AI in higher education: Marquette’s strategy anchors AI innovation in human values and purpose

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Few industries have felt the disruptive effects of artificial intelligence more than higher education. A report from the Digital Education Council found that 86 percent of students use AI regularly in their studies, with 54 percent using at least one AI tool weekly. AI can now help students complete assignments, professors generate course syllabi, and researchers conduct literature reviews in a fraction of the time it used to take.
However, we at Marquette Business are also worried about the downsides of artificial intelligence. Marquette University has signed on to the Laudato Si’ papal encyclical, which calls for all of us to take steps to combat the climate crisis. AI’s massive need for fresh water and electricity places a lot of stress on that obligation. Artificial intelligence’s well-documented issues with hallucination and the use of copyrighted material are, likewise, a cause for concern.
As the leader of a business school, I find myself positioned between these realities, as do our faculty and staff. The purpose of college is to holistically prepare students for success in life. We welcome students as they are and over the course of their degree program, we help them transform into the best possible versions of themselves. Critical thinking, communication and ethical decision-making are core to that educational experience. Artificial intelligence, if misused, offers a way to short-circuit that growth cycle, to go through the formal process of college without any of the mental, emotional or spiritual growth that is supposed to accompany it.
However, with 78 percent of companies using AI in at least one business function and many employers looking to hire students with AI proficiency, it would be unwise to ignore the technology. AI has the potential to unlock incredible value for companies and people alike; that’s always something that will hold interest for us.
When discerning the best way to use new technologies, we always look to our Catholic, Jesuit roots. Jesuit education centers humanity. Ignatian spirituality teaches us to find God in all things, including every human being around us. These truths lead us to a central question around our approach to AI: How can we use it to serve the needs of human beings, instead of it being the other way around? We have pursued this mission in three ways.
The first is by giving students a thorough education in AI fundamentals. To that end, we introduced a required ‘ AI for All ‘ class into our curriculum. We also give students practical demonstrations of how popular AI tools can be used to solve business problems. This class has a major ethical component to it, with units on topics such as inherent bias in AI models.
Starting with the 2026 academic year, we’re going to implement the second of our solutions: a supplementary AI major that can be paired with any business discipline. That will allow us to apply the ethical concepts in our ‘AI for All’ class more directly to a student’s desired career path. A marketing student can test the limitations of AI image generation, while an information systems student will learn how to assemble an ethically sourced corpus of training data. This integration will take ethics out of the abstract realm and into the tangible one for students, as they face dilemmas mirroring the real-life choices they will have to make as professionals. Our MBA curriculum has similarly incorporated AI core skills and applications to help working professionals take the next step in their careers.
Marquette Business’ responsibility to be thoughtful users of AI technology must also extend to the way we conduct research and engage with our corporate partners. To that end, our third action item demands that we look outside of our own building. We’re proud to have partnered with UW-Milwaukee and Northwestern Mutual in the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute. The NMDSI provides financial and knowledge support to researchers working on critical areas of AI development and standards for ethical practice. We are looking forward to deepening our engagement with the NMDSI in the years to come.
Partnerships like these are important not just for advancing the AI field, but for doing so transparently. More than half of Americans have said that companies being publicly honest about how they use AI would ease their concerns about the technology, more than any other action polled. Broad swaths of society are rightfully apprehensive about the ‘black box’ nature of AI development. Sharing best practices between institutions, and doing so in the public sphere as much as possible, democratizes AI, allowing the widest possible range of perspectives on its highest and best use.
The organizations that are most agile in times of change are the ones with a strong sense of purpose. Those who know the ‘why’ of their business can smartly evaluate the ‘how.’ The scale and capabilities of AI mean making correct decisions about its use is of paramount importance, both for industries and for society at large. This is a moment to reflect deeply on what your organization’s values are, and to let those values lead the way when determining if or how to use AI.