Dartmouth provost Santiago Schnell resigns after AI disclosure review

In short: Dartmouth Provost Santiago Schnell resigned on Oct. 28, 2026, after a faculty committee found he used AI in published work without required disclosure.

What happened

Dartmouth College said Provost Santiago Schnell stepped down on October 28, 2026, and will leave the university. The announcement followed a faculty-led review of how he used AI in published writing.

The committee looked at three pieces that were published under rules that either banned certain AI use or required authors to say when they used it. The committee concluded that Schnell used AI to substantially change published writing without properly disclosing it. It said his conduct fell short of Dartmouth’s standards for integrity and professionalism, but it did not recommend disciplinary action.

In one academic paper, the committee found that Schnell used AI to substantially edit the manuscript, troubleshoot computer code (the instructions that tell a program what to do), and generate figures, and that he did not disclose that help. The review relied on available records, including logs from Dartmouth’s enterprise Claude account and emails. It did not use AI detection software.

The issue had grown after media reports raised questions about AI use in Schnell’s opinion writing and academic work. Schnell had said the AI help was mainly for language and organization, and later apologized for not consistently disclosing it. Dartmouth President Sian Beilock said the resignation was Schnell’s decision, and history professor Matthew Delmont was named interim provost.

Why it matters

Many schools now treat AI use like getting help from another person. If you get that help, you often have to say so, like adding a note that explains what changed and why. This case shows that universities may check those rules using ordinary records, like account logs and emails, not just tools that try to guess whether something was written by a machine.

Source: NYTimes