At Lindenwood University, students are encouraged to use generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, to help write their assignments—but only with their professors’ blessing. Kadence Berry, a junior at Lindenwood, appreciated the opportunity to experiment with a modern writing process in her freshman English composition class. After all, Berry notes, students everywhere already use AI to complete schoolwork, so it felt refreshing to receive guidance about responsible AI usage. Although the AI component frustrated some of her classmates, the objective remained clear: Learn to adapt AI tools while maintaining an original, human voice.
“I sometimes find it difficult when a teacher completely bans AI just because it tends to be that they don’t know how to use it or that they’re not comfortable with using it,” Berry says. “The point of college is that we are prepared to go into the job market and market ourselves adequately, so I think it’s unfair to the students to take away that opportunity for them to learn how to use AI, how to maximize their efficiency, and how to become proficient in a skill that’s going to be utilized in the workforce.”
Discover fun things to do with the family
Subscribe to the St. Louis Family newsletter for family-friendly things to do and news for local parents, sent every Monday.
Berry is pursuing a minor in AI and co-wrote a research paper with Lindenwood professors James Hutson and Daniel Plate that examines how university students engage with AI in their English classes. The authors proposed that AI “can play a supporting role” in classrooms without losing core writing skills, creativity, and academic integrity. The paper, “Embracing AI in English Composition: Insights and Innovations in Hybrid Pedagogical Practices,” was published in the 2024 International Journal of Changes in Education.
Educators and students at Missouri State University are having similar discussions and creating guidelines, particularly at the school’s writing center. Its director, Michael Frizell, and a group of students established an AI policy for the center last year, although they defer to professors’ individual policies when evaluating student work because the center serves students across a variety of classes.
“[The university doesn’t] have one blanket policy. We have a policy that’s per course,” Frizell explains. “Some classes are using AI a great deal, and that is usually preparing them for the workforce in some capacity. Others aren’t using it at all.”
As a published writer, editor, and professor, Frizell worries about the loss of originality and critical thinking, but he’s cautiously optimistic. Students aren’t just using AI to cut corners, he says. They’re using it to dig deeper into their studies or interests outside of class. “These students cannot just rely on the tool to give them something,” he says. “They have to do something with it.”
Universities have been grappling with how to equip students to do just that for years as AI models become more advanced. Some have hosted special events, such as Harris-Stowe State University’s “AI Disrupt: Inspiring Innovation for Students and Entrepreneurs” lecture last spring with business school dean Stacy Gee Hollins. AI-focused courses, degree programs, and labs have popped up at numerous schools, aiming to educate the next generation of AI innovators.
Associate professor Abby Stylianou helped develop Saint Louis University’s Master of Science in AI program, which launched about five years ago. She hopes that AI will create new opportunities. “When I think about our undergraduate curriculum, I want to make sure that students are really prepared to be able to use AI tools and to understand the impact that it’s going to have on their careers,” she says. “At the graduate level, it’s a lot more about getting the depth that you can contribute to the next generation of AI tools.”
At Lindenwood, students can enroll in human-centered AI programs, and computer science majors can choose an AI track. Faculty and students also have the potential to use AI-driven technology in the university’s Human-Centered AI and Interactive Technology Hub, which features the region’s first comprehensive-education extended reality lab.
Basiyr Rodney, chair of Webster University’s Department of Teacher Education, says it’s important to teach about AI with nuance because there are valid concerns, such as the devaluing of humans’ intellectual abilities, disrupting local environments with data centers, and rising energy costs—to name just a few. He thinks every teacher should have AI literacy training but cautions against accepting anything and everything that AI can do.
“There are some things we’re going to have to decide that we will not let AI do, and I wish that we were more progressive in our thinking about technology policy in general,” Rodney says, referring to policies beyond the university level. “We’re always going to need human beings to create art, to be our educators, to sing songs, and to build things for us—even when robots can do it… I feel like a human being who prepares themselves well will always have a space, even in a system that’s so heavily dominated by robots.”
