Three Fresno State projects are among 63 faculty-led projects that were named winners of California State University’s first-ever Artificial Intelligence Innovations Challenge.

The wins are more than just honor and glory — the CSU Chancellor is coughing up $3 million to fund the winning proposals.

CSU’s goal is to be the first AI-empowered university system in the nation, and the Innovations Challenge is a key component of the university’s AI Strategy launched in February.

The 63 winning projects began in June and will continue through June 2026.

Fresno State’s projects will involve lower division general education courses, an intermediate financial management course, and one at the MCJ Innovation Lab to develop ethical AI integration in undergraduate media journalism education. “The project will engage students in critically analyzing AI-assisted and generated content in media production and reflecting on ethical implications in journalism, advertising, and multimedia storytelling. Faculty will co-develop assignments, rubrics, and workshops that promote learning with and through AI —never in place of critical thinking or creativity.”

For School Zone, the key phrase here is that students should not use AI to replace critical thinking or creativity. As an “Old School Journalist” — 47 years in the business — School Zone can still remember writing stories on manual typewriters, developing photos in darkrooms, and watching the press room crank out newspapers using hot type. She’s seen how cold type, computers, digital files, and the internet have revolutionized the news biz, but she still feels a bit queasy about AI’s potential for abuse. So she’s a big fan of teaching journalism students that AI is a tool that they need to use carefully, as well as ethically.

Legal Fees Keep Climbing

The long-running legal battle over whether Fresno Unified broke the law when it awarded the Gaston Middle School construction project to Harris Construction in 2012 has been kicked back to California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal — as lawsuits go, this one is like a tennis ball in Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Even though it could be a while before the latest appellate court ruling emerges, defendant Harris Construction wants the plaintiff, Stephen Davis, to reimburse its legal fees. Harris and Fresno Unified are defendants in the suit brought by Davis, owner of Davis Moreno Construction.

How much is at stake? According to a motion filed online in the court case, Harris is seeking more than $1.6 million in legal fees and court costs. Perhaps not surprisingly, Davis’ attorney filed a motion saying that Harris is not entitled to the reimbursement, in part because the company “has not suffered disproportionate legal burden.”

Fresno Unified apparently is waiting for the court case to finally be resolved before raising the issue of legal costs, which are being borne by the district’s taxpayers and, given the complexity and length of the case, are likely to be substantial.

A hearing on the motion for legal fees is scheduled for 9 a.m. July 15 in Judge Jeffrey Hamilton’s courtroom.

Credit Union Hands Out $100K in Grants for Higher Education

Educational Employees Credit Union keeps putting its money where its mouth is. (Or where its bread is buttered? School Zone’s cliché generator apparently is on the fritz.)

But back to EECU: EECU’s grant program not only helps individual students like Denise Davis of Fresno, one of this year’s winners, but also is an investment in the community’s future, said Elizabeth J. Dooley, EECU’s president and CEO. EECU serves 12 Central California and central coast counties, with 23 branches and more than 390,000 members.

The credit union announced this month that it had distributed 50 more student grants totaling $100,000 to support students’ pursuit of higher education. Since 2003, the program has distributed more than $1.9 million in financial assistance to students who need help paying for tuition, books, and other education-related expenses.

Davis, who is pursuing a master’s degree in social work from National University, said she’s very grateful for the grant: “As a single mom, it’s really helped alleviate some of the stress and allowed me to stretch my budget to cover all of my expenses while I’m in school.”

Applications for next year’s EECU student grants will open in October, with deadlines typically set in early December. To learn more about the EECU Student Grant Program, visit myEECU.org.