Can students use AI to brainstorm ideas for an essay, or even to generate writing? Why is this acceptable in one class, but an academic violation in another? For students who are living in the age of AI development, the answer to these questions comes down to who their professor is. The Rollins College “Responsible Use of AI” policy is as follows:
Faculty members across campus are interpreting the role of AI in their courses with varying acceptance. There is a distinction between the desire to embrace the power of AI and doing so while protecting the critical thinking and writing skills college is supposed to develop.
Layne Porta (PhD), the Director of the Tutoring and Writing Center, said, “even within departments, there can be individual professors or individual classes that have really different policies on AI. Part of the difficulty [for tutors] is making sure that students are paying attention to how those change from class to class or even assignment to assignment.”
As part of her role, Director Porta “get[s] to be part of conversations with faculty as well about how to AI-proof the classroom.” She pointed to the rhetoric that says, “If we don’t teach our students how this works, will they be behind in the workforce? Is this something we’re compulsorily expected to teach and use?” Political Science Department Chair, Mike Gunter (PhD), said, “AI [is] a powerful tool, but there is a temptation to misuse it as a crutch.”
Writing in the political science department and critical thinking on political topics is crucial for developing a comprehensive understanding of politics itself. Gunter said that “writing has been used as a pedagogical tool to help learn material and to become a stronger critical thinker, but if you over-rely on AI, you lose skill.”
In history courses, much of the work is reading and interpreting sources directly, a skill some faculty say they want students to practice without AI. Associate Professor of History Hannah Ewing (PhD) said, “It’s important for students to be able to assess their readings and ask questions without AI.” While AI has an abundance of sources, it can fabricate incorrect information (commonly referred to as ‘hallucinating’). Large Language Models—such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot—are trained to predict the next word in a sequence, but researchers disagree on whether that amounts to real understanding or sophisticated pattern matching. Philosopher John Searle’s 1980 “Chinese Room Argument” thought experiment frames the question by asking whether a system that produces the right answers actually understands anything. Ewing said, “We’ve only experimented with AI in 200 and 300 level courses,” as development of critical thinking and comprehension of readings is a priority in 100-level history courses.
Matthew Forsythe (PhD), Faculty Director of the Academic Honor Council, explained what counts as an academic violation since AI policies change from course to course. Forsythe emphasized that it’s important to know the rules of your individual courses.” Since professors include AI policies in their syllabus, it remains the students’ responsibility to know the professors’ specific policies.
Forsythe said, “presenting work as your own that was constructed using AI without giving credit is usually a violation. It’s always a violation if the class forbids its use.” Forsythe placed emphasis on the word usually as some professors have open AI policies allowing students to use AI without needing citations. As for the Honor Council, he said that “the honor council does not have a specific stance on AI use, as long as the students are following the course AI policy.”
AI has a lot of potential to aid in one’s critical thinking and comprehension. The question is, when do students over-rely on it and stop developing their own understanding and producing original work? Professors continue to discuss where AI fits in the classroom. For students, the issue is learning the difference between using AI as a tool to enhance original thinking and using it to replace their own thinking. If a major goal of college is developing critical thinking, what happens when we let AI do it for us?
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