Faculty, students say universities ‘need a strategy’ to sensibly implement AI
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Amid Syracuse University’s influx of new artificial intelligence programs and nationwide discussions surrounding its role in higher education, many faculty and staff members are still grappling with how to appropriately integrate or restrict its use within classes.
In the last few years, SU has introduced 14 new AI-centered programs across six different schools, while also providing students with free access to Anthropic’s Claude for Education. The university also provides a publicly available list of guidelines for students, faculty, staff and outside collaborators, detailing allowed use for the presence of AI.
“The reality is that this is a huge transformation,” Adam Peruta, director of the Advanced Media Management master’s program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications, said. “It is bigger than the World Wide Web, bigger than social media, bigger than mobile media.”
In 2021, only five universities offered AI majors and minors. In June, The New York Times reported at least 74 majors and 89 minors were available to students across the country. While higher education institutions can each take a different approach, having AI in some capacity is necessary, School of Information Studies Interim Dean Jeff Rubin said.
“I think the schools that are falling behind are the ones that don’t have an AI strategy, or are still sitting here putting together a committee to think about a strategy,” Rubin said.
An April Gallup poll found that 57% of college students across the country use AI in their studies at least weekly, but 42% of students said their universities discourage the use of AI.
At SU, Rubin said professors can choose to allow the use of AI in their class, ban it completely or allow AI under certain conditions. All of his syllabi use the third option, but he said he believes every professor is still experimenting with AI policies as they see varying results.
“I have used AI to help create practice exams and have actually watched the scores on my exams go the highest they’ve been in 15 years,” Rubin said. “The exams haven’t changed.”
The University of Chicago also offers its students free Claude access. However, the university recently banned all technology in classrooms and AI assistance on all coursework, a decision which Rubin said is different from SU’s strategy.
“They’re giving you the tools,” Rubin said. “They’re just setting expectations on when those tools and how those tools can be used, which is different from how we’re doing it.”
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, an iSchool professor, said her current class focuses on exploring the tool by using generative AI to not only create text and images, but also learn to create synthetic podcasts and AI-generated clones.
“Each of us kind of brings our own flavor to this phenomenon,” Stromer-Galley said, explaining that she constantly tries to maintain focus on the human-first component of AI, which aligns with the iSchool’s overall goal for its programs.
While some professors like Stromer-Galley and Rubin allow AI usage in their classrooms, Assistant Professor Quran Karriem, who teaches in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, said he takes a different approach – even though one of his classes is titled “Critical Approaches to Artificial Intelligence.”
“It might seem surprising since all my courses are about technology, but I have shifted as much coursework as possible to in-class activities, group discussion, pen-and-paper assessment, hands-on art and music making, active listening/viewing of works and oral presentation,” Karriem wrote in a statement to The Daily Orange.
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Although in support of guided AI usage, Rubin and Stromer-Galley acknowledge a change in coursework.
“Asking someone just to write a five-page paper on the history of some topic is probably not the right assessment in 2026,” Rubin said.
For Stromer-Galley’s former student, recent graduate Simeon Zoeckler, the push toward AI is worrying.
Zoeckler said he took Stromer-Galley’s “Interfacing with AI” class in the spring 2026 semester, but is not personally pursuing a career in AI because of his own ethical and environmental concerns.
“I think there’s this whole overhead of ‘Are we destroying the Earth because of AI?’” Zoeckler said.
Zoeckler isn’t alone, as Stromer-Galley said she thinks some other students feel similarly, or simply will choose not to embrace AI. She said her daughter, a sophomore at SUNY-Geneseo, has no interest in AI and prefers learning about biology to learning about deepfakes.
“A lot of universities like Syracuse still have a lot of students who just want to go be teachers or nurses or veterinarians or doctors,” Stromer-Galley said. “Their motivation, their love, isn’t AI or technology at all.”
Stromer-Galley and Peruta both emphasized and acknowledged the ethical difficulties surrounding AI, and said they spend time in their classes discussing common concerns with students.
Peruta said he makes sure to touch on topics directly related to the media industry, such as copyright infringement, that students voice concerns about.
“We need them to be aware of the legal and ethical implications so that they can use and integrate AI responsibly,” Peruta said.
In March, the Pew Research Center found that 50% of Americans say increased AI use in daily life makes them “more concerned than excited.” From 2025 to 2026, Gallup found the number of Americans who felt that AI did more harm than good increased by 8%.
The same uncertainty and criticism are present on SU’s campus, and Zoeckler questions if AI in higher education is only exacerbating existing issues.
“For now, it just seems very like ‘Is this helping the situation with everything in the world, and even just on the level of just getting a degree?’” Zoeckler said.
Jack Lesser, lead editor at United AI, a student organization focused on AI education, said he’s aware of the “backlash” surrounding getting an education in AI.
“There’s definitely people who I’ve talked to who think that I’m contributing to maybe a downturn in society because of AI,” Lesser, an SU junior minoring in AI policy in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said.
But for Lesser, embracing AI in his education seems essential. He said he’s trying to stay involved and educated in case knowledge of AI provides advantages later down the line.
Peruta echoed his sentiment, saying students graduating from Newhouse need to know how to use AI to properly adapt into a changing industry.
“The reality is that the media industry now expects our students to come out knowing how to use AI, being familiar with the AI landscape and able to hit the ground running,” said Peruta.
There are very few interdisciplinary majors at SU, but current initiatives for AI are attempting to bridge that gap, Stromer-Galley said. Her goal is for students to understand the architecture driving image and video generation to become more informed AI users.
Peruta said in classrooms, the AI landscape isn’t as daunting as someone might think. After two years of teaching AI-related courses, he said engaging conversations with students have made him feel far more hopeful, in direct contrast to opinions that most college students are using AI to cheat.
“AI is not going anywhere,” Rubin said. “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.”
