Meet Faculty Fellow Paul Fyfe

Paul Fyfe is quick to agree that conceptual knowledge of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is essential to contemporary teaching and learning — but its use in the classroom, he says, needs to be moderated by a thorough understanding of its limitations. 

“The rapid appearance of GenAI has far outpaced our pedagogical and ethical frameworks for its use,” he said. “We need to develop critical AI literacy — not just in our students, but across our programs and institutions as well.”

Fyfe is an associate professor in the the Department of English and the Communications, Rhetoric and Digital Media PhD program, as well as the director of the graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. He is one of six Faculty Fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year, including his English Department colleagues Anna Gibson and Christopher Crosbie.

Faculty Fellows partner with DELTA staff to develop pedagogically innovative course content that is scalable and reproducible for instructors across the university. Over the course of the yearlong grant, they may lead campus workshops, share best practices in academic articles, present at conferences such as DELTA-Con and the Conference on Faculty Excellence, or engage in other scholarly activities. 

Fyfe’s DELTA Fellowship project focuses on fostering AI literacy at NC State, expanding on his work in assessing the possibilities and consequences of generative AI for writing. As AI tools rapidly migrate into students’ everyday platforms and NC State’s enterprise software, instructors urgently need to understand their potential — and potential limitations or misuses. 

DELTA’s community of instructional designers, multimedia developers, researchers and technologists offers an ideal venue for faculty interested in exploring these questions. Fyfe agrees: “DELTA provides a forum in which instructors and stakeholders from across the university can tackle these issues together,” he said.

Cultivating AI Literacy at NC State

Fyfe’s expertise in AI and digital pedagogy positions him as a catalyst to collaborative interdisciplinary campus conversations around developing comprehensive AI literacy for the NC State community. 

A specialist in nineteenth-century British literature, Fyfe’s research explores the intersection of digital humanities, comparative media studies and AI. He teaches undergraduate and graduate seminars in nineteenth-century British literature, literature and technology, and digital humanities for the English department, as well as seminars on data and society for the University Honors Program. 

GenAI has increasingly worked its way into his course design. “In recent classes at NC State, we’ve been experimenting with GenAI and writing,” he explained. “Students are really on the front lines of this rapid change, and we can learn a lot from how they perceive and use, or don’t use, AI. I’ve published on these experiments and hope to continue this research in the future.” 

Additionally, Fyfe is co-PI for NC State’s new Center for AI in Society and Ethics (CASE), a project led by Veljko Dubljević and funded by a Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Fyfe’s work with CASE explores the ethics of generative AI and large language models from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

“Tech companies and educational tech vendors are pushing AI hard,” he said, “but we need to be careful, go slowly and understand the repercussions. As the scholar Timnit Gebru points out, big tech is the only major economic sector that doesn’t have to prove the safety of its products before releasing them.”

Fyfe’s longstanding interest in new media and data literacy was initially sparked by a post-graduate position at an internet company. He later pursued graduate study in English literature at the University of Virginia, where he worked as a teaching & technology support partner to help other instructors integrate technologies into their classrooms.

“My work during grad school sparked an interest in digital pedagogy, and I experimented a lot with different things in the classroom,” he explained. “I’ve always been curious about the impact of new technologies on our teaching.”

Digital pedagogy skills notwithstanding, Fyfe is also an advocate for low- or no-tech teaching approaches and hands-on learning experiences, such as sewing book bindings with needle and thread or exploring data sets with visualization tools. 

“Sometimes the best way to learn about computers can be to pull the plug on them entirely,” he explained. 

Whether exploring the reach of AI tools or going low-tech with his students, Fyfe credits the NC State University Libraries with making him a better educator. He and his students have participated in various workshops and high-impact, hands-on experiences led by library staff on topics including book binding, linocut engraving, video game analysis, zine making, data cleaning and visualization, creating in the Makerspace and image generation using AI. 

“Can I just say how amazing the NC State University Libraries are?!” he said. “So much of my teaching has benefited from collaborations with the great folks there. We have a world-class library with fantastic facilities, made even more excellent by the intellectual generosity and talents of the people who work there.”

Building Wolfpack Community

In addition to fostering AI literacy, Fyfe is using his Fellowship resources to build community among his students and colleagues. He emphasizes student belongingness and well-being in his course design, pedagogy and use of digital tools — particularly in hybrid and online courses. 

“It’s hard to overstate how much pressure students are under,” he said. “During the pandemic and in the years since, I’ve been shocked to hear from students alienated by inflexible or detached instructors, feeling burned out, or uneasy about being in the classroom. It’s imperative that, in supporting student wellness, we understand the need for flexibility and personal engagement in our classrooms.”

Fyfe was gratified to receive NC State’s Alumni Association Outstanding Teaching Award in 2016, and has endeavored to support students through the transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond. 

He also credits returning DELTA Fellow Anna Gibson’s pedagogical excellence with inspiring his own teaching. Gibson was awarded both the 2023 NC State Outstanding Teacher Award and the 2023 Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher Award.

“Anna is a fabulous teacher,” Fyfe said. “I always learn so much from her examples, whether guiding students through critical contexts for understanding Victorian literature or using digital tools like Perusall to extend in-class conversations.”

About DELTA Faculty Fellowships

Our Faculty Fellows Grants program champions innovative technological pedagogy by fostering the exchange of ideas and interdisciplinary partnerships among NC State faculty with support from DELTA staff. The grant work specifically focuses on incorporating NC State enterprise technology tools into classes, such as Moodle, Zoom, Google Apps for Education and Panopto.

• Discover teaching strategies for integrating AI into your courses

Whether leading workshops on NC State’s campus, sharing best practices via articles or presenting at conferences, DELTA Faculty Fellows are constantly improving and innovating. 

Interested in sharing your knowledge and learning from other instructors? Apply for a Faculty Fellows Grant during the next application cycle!