PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is reaching out to its students in a new way, and is the first school among the Universities of Wisconsin to do so.
Every seven to ten days, students will be receiving artificial intelligence-powered text messages that check how they are doing and will connect them to resources if needed.
“I think people think the AI bot is the answer,” said Meagan Strehlow, UW-Green Bay assistant vice chancellor for student access and success. “It’s actually not. It’s the way we open the doors to the university resources.”
The goal is to help students with everything they need academically, emotionally or perhaps something much simpler.
“Questions about what’s for dinner in the cafeteria tonight to ‘I’m bored, what’s going on tonight?’ which will connect them to our events on campus, to ‘I need help with a class,'” said Strehlow.
In the first 24 hours, students sent the service more than 2,000 messages. In the first month, more than 7,000 messages were sent to the AI chatbot, which the university has dubbed Phlash — after its mascot.
The number university officials are really excited about is only 4% of students have opted out of the service, which exceeds the expectation that was set.
“What we’re finding in the early weeks of its usage is that students who haven’t reached out to anyone on campus to ask a question are reaching out to Phlash,” said Strehlow.
And if Phlash doesn’t have the answer, or perhaps someone needs help with something that would be better suited for a human, Phlash will help make that connection.
“I haven’t asked any questions, but if it can give you help, give you resources like that for your mental health, I think that would be very useful,” said Zack Watson, a UW-Green Bay freshman.
Jacob Ebel, a UW-Green Bay sophomore, says he likes the idea of the service, but wasn’t sure what it was at first.
“There were people posting on the Snapchat story like, is this real? Are other people getting this? Is it a scam? I still honestly don’t even know,” said Ebel.
Phlash is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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