The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is committed to helping you increase your language proficiency, develop analytical and intercultural skills, and gain knowledge of the diverse Hispanic and Lusophone worlds (Spain/Portugal, Latin America, Africa, and the United States). Above all, we strive to help you develop your own voice in Spanish and Portuguese. Learning another language and engaging deeply with other cultures requires time, effort, experimentation, and even struggle. The difficulty of finding the right words, revising your work, and trying again is not an obstacle to learning—it is an essential part of the learning process. 

Generative AI can be a useful tool, but when it does the thinking, writing, or language production for you, it can undermine that learning process. How you use AI matters. You have the power to decide how much of your own thinking and creativity you hand over to it. Our approach to AI is therefore guided by three key principles: 

• Do the intellectual and creative work necessary to develop your own skills. 
• Be transparent about your use of AI and follow the guidelines established for each course. 
• Engage critically with AI and recognize its limitations and broader ethical concerns, including bias, copyright, and environmental impact. 

Ultimately, refining your own voice and achieving your learning goals takes time and effort, and AI cannot do it for you. Policies about AI will vary by course and assignment, and your instructor will provide specific guidelines for its use.