Trustees hear faculty warnings on asynchronous courses and AI during Minnesota State study session on online quality

Trustees of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities on Tuesday spent a lengthy study session examining online education quality, with faculty testimony stressing that many asynchronous courses require substantial instructor labor to preserve meaningful learning—and that generative artificial intelligence increasingly threatens the integrity of unsupervised assessments.

The senior vice chancellor and system instructional leaders framed the session by citing federal and Higher Learning Commission definitions for distance education and by describing the Network for Educational Development (NED) and enterprise tools—Brightspace (D2L), Zoom and Kaltura—that Minnesota State provides to support online course design and accessibility. "The NED is a framework to support quality teaching and learning freely available to all campuses, all faculty, all staff," said Dr. Kim Lynch, associate vice chancellor for educational development and technology, describing professional-development offerings, course templates and access to Quality Matters and the Online Learning Consortium.

Faculty speakers and union leaders urged trustees to pair those supports with clearer expectations. "Asynchronous classes break that shared process into separate tasks that students complete mostly alone without real time guidance," said Joe Hager, a history instructor at Century College, arguing that high-quality asynchronous instruction requires more upfront course design and ongoing individualized feedback. Hager added that generative AI can allow students to bypass learning: "AI can generate plausible…student work for any serious asynchronous assignment that allows students to bypass the learning process almost entirely if they choose to do so."

Kevin Lindstrom, president of the Minnesota State College Faculty, said the system should distinguish its high-quality offerings from low-cost third-party platforms. He told trustees about an "OffRadar" tool he described as "an incognito AI overlay designed to override online test proctoring software," framing the problem as one of both pedagogy and fraud prevention.

Union and faculty representatives also highlighted contractual and evaluation safeguards. Jenna Chernaga of the Inter Faculty Organization outlined how annual professional-development plans and multi-stage peer and dean review in the IFO contract are used to assess teaching excellence across modalities.

Campus presenters described a range of local approaches. Winona State officials said online offerings are mission-oriented and limited (about 21% of Winona State’s courses), with intentional program selection, faculty development and accessibility work. Lake Superior College described a long-running peer-review program, a student-reviewer rubric and regional professional-development short courses that it credits with measurable improvements in student satisfaction since 2021.

Trustees asked for follow-up on several policy questions: how the system will set a minimum standard for online delivery, how transfer equivalency for low-cost providers should be handled, and whether the board needs new policy language to establish the systemwide "bar" for online quality. The committee did not take new policy action on the topic during the session but requested additional time and follow-up discussion in the fall.

The Academic & Student Affairs committee adjourned after the presentations and a broad trustee discussion about next steps.