AI posters have come to be recognized as an abundant item throughout the school, with some even being visible as soon as you step foot in the main entrance. Many students feel some type of way or another about the change, but it begs the question: what constitutes an acceptable usage of generative AI in our school? According to an excerpt from the Marquette Parent-Student Handbook for the 2026-2027 school year, it reads as follows, “The policy prohibits plagiarism and academic dishonesty, clearly stating that any student found using AI for such purposes will face standard academic and disciplinary consequences.” This policy, which updates yearly pending on the current academic and social attitudes surrounding generative AI usage seeks to reprimand students caught using AI for plagiarism. Why, then, is it okay for faculty to generate posters using it?
Using AI to generate anything from imagery to ideas follows the same plagiarism concerns as generative AI, as it is not capable of creating anything new. It is only capable of rearranging what a human has already made. In other words, this is plagiarism too; there is just no necessity for academic integrity present. Allowing AI to do the work that could easily be done with Canva sets a poor example to the student body, because there is always an easy argument to be made that there is an unwillingness to follow the standard that was set.
It’s understood that the encouragement of the student body to steer completely away from AI usage in the creative and academic process is for their better benefit. Is the only distinction between faculty and students a grade? The aforementioned necessity for academic integrity? Is it as simple as adult and child? If you were to ask me, I would say it could be because the process of surrendering your creative mind to something that can only spit out a definite amount of information, pulling from the indefinite source of humanity’s work and knowledge, would cheapen your capabilities granted to you as a human. While true, it still comes across as facetious within this context. A distinct amount of education, work ethic, and intelligence was required to obtain degrees as well as the respect as a member of Marquette staff. None of these accomplishments are to be sneezed at. That being said, continual reliance on generative AI in the very same building that is relatively staunchly positioned against such usage has no capability to come across as anything but lazy and plagiarized, just as when a student uses it. At any rate, isn’t it always best to lead by example?
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