Dartmouth has long celebrated its place in the history of artificial intelligence, but its latest AI controversy did not begin in a lab or a classroom. It began with the work of the university’s own chief academic officer.

In September, President Sian Leah Beilock announced a review of Schnell’s writing, framing the inquiry as part of the difficult work of guiding a university through a technology that is advancing faster than its norms. “Leading on something this new and fluid is messy,” she said, adding that institutions would make missteps as they learned.¹

The faculty committee’s review found that Schnell had used Claude to substantially edit a research manuscript, troubleshoot coding and generate figures for a paper submitted to ChemSystemsChem. The journal required disclosure of that kind of AI assistance, but the committee concluded that Schnell did not disclose it at submission or publication.¹

It also examined his August Washington Post opinion essay on AI cheating. Schnell told Semafor that he had used ChatGPT to “refine a few arguments, check for grammatical errors, and submit it to the Washington Post.” The committee found that this breached the newspaper’s standards and that Schnell was not sufficiently forthcoming during its inquiry.¹

The result was his resignation, announced Wednesday. Beilock said the decision was Schnell’s, made out of respect for colleagues and Dartmouth, while thanking him for his leadership. History professor Matthew Delmont will serve as interim provost through June 2028.¹

The case lands as students face growing scrutiny over AI-assisted work. Dartmouth’s position is not that AI must be avoided: Beilock said people will differ over how and when to use it. But she drew the line sharply for those in charge: leaders must model “the transparency and human judgment” expected of students and scholars.¹