Olivia Guerrero, Campus Carrier deputy news editor
Bella Patton, Campus Carrier staff writer
As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly grows in usage within schools across the nation, educators are looking for a way to not only combat the unethical use of AI but also use it as a tool and make it part of a student’s skill set. Professors at Berry College are seeking ways to use AI in beneficial ways and embracing the new technology. For institutions like Berry, the conversation is no longer about whether AI belongs in the classroom, but rather how it can be implemented responsibly without diminishing the core values of learning.
Christy Snider, associate professor of history, worked with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) to examine the extent of AI usage during the fall of 2024 to grasp an understanding of what the next steps are for the relationship between AI and academics.
The AACU collaborated with faculty and staff members in the Provost to determine the percentage of Berry students who use or do not use AI to complete their work. The statistics of the study were from a statistically significant sample portion of students at Berry.
Out of the 2100 students at Berry, 300 participated in the study.
“About 83% of students had used some form of generative AI, and we did this in the fall of last year,” Snider said.
Less than a year after tools like ChatGPT entered the mainstream, many Berry students had already experimented with AI in some capacity.
14% of the population used a platform of AI daily and 87% of students said they knew the rules for AI usage for their classes. For educators, these percentages specifically highlights the importance of establishing clear and straightforward policies in course syllabi.
As a result of the AACU study that was conducted at Berry, the awareness of AI usage became a focal point for academic integrity for the current school year. Although professors on the campus have their own personal policies, many agree that AI is unavoidable and that AI should be embraced as the technology advances.
Margaret Ndwandwe, assistant professor in the department of communication, acknowledges that as an educator, she has a duty to fulfill when it comes to working with AI.
“If I am not equipping my students to be successful in their usage of AI and helping them to become ethical with its usage, I am failing them to become prepared for their professionalization beyond the classroom,” Ndwandwe said.
Ndwandwe’s perspective emphasizes that the role of higher education is not only to safeguard academic honesty but also to prepare students for a rapidly evolving workplace where AI skills may be as essential as writing or research.
Snider also mentioned that some students now consistently worry about their work wrongfully being flagged as AI.
“Which I think is a good thing [to be worried about work being flagged for AI]. Most people thought that or estimated that probably less than a quarter of students were using it unethically,” Snider said.
That is a recurring issue with students at Berry, as some resources, such as TurnItIn, flag certain words and phrases in their essays as AI.
Some students are not interested in the usage of AI, because a small majority worry about the ethical use of AI (i.e., being flagged for AI in papers or diminishing their academic integrity). Students fear that in using it, their grades and academic reputation at Berry College will be affected.
“In general, students seem to value wanting to generate original content on their own and then use AI and apply it on top [of their original work] to improve and refine that content,” Ndwandwe said.
Ndwandwe notices that students want to use AI ethically, but says AI literacy and skills are important. Through resources such as the AACU, professors are able to teach ethical AI usage to their students as a means of continuing the value of critical thinking while still using AI to their advantage in an ethical way. This challenge speaks to a deeper tension in the current AI debate: that technology designed to detect dishonesty may inadvertently weaken trust between students and professors. To further professors may become distrusting of students’ work because of the possibility of it not being their own personal work.
The uncertainty of AI is what becomes frightening to some, but the challenges that it poses for the future are detrimental to creativity in certain aspects.
The Dana Professor in English Creative Writing Sandra Meek challenges students to consider some questions.
“What are we going to demand of ourselves in the future? Are we going to settle for mediocre, sort of familiar stuff? Or will we appreciate imaginative writing and song lyrics and everything?” Meek said.
Many disagree on what AI means for the future, but Meek is clear on what she wishes for the future.
“I hope we will appreciate the individual voice and the imagination,” Meek said.
Students are not simply outsourcing their thinking to AI but rather using it as a supplement for creativity, organization and efficiency. The challenge for faculty, then, is to teach AI literacy, showing students how to critically engage with what AI produces, distinguish between accurate and misleading outputs and preserve the integrity of their own voice and reasoning.
While some feel the same as Meek, others could relate to what Snider believes is true about the future. Snider spoke positively about the AACU’s mission of teaching ethical, responsible AI, especially in relation to the job market.
“I mean, personally, I think that’s a real benefit to students because it’s hard for me to imagine that AI isn’t going to be in many of the jobs our students are getting when they graduate,” Snider said. “So I would think, if you could tell an employer, ‘Hey, yeah, I already know how to use AI. I can use it responsibly so that I’m not going to embarrass the company by using some sort of hallucination.’ I think it’s just going to make students more attractive as future employees.”
Snider’s outlook reflects a possible future consensus that AI competence will soon become a key hiring factor, much like digital literacy and teamwork skills.
As AI becomes increasingly relevant in the academic realm, students and professors both have to find and develop ways to ethically integrate its usage into their courses. While some professors have found its usage beneficial, especially when creating lesson plans or certain assignments, others see the potential damage AI can have toward critical thinking skills and student growth.
Additionally, others worry about how AI can affect the job market, both positively and negatively. Some see prospective employees being more capable of securing jobs as AI use in high paying jobs becomes more common.
On the other hand, some see how AI can damage the arts, especially concerning creative subjects such as storytelling and poetry. While some believe AI does not have the voice of a human writer, it could have the ability to regurgitate accurate examples in the voice of current writers.
AI has possibly cemented its place in education, and as students and faculty both grapple with its constant expansion, Berry might hope to see only ethical use and practices in the future. Ultimately, Berry’s conversations about AI mirror the larger national and global debate on how to ethically handle AI in educational settings.