Dean's Brief 8 · Monday, October 26, 2026
The Fully Automated Loop
The decision: Decide now which parts of a course must stay human, and write them down. If you do not, the vendors will decide for you, one feature at a time.
What is happening
The Modern Language Association put the risk in one sentence in its 2025 statement on educational technologies: a loop in which the learning management system generates the assignment, an AI agent submits it for the student, and AI metrics grade it for the instructor. No one in that loop learns anything, and every step of it is already for sale. The LMS vendors offer assignment generation. The student-side agents exist. The grading dashboards are in beta.
None of those tools is bad on its own. The danger is the combination, adopted one convenience at a time, until a course runs without a person in it. A dean sees the whole loop. Faculty, students, and vendors each see one segment.
Three moves
- Name the human points. For every course, three moments must involve a person: the assignment's design, at least one exchange about the student's own work, and the grade decision. Put it in the campus policy under the one-sentence rule, so no future tool purchase can quietly remove one.
- Buy with the loop in mind. When a vendor pitches assignment generation or automated grading, ask which human point it replaces. If the honest answer is "the instructor's attention," the price is too high at any dollar figure.
- Make student work inspectable. Drafts, prompts, revisions, and a short reflection are the evidence that a person did the thinking. A course that collects them is loop-proof; a course that collects only final files is not.
What to say
To faculty: "Three human moments per course, and you choose them." To vendors: "Show me which part of teaching this removes, and I will tell you whether we want it removed."
Monday step
List the AI features your LMS turned on in the last year. Mark each one as helping a human moment or replacing it. Bring the marked list to your next provost's meeting.
Source: Modern Language Association, Statement on Educational Technologies and AI Agents (2025), as discussed on the AI in Education listserv, Sept. 29, 2026.