Dartmouth provost accused of using AI to write nearly all his papers

A mathematics professor and provost at Dartmouth College has been accused of using AI to write nearly all of his academic papers and opinion pieces, sparking criticism from colleagues and students who are calling for his dismissal. The Dartmouth, the college's independent student newspaper, last month published an investigation into several opinion pieces and academic papers attributed to Santiago Schnell, Dartmouth's provost, in 2026.The findings followed an incident about a month earlier, when Pangram also determined that an opinion piece by Schnell in The Washington Post had been entirely written by AI, according to American news website Semafor. Professor Santiago Schnell, provost of Dartmouth College. Photo courtesy of the college's website On Aug. 26, a Semafor investigation used a tool called Pangram to analyze guest columns in major newspapers for signs of AI-generated writing. The tool classified a column by Schnell as "100% AI-written."The Washington Post column, titled "Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there's a deeper problem," argued that "a degree should distinguish what students can do independently from what they can accomplish with AI."The Dartmouth later examined Schnell's published work from before and after ChatGPT's public release in Nov. 2022.Pangram 4.0, the latest publicly available version of the AI detector, classified all of Schnell’s works published before 2022 as "100% human-written."By contrast, nine pieces he published this year received a median AI-written score of 96%.Responding to the allegations, Schnell said the articles were based on his own ideas, with ChatGPT used only to refine some arguments and check grammar before the pieces went through multiple rounds of editing.He also argued that AI detection tools tend to discriminate against people who do not speak English as their first language, as he is originally from Venezuela, according to Semafor.The controversy deepened when the professor emailed an explanation to The Dartmouth, and reporters ran it through the AI detection tool, which returned a result indicating that 100% of the text had been AI-generated.Under Dartmouth's policy, students "may not use GenAI tools for submitted coursework unless expressly permitted.""Course instructors are the experts in their subject matter and are responsible for meeting the learning objectives of their courses. Instructors may either allow or disallow GenAI tools based on their assessment of the pedagogical value of these tools within their course. As such, Dartmouth assumes the general rule that GenAI tools are disallowed by default in courses to permit instructors full autonomy over the degree to which they allow students to use GenAI tools, if at all," according to Dartmouth's official Guidelines on Using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) for Coursework.Ben Stevenson, a Dartmouth senior majoring in history, described recent developments as "Orwellian.""Dartmouth is claiming to be a national leader, but really Dartmouth is a national embarrassment," he told BostonGlobe.Banning or celebrating AI?The Ivy League school is celebrating its 70th anniversary as the birthplace of artificial intelligence through a yearlong series of events, academic initiatives, and conferences commemorating the historic 1956 summer workshop, as listed on its website.Earlier this month, Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock published an article in The Atlantic titled "Why I Want to Bring More AI to Dartmouth."Some faculty members and alumni have since criticized her for creating an environment in which academic administrators are not held to the same stringent standards as students.Beilock had emailed the entire college community, announcing a serious and objective review of Schnell's use of AI.The Dartmouth chapter of the American Association of University Professors is collecting signatures calling for his dismissal, according to The Boston Globe.The Dartmouth also published an opinion piece from students arguing that Schnell "must be fired.""In this time of uncertainty about the future of learning, the provost’s job is incredibly important. Provost Schnell is not the leader who will help our school develop a responsible relationship with AI," the piece said.Schnell later sent a letter defending himself to newspapers.As published by The Dartmouth on Sept. 25, he wrote: "I understand that my use of AI in writing is raising important questions about the standards of scholarly and professional work. In retrospect, I now realize I should always explicitly disclose use of AI in my public writing and be attentive to the expectations of AI use set by publications. I am sorry that this was not my standard practice and, moving forward, it will be."Dartmouth is one of the eight private universities in the U.S. Ivy League.It ranked 12th among American institutions in the 2027 U.S. News college rankings. Dartmouth's acceptance rate is about 6%, according to the college's data for this year's incoming class.Santiago Schnell has served as Dartmouth's provost since July 2025.He is a professor of mathematics and an adjunct professor of biochemistry and cell biology and biomedical data science.