Abstract
Lightning talk presented in Session 1.3, "Teaching AI Literacy Across the Curriculum," at CEETL's Third Annual AI Symposium, "Human-Centered AI in the Classroom: Student and Faculty Voices," hosted by the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL), San Francisco State University, on May 1, 2026 (via Zoom, open to faculty and staff across the 22-campus California State University system). Abstract accepted through the symposium's call for proposals.
The presentation introduced "Principles for Cognitive and Pedagogical Sovereignty," a bilingual (English/Spanish) critical AI framework developed for higher education classrooms. Framed as a sword and a shield, the framework treats generative AI both as an instrument students can wield deliberately and as a force against which their own cognition and the instructor's pedagogical authority must be protected. It set out principles for preserving student thinking, judgment, and authorship in AI-mediated coursework, and for keeping pedagogical decisions with the instructor rather than the tool, drawing on the presenter's AI literacy work in Communication Studies at Sacramento State and in bilingual open educational resources.