Message UNO students receive for their AI-Bot Durango.
On Doane’s campus, AI has been introduced and is being widely used. From students using ChatGPT to do their work for them, to teachers encouraging students to use AI to check their answers or help write formulas and code.
At the start of the month, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) introduced a new character to campus. The artificial chatbot, Cornelius, contacted students on Nov. 3, introducing itself.
According to a press release by UNL, the bot will conduct outreach and “offer 24/7 assistance to support student retention and degree completion.” On Nov. 10, University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) students received a similar message from an AI chatbot named Durango. A 1$ million private donation funded the chatbots.
The bots will contact students roughly every 10 days to keep them updated in hopes of keeping students connected to campus. Amy Goodburn, Dean of Undergraduate Education at UNL, spoke to Nebraska Public Media, explaining that the chatbot can instantly answer questions on university topics like major changes, housing contracts and study tips.
Nebraska Public Media reported that Cornelius received over 15,000 messages in its first week, and within the first day, 50 chats were flagged for human review. The Daily Nebraskan reported that such a message included a student who told Cornelius they were going to bomb the Nebraska Union, prompting a police investigation.
Goodburn said, “I think people are just sort of playing around with it.” She highlights the part of the introduction message, for both Cornelius and Durango, which explains that the texts students send to the bot are not anonymous and staff may reach out based on what they read.
However, the bot has received a mixed response.
One student reported thinking the message was a scam when they received it. Sophomore Sydney Hale said, “Someone brought it up in class, and everyone was like, yeah, it sucks- I blocked it asap.”
Sophomore Kate Roesch told the Daily Nebraskan that she was disheartened by its introduction and “literally sighed” when she saw the notification.
Some of the complaints from students were that the bot was unable to answer simple questions, such as where buildings were on campus, the fear that it would take jobs from staff and the feeling that the university didn’t care enough to actually speak with students. One student on UNO’s campus called Durango “a freaking embarrassment.” A 1$ million private donation funded the chatbots.
25Live, the app Doane uses for event planning, utilizes AI to help students schedule simple and quick events on campus. The university has also recently introduced a certificate, Thinking and Writing with AI, run by English Professor Phil Weitl. As part of a business class’s capstone project, run by Business Professor Charlena Miller, students are developing AI chatbots to assist in club creation at Doane.
