English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary

Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can generate high-quality syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts from prompts and templates, requiring only instructor customization.

Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.

AI: Fully automatable - Maintaining attendance, grades, and records is routine administrative work that is already automatable via LMS and AI tools.

Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.

AI: Fully automatable - AI systems can compile exams, administer them online (including proctoring), and auto-grade many question types or triage responses to human graders.

Write original literary pieces.

AI: Fully automatable - By 2025 generative models can produce original, publishable literary texts in a wide range of styles and genres, enabling full automation of the act of writing literary pieces.

Compile bibliographies of specialized materials for outside reading assignments.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can reliably search domain literature, filter for relevance, and produce formatted bibliographies tailored to reading assignments.

Teach classes using online technology.

AI: Fully automatable - By 2025 AI and learning‑management systems can deliver lectures, interactive materials, assessments, and adaptive tutoring sufficient to teach classes online end‑to‑end under appropriate oversight.

Write grant proposals to procure external research funding.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can research, craft persuasive narratives, produce literature reviews, and format budgets and appendices to produce competitive grant proposal drafts.

Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.

AI: Partial - AI can generate prompts, moderate online discussion forums, and summarize contributions, but initiating and dynamically facilitating rich, emotionally attuned classroom discussions led by a human instructor is not fully automatable.

Evaluate and grade students' class work, assignments, and papers.

AI: Partial - AI can grade objective items and provide rubric-based feedback and formative comments on essays, but reliably handling nuanced, high-stakes evaluative judgments, academic integrity issues, and pedagogical calibration requires human oversight.

Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as poetry, novel structure, and translation and adaptation.

AI: Partial - AI can draft and pre-record lecture content on literary topics but struggles with live seminar facilitation, Socratic questioning, and nuanced classroom interaction.

Teach writing classes.

AI: Partial - AI can provide automated writing instruction, exercises, and formative feedback, but cannot fully replicate human-led workshops, nuanced mentoring, and motivational coaching.

Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.

AI: Partial - AI can assist in planning and revising curricula by suggesting content and methods based on data and best practices, but ultimate curricular judgment and accountability remain with humans.

Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.

AI: Partial - AI can scan, summarize, and alert on current literature rapidly, but cannot genuinely replace interpersonal scholarly exchange or physical conference participation.

Assist students who need extra help with their coursework outside of class.

AI: Partial - AI tutoring systems can offer targeted help and explanations outside class, yet complex mentorship, motivational support, and individualized developmental guidance remain partially human tasks.

Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.

AI: Partial - AI can host virtual office hours for factual questions and initial advising, but cannot fully substitute for in-person advising and nuanced academic mentorship.

Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in professional journals, books, or electronic media.

AI: Partial - AI can assist heavily with literature reviews, data analysis, and drafting manuscripts, but original research conception, ethical decisions, and authoritative interpretation remain human-led.

Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.

AI: Partial - AI can research, recommend, and even place orders for textbooks and supplies given institutional constraints, but final selections and procurement approvals typically require human judgment and administrative sign-off.

Supervise undergraduate or graduate teaching, internship, and research work.

AI: Partial - AI can support supervision by providing feedback, tracking progress, and suggesting interventions, but it cannot assume full supervisory responsibility, mentorship, or formal evaluation authority.

Advise students on academic and vocational curricula and on career issues.

AI: Partial - Large language models can provide detailed, personalized curricular and career advice and flag options, but high‑stakes advising often requires human understanding of individual circumstances, ethics, and institutional rules.

Recruit, train, and supervise department personnel, such as faculty and student writing instructors.

AI: Partial - AI can automate candidate sourcing, initial screening, training materials, and performance tracking, but recruiting, hiring decisions, and personnel supervision remain human responsibilities with legal and interpersonal dimensions.

Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.

AI: Partial - AI can generate ideas, draft communications, analyze research/teaching data, and facilitate collaboration, but it cannot fully replicate the interpersonal negotiation and shared decision‑making of colleagues.

Provide assistance to students in college writing centers.

AI: Partial - AI can provide high‑quality, on‑demand writing feedback and tutoring that covers many student needs, but comprehensive writing center assistance still benefits from human tutors for pedagogy, motivation, and complex feedback.

Perform administrative duties, such as serving as department head.

AI: Partial - AI can automate many administrative tasks (scheduling, reporting, budget analysis, drafting communications) but cannot fully replace human leadership, political judgment, and personnel decision-making required of a department head.

Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.

AI: Partial - AI can handle large portions of recruitment, registration, and placement (targeted outreach, chatbots, analytics, matching algorithms) but cannot fully replicate the relationship‑building and in‑person recruiting activities humans perform.

Conduct staff performance evaluations.

AI: Partial - AI can generate evidence‑based evaluation drafts and analyze performance metrics but lacks the contextual judgment and interpersonal feedback skills required for final staff performance evaluations.

Act as advisers to student organizations.

AI: Partial - AI can support student organizations with planning, policy advice, and resources, but cannot fully replace human advisers' mentorship, conflict resolution, and institutional navigation.

Provide professional consulting services to government or industry.

AI: Partial - AI can perform technical analyses, generate recommendations, and produce deliverables for government or industry, but full consulting requires client trust, accountability, and nuanced stakeholder engagement that remain human roles.

Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.

AI: Not automatable - Serving on committees entails membership responsibilities, institutional representation, and legally/ethically accountable decision‑making that AI cannot assume.

Participate in cultural and literary activities, such as traveling abroad and attending performing arts events.

AI: Not automatable - Participating in cultural activities that require physical presence and embodied experience (travel, attending performances) cannot be performed by AI.

Participate in campus and community events.

AI: Not automatable - Active in‑person participation in campus and community events requires physical presence and relationship‑building that AI alone cannot provide.