Leaders still at a loss on how to beat AI invasion

Concerns surrounding cheating and academic integrity continue to make leaders at wary

Two years removed from the release of ChatGPT, higher education is still at a loss on how to deal with generative AI in the classroom, suggests a new survey from the American Association of Colleges & Universities and Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.

More than half of all executive leaders said they’re not harnessing the power of generative AI to prepare students for the future, upskill faculty teaching and empower non-faculty with the tools.

Even more disconcerting, 59% believe spring 2024 graduates were not ready to enter a workforce where these skills are important. This news comes on the heels of another recent survey that found eight out of 10 business graduates employed full-time wish their college had better prepared them for the workplace.

The AI survey revealed a potential disconnect between administrators and instructors. Four out of five leaders said they use it themselves for communications, generating ideas and data analysis, among other tasks. But many respondents believe that less than half of their faculty use the tools.


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Concerns about cheating and academic integrity make leaders reluctant to dive into AI. More than half said cheating has increased on their campuses, and they don’t believe faculty can recognize AI-generated content on assignments. Other fears included over-reliance on the tool, increasing digital inequities and shortening students’ attention spans.

As a result, nearly all leaders (95%) say teaching models at their schools will be affected. In response, institutions have created ethics policies on generative AI and launched minors and majors on the subject.

Despite their qualms, half of all leaders believe generative AI’s impact will be more positive than negative in the next five years. Some reasons why included enhanced student creativity, streamlined faculty workflow efficiency and improved grading and assignment feedback.

“The overall takeaway from these leaders is that they are working to make sense of the changes they confront and looking over the horizon at a new AI-infused world they think will be better for almost everyone in higher education,” said Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center. “They clearly feel some urgency to effect change, and they hope the grand reward is revitalized institutions that serve their students and civilization well.”

Over 330 university presidents, chancellors, provosts and other executive leaders participated in this survey, which asked questions about generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and CoPilot.

Alcino Donadel
Alcino Donadel
Alcino Donadel is a UB staff writer and first-generation journalism graduate from the University of Florida. He has triple citizenship from the U.S., Ecuador and Brazil.

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