream was created. He has worked at the interface of educational innovation and technology enhanced learning for 25 years, and over the time he has been at UBC, he has led a number of education transformation projects. With the possible exception of COVID, none of these projects have felt quite so huge in terms of scope, implications and urgency than the challenges we currently face.