Syeda Zainab Akbar is a new professor at Quincy University. She is from Bangalore, India, and she moved to the United States about a decade ago. She was hired at QU going into the fall semester, and she teaches many different classes.

Akbar got her PhD at Bowling Green University. Before arriving at QU, Akbar worked two years at Microsoft Research. She believes this was when she found her love for technology and learning. While conducting her research, Akbar also learned a lot about artificial intelligence. In a study she was working on, she learned that 60% of people are using AI for creation and development of content in marketing agencies.

As AI becomes prevalent in day-to-day situations, QU faculty and administration members have had multiple conversations about the AI policy at the institution. Last year, there was some confusion on how to enforce AI usage in classes, but the hiring of Akbar settles some of those conversations. The current AI policy at QU is that professors choose how and when they want to enforce the usage of AI in their classes.

“I decided that it is something that I can not leave out because it would be doing my students a disservice if I did not include it,” Akbar said.

Digital content creation, freshman year experience, public speaking, and understanding media are the classes Akbar currently teaches. She does not allow AI usage in all of her classes, but in digital content creation, AI is an integral part of the experience. Students in the digital content creation class have been given the opportunity to use the premium version of Claude AI.

“I like the idea of being experimental, and I like that QU has trusted me enough to experiment and learn,” Akbar said.

There are many different perspectives on AI in the world. Some people are in favor of it, while others do not like it at all. Akbar is aware of how controversial AI is, and is constantly evaluating how students are reacting to it in class. Angelina Pagliaccio is a student in the digital content creation class, and does not see the value in the reliance of AI.

“I think it is helping, but I think it is also hindering a lot of the ways we have to learn because we are not using our full creativity to it’s peak potential,” Pagliaccio said.

Akbar believes that learning in itself is a trial and error type of process. QU is trusting her to make tough decisions regarding AI and she is proud to have the trust of her students.