Guidance for Faculty and Staff on Generative A.I. 

Arcadia’s Lived Values include Adaptability, Fearlessness, and Integrity. One way that faculty can uphold those values is to help our students see the value in education, and embrace the creativity, freedom, and responsibility of thinking critically and communicating their ideas.

Generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, has been publicly available since 2022. The field is constantly developing, and new products and capabilities continue to emerge. In educating our students about these tools, we can help them focus on developing the critical thinking, analysis, and communication skills they will use in college and throughout their careers and personal lives. 

Because generative AI has a range of uses and limitations which vary across disciplines, classroom environments, learning opportunities, and tasks, we recommend each faculty member consider AI uses and limitations in the context of each course. You might use AI liberally in one course, selectively in another, or not at all.

We encourage faculty to include a statement in each course syllabus explaining what AI uses are and are not permitted, as this could be different for each class. This may even vary among assignments; the syllabus is a way to communicate that to students. 

Best practice would also communicate the reason for any use that you do or do not allow. Explaining your reasoning demonstrates another Lived Value: Respect. By making your reasoning clear for your students, you help them understand that your classroom policies are not solely there to stem cheating, but rather, are designed to help the student see the value of their own effort to practice their critical thinking and communication skills in a teaching and learning environment that includes the support of their peers and an expert educator. It helps the student focus on the value of the learning process, rather than solely on product.

Howard University School of Law professor Matthew Bruckner explains to students what tasks are acceptable and underscores the students’ responsibilities for ethical use: “Generative AI tools can be invaluable for generating ideas, identifying sources, synthesizing text, and starting to understand what is essential about a topic. But YOU must guide, verify and craft your work product; do not just cut and paste without understanding.” Bringing this ethos to the process can help students recognize the value of practicing critical thinking and understanding.

Another option might be writing your AI policy together with your students, as a way of beginning the discussion on the topic.

For more examples, Lance Eaton has compiled a list of over 100 sample syllabus policy statements from a range of disciplines, which you can explore as a sortable spreadsheet.