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Artificial intelligence usage isn’t just rising among students — it’s rising among professors, to
In a 2025 College Board survey of over 3,000 U.S. college faculty members, over three in four respondents reported experimenting with AI in their jobs. That’s despite the fact that 45% expressed negative views about the use of AI in higher education, a higher percentage than those expressing a positive view.
At UF, some students say using AI in curriculum has its benefits, while others believe the technology should remain separate from student evaluations. Many faculty, meanwhile, are already experimenting with the technology for curriculum, research and grading.
Kody Tran, a 19-year-old UF chemistry sophomore, doesn’t think AI is necessary for professors in his major to use. In chemistry, grading is already done by teaching and research assistants, so there’s “no need” for AI, he said.
Teachers and students should be held to the same standards when it comes to AI, Kody added.
“If you think that students shouldn’t be allowed to do something, then you should reflect that with your own actions,” he said.
At UF, students must comply with any given course instructor’s AI policy. This applies to both generative AI and AI used as a resource for feedback.
UF encourages ethical usage of AI for professors in research and curriculum. For generative AI, professors must be cautious with what information they upload. Only public information should be input into generative AI platforms, according to UF’s AI governance policy.
One professor has been working with AI since before it became more mainstream at UF. Brian D. Avery, a senior lecturer in UF’s department of sport management, began incorporating and developing AI in Spring 2024. He now chairs a group focused on AI in his department.
Avery has worked on evolving AI in various ways, he said. One of his first applications was with CogUniversity, a program that allows people to collaborate on developing AI solutions in a facility management class.
CogUniversity taught students to use AI to create a document retrieval library, a tool used to search, index and retrieve important information. There, students could use documents to learn about the class content and ask questions to AI.
Not only did this enhance his learning experience through collaboration, but the questions students asked helped develop the chatbot’s way of thinking, he said. The chatbots became an aid in answering questions.
AI is a part of “almost everything” Avery uses, he said. Some examples include Adobe, Microsoft and Canvas applications.
“It’s been really helpful in identifying gaps in what I might have created, so that I can fill those gaps,” Avery said.
Avery also uses Google NotebookLM, an AI platform equipped to assist with research and taking notes. Last year, he was using Google NotebookLM when it was shut down midstream. The university concluded it wasn’t properly vetted by campus security, he said.
“I petitioned immediately to get it back up and running,” Avery said. “I made enough noise as quickly as possible, and it was turned back on, and then it expedited the vetting process.”
While Avery focuses on developing AI, he emphasized the importance of using it properly. AI should enhance learning rather than ease it, he said, and AI only helps the user to understand the material they ask about.
A report based on conversations with roughly 74,000 people with email addresses in higher education identified three areas where instructors commonly used AI: curriculum development, academic research and grading.
Fifty-seven percent of the analyzed conversations discussed using AI in designing assignments and lesson planning, while 13% of conversations spoke about using AI in academic research, and 7% of conversations included using AI for grades.
Dorothy Leidner, a business and AI ethics professor at the University of Virginia, said using AI offers the most benefits if used as a way to complement how a teacher instructs and grades assignments.
AI doesn’t have favorite students, Leidner said, which eliminates any bias in grading. AI also doesn’t get fatigued when grading large quantities of assignments, she added.
While using AI can provide perks for professors, it becomes a negative practice once a teacher abdicates their job as an instructor, she said.
“I consider [it] a moral responsibility, as an instructor, to really be in control of the instructional material and the experience that the students will have,” Leidner said.
Leidner has already started experimenting with AI programs that have been approved for faculty use, she said. After she posts student grades for a given assignment, she runs student submissions through an AI grading system to compare how she grades to how artificial tools grade.
“What was amazing was how consistent we were,” Leidner said. “I was really happy to see that the tools have gotten so good.”
Leidner plans to pair her teaching assistant with AI grading for the Fall semester, she said. This way, her teaching assistant can see if there are any major discrepancies with their grading compared to how an AI grades.
Maria Jose Perez Molina, a 21-year-old UF anthropology junior, thinks AI has both advantages and drawbacks. It can be used as a helpful study guide, she said, but generative AI isn’t as beneficial.
In relation to student and professor AI usage, Perez Molina said privilege varies. She stands by her opinion on generative AI, but she believes both students and professors should have access in circumstances where AI enhances learning.
One of her professors struggled with communicating in English and used AI to help translate his lectures, she said.
“It would translate actual meaning rather than literal words,” she said.
Mylyn Tran, a 19-year-old UF math sophomore, thinks AI is not necessary for grading.
“For math especially, there’s just a lot of different ways to solve a problem,” she said. “I don’t think AI should be in charge of a student’s grade.”
Contact Leona Masangkay at lmasangkay@alligator.org. Follow them on X @leo_amasangkay.
Leona is a second-year journalism student and the Spring 2025 University Administration reporter. They previously worked as the Santa Fe reporter. In their free time, Leona enjoys going to the gym, watching Marvel movies and traveling the country for music festivals.
