The University of Michigan is asking faculty, staff and students to comment on draft principles for artificial intelligence use in the classroom before a Thursday, Sept. 17 deadline.
U-M released draft guiding principles for AI use across all three campuses on Thursday, Sept. 3, alongside a report from its AI in Education Working Group. The group, established in December 2025 by Provost Laurie McCauley and Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, spent months surveying faculty, reviewing student feedback and studying how peer universities are approaching AI.
Mika LaVaque-Manty, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and associate professor of political science and philosophy in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts who chaired the working group, said faculty largely agree on the stakes.
"The majority of our colleagues recognize that we owe it to our students to prepare them for effective and critical engagement with AI," LaVaque-Manty said in a University Record article announcing the draft. "The majority also keenly feel how AI challenges business as usual in their teaching practice."
The report frames a core tension: AI tools are built to make tasks faster and easier, while meaningful learning often depends on what the group calls "productive struggle." Rather than ban the technology outright, the working group recommends a school-by-school approach. Committees within each college would set their own AI policies based on their discipline.
Among the key recommendations:
- AI-free learning spaces where students work without AI tools
- AI literacy training for both students and faculty
- A new Internal Academic-AI Advisory Board to keep academic priorities central as the technology evolves
- No surveillance-based AI detection tools. The group instead encourages oral exams, in-class demonstrations and other methods that let students show their own knowledge
The draft principles also state that people, not AI systems, bear final responsibility for decisions and outcomes tied to AI use.
Twenty courses will pilot AI integration during the 2026-27 academic year, The Michigan Daily reported. The pilots will be administered through the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) and the Life Changing Education Initiative's mini-grants program, according to the University Record.
McCauley, the provost, said the university aims to balance access with safeguards. "Preserving academic integrity, privacy, and security remains paramount, and requires participation from across the university," McCauley said in the University Record article.
The comment form requires a U-M login. No timeline has been announced for when final principles will be adopted or when the advisory board will be appointed.
