The provost of Dartmouth College resigned Wednesday after a faculty committee found that he used artificial intelligence to meaningfully alter his writing, including a guest column that appeared in The Washington Post.
Santiago Schnell voluntarily resigned from his role as provost, Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock confirmed in a statement, according to WCAX.
"I expect our senior leaders to hold themselves to the highest standards. Out of respect for his colleagues and the institution, Santiago has resigned as provost and is leaving the university. This was his decision. We remain grateful for his leadership and wish him well," Beilock said.
Schnell's decision to resign from his role as provost of the university follows the release of an Oct. 27 memorandum detailing the results of a faculty-led investigation into his writings.
Schnell "used AI to meaningfully alter his writing in violation of at least one publication's AI use and/or disclosure requirement, failed to disclose his use of AI in clear violation of a national newspaper's stated policy, was not forthcoming about his AI use, and fell short of the standards set forth by Dartmouth's Code of Ethical Conduct, the Academic Honor Principle, and Geisel's Policy on Expectations for Professionalism for Faculty, Non-Faculty Academics, and Staff," according to the same memo.
An Aug. 9 column attributed to Schnell titled, "Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there's a deeper problem," that appeared in the Washington Post was determined to be 100 percent AI-written, according to Semafor.
Semafor scanned multiple guest columns featured in the opinion pages of the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal using the AI detector Pangram.
Schnell defended his column at the time.
"I wrote this essay based on my own thinking. Then, I used ChatGPT to refine a few arguments, check for grammatical errors, and submit it to the Washington Post," Schnell told Semafor, adding that his column "went through multiple rounds of edits by the Post." (RELATED: Tech Giant Floats Bill That Would Let Feds Step In Only When More Than 50 Lives Are On The Line)
Following Semafor's Aug. 26 investigation, Dartmouth College's newspaper, The Dartmouth, also reviewed Schnell's writings from before and after November 2022, when ChatGPT was released to the public. The Dartmouth found Schnell's works authored before 2022 were "100% human-written," while nine of his works authored this year were likely "96% AI-written," according to results from Pangram.
Schnell described himself as a "mathematical biologist" on his LinkedIn page. He taught mathematics, biomedical data science, and biochemistry and cell biology at Dartmouth College.
News of Schnell's voluntary departure comes amid a three-day conference on AI being hosted at the college.
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