Three faculty members in the writing program at Fresno State have received a $30,000 grant from Adobe to support multimodal student writing and AI Critical Ethical Literacy. The grant recipients are Dr. Ginny Crisco, co-director of the First-Year Writing Program and interim director of the Writing Center; Courtney Hughes, co-assistant director of the Writing Center, both from the English Department; and Dr. Nkenna Onwuzuruoha, Writing Across the Curriculum coordinator from the Africana Studies Program. They will provide professional development for faculty, teaching associates and Writing Center tutors.

This professional learning will support teachers in guiding students to use AI critically and ethically in their writing. It will also support students in developing their writing with multimodal elements — including images, video and sound — using Adobe Express. This grant will be implemented in the Writing Center, the First-Year Writing Program and the Cal-GETC Composition and Critical Thinking requirement.

In fall 2026, students will learn to use AI for brainstorming, language refinement, and the generation and integration of images and other multimodal elements. It will also help them understand some of the challenges of using AI, such as how it can reduce the ability to think critically, foster the spread of hallucinations, stereotypes and bias and produce lower-quality output if used improperly.

Students will participate in a showcase from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 8 and 9 in the Writing Center, Kremen Room 184. Fresno State and the broader community are invited to view the students’ work.