August 11, 2025

Dear colleagues,

Today is my first day as your provost. I am honored to serve in this role and promise to work tirelessly to advance the academic mission and to foster faculty and student success.

Later today you will be receiving information that the university has partnered with OpenAI to bring enterprise ChatGPT 4 to all faculty, staff and students on the Columbia campus. This OpenAI agreement protects all your intellectual property and personal information from exposure to any large language models. A message will be going out with details about how faculty and staff can access the tool.

As you are building your course syllabi for the coming semester, please include a statement regarding the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools (e.g., ChatGPT) in your course. All students will have access to this tool, and it is imperative that we make our expectations explicit from the first day. Your syllabus may prohibit, limit or even encourage students to use ChatGPT 4 but do make clear statements about your requirements for your course.

Sample syllabi statements on the use of generative AI tools may be found on the Center for Teaching Excellence website. It is not a requirement that you use these exact statements, but they can help you to frame your own.

As you begin to use ChatGPT, I encourage you to share feedback with my office by emailing provost@sc.edu. It is important that I understand your experience with this new tool.

Thank you for your commitment to academic excellence and innovation. I look forward to working together as we advance the mission of the University of South Carolina.

With appreciation,

Mary Anne Fitzpatrick
Executive Vice President and Provost
USC Educational Foundation Distinguished Professor