Professors' approaches to artificial intelligence in the classroom are starkly differing this semester at Michigan State University, as the institution's recently released guidelines on the technology have left ample room for discretion, faculty members say.
While none of the professors The State News interviewed have outright banned AI in their classes, several have limited when students can use the technology to narrow, specific tasks, citing fears that AI assistance may inhibit intellectual engagement and creativity.
On the other end of the spectrum, two professors in the Broad College of Business are teaching a 400-level course on how to effectively use AI this semester; what's more, they used AI to design the course and its syllabus.
The varying degrees to which AI is being used by professors is allowed by the university's latest guidelines. Approved by the Board of Trustees in August, they generally encourage people to use the technology "responsibly, ethically and creatively," stipulate that students must obey their instructors' policies, and require professors to clearly articulate repercussions students will face if they break those rules — but that's largely the extent of the specificity in MSU's AI guidance.
Vague or sparing guidance from the institution can at-times present difficulties for faculty. Such was the case after Berkey Hall — one site of the February 2023 campus mass shooting — reopened the following spring. The university left it up to professors teaching in the building to decide for themselves whether to implement hybrid and online options for their classes.
But when it comes to AI, several professors said the broadness of the university's advice is necessary. The wide array of academic areas they teach in means a strict, blanket policy would be impractical. As writing professor Hannah Allan puts it, "It's vague, partly because it has to be."
Still, there's room for disagreement. Humanities professors have previously told The State News that vague AI guidance is a problem. They argue more direction is necessary to regulate technology that can, in seconds, do its own version of what writers and historians spend careers mastering: carefully constructing arguments and organizing ideas logically.
In any case, AI is being used even among MSU professors with concerns about its effect on society. Among them is Allan, who said it felt like the apocalypse when AI first came out.
"I grew up watching science fiction, and in every movie that I've ever watched that has AI, we all die at the end."
Yet, as the technology has evolved, so have Allan’s views on it. In her first-year writing courses, students are allowed to use AI to brainstorm topics and titles for papers. The aim is not for AI to complete their tasks from start to finish, but rather "giving ways for a student to continue to think through the process."
Other professors on campus are more frequently using AI considering how universal it has become.
"The rule that I'm trying to follow in my classroom is that it is a tool," art history professor John Fry said. "Not using it would be like asking a student to avoid using lights in the classroom."
But tools have their imperfections — a point Fry tries to convey to his students by demonstrating how chatbots can generate false information. He also acknowledges that some students treat AI less like a tool, and more as a means to cut corners.
"All of a sudden, essays just didn't have a sense of soul to them," he said. "They didn't have a feeling as students were actually from their head or their heart."
Recognizing this drop-off in quality and the lack of academic integrity in many essays, history professor Edward Murphy has shifted to more in-class writing assignments.
"I knew that I needed to figure out how to better detect AI, or think of different assignments altogether," Murphy said.
Whereas AI is an obstacle to work around in some classes, it's centrally important in others.
In the Broad College of Business, a special topic course was offered this semester centered on how to effectively use the techonology. Labeled BUS 491, professors Teagan Dixon and John Spink designed the course to educate students on how to use AI to their advantage in their work.
"When my students get into their careers, they're going to be expected to use AI, so I encourage it," Dixon said.
Though Dixon and Spink used AI extensively to create the class, they methodically double-checked the coursework created by AI for mistakes. They said the main incentive to use the technology was to save time.
"I spent 13 hours creating the module using AI," Dixon said. "It would have been a week's worth of work without AI."
Some faculty have been left wanting following the university's latest AI guidelines.
"I wish faculty had more support,” said Murphy, the history professor. "I think professors should get a course release to figure out how to use AI as they develop their classes." He added that faculty have had the tall task of developing an approach to using AI in the classroom "on the fly."
Others don't see learning and using AI as mutually exclusive.
"There are factions of people that don't want AI at all in the classroom and they are resisting it," Dixon said. "But then there are folks like myself that are saying let's use it on everything, but don’t lose sight of the goal, which is to learn."
