How Towson University is teaching students to use AI responsibly

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how students learn — and at Towson University, it’s now part of the classroom.

As generative AI tools like ChatGPT become more common in academic settings, TU is working to define how students can use them responsibly for their class work and research. 

During the fall 2025 semester, TU introduced special AI ethics modules all students must complete as part of Towson Seminar (TSEM), a course offered to all first-year college students designed to prepare them for the work needed to succeed in college.

Emily Bailey, associate professor in the philosophy and religious studies department and director of TSEM, says that these required modules are the first formal curricular space on campus to integrate AI into the curriculum.

“TSEM is the opportunity for students to really get the sense of the college-level work they’ll be doing and be able to transfer those skills into other courses,” Bailey says. “It’s exciting to be pioneers on campus. There are a lot of amazing AI-related projects happening on campus, but we’re the first to bring it to a broader scale that focuses on all incoming students.”

Introducing AI to students

The idea to include AI initiatives in TSEM came from Provost Melanie Perreault and her team, because of the growth in students using AI. In a poll answered by more than 400 TSEM students in the ethics modules this fall, 90% of them said they have used AI in some aspect of their life.

To help students understand how AI can be used as a tool for the classroom, the provost’s office also asked TSEM faculty and staff to find a way to integrate AI into coursework and help students understand its role in academic work.

Having some sort of framework and opportunities for students to be able to gain those [AI] skills responsibly so that when they step out of the university in a few years they can take that with them is really important.

Emily Bailey

Bailey then collaborated with members of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and TU’s Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson (FACET) to develop the topics the modules should cover. Those topics include:

• Academic integrity
• Citations and attribution
• Privacy and security
• Environmental and social concerns when using generative AI

For Bailey and her colleagues, the goal was to find a measured approach that is critical, while also encouraging students to engage with and use the technology.

“There is a lot of pedagogical work that has to happen to make sure we’re using it effectively and that it makes the most sense for the students’ learning,” Bailey says. “We also must keep an eye on the fact that a lot of the workforce is talking about AI as well, because through our graduates we see that people getting hired need not just technical experience but also AI training or literacy.”

“Having some sort of framework and opportunities for students to be able to gain those sorts of skills responsibly so that when they step out of the university in a few years they can take that with them is really important.”

Adding AI to the classroom

Along with including a theoretical and ethical piece through the AI modules in their first-year course, TSEM is also working on a practical component with faculty members across campus.

Thirteen faculty members across the university are piloting an AI-based information literacy project in their courses. Faculty have designed a research project that includes students conducting traditional research while also engaging with AI tools, then critically evaluating the information they receive.

“This is kind of a problem-solving activity where at the end students have to reflect on how they used these tools,” Bailey says. “We want them to understand the kind of information they were using in their solution, and make sure their own voice, their own thoughts aren’t getting lost when using the AI tools.”

Selina Brijbasi, an adjunct faculty member in the College of Health Professions’ Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science, was one of the faculty members who piloted the research project.

Once they saw how AI could help them break down a paper — brainstorming, annotating, outlining/reorganizing — they suddenly stopped treating AI like a mysterious black box and started treating it like a tool they could command,

Selina Brijbasi

As she went through the project with students, she realized that teaching students to scaffold their research papers with AI — in this case with Microsoft Copilot — unlocked opportunities to better understand other generative AI platforms.

“Once they saw how AI could help them break down a paper — brainstorming, annotating, outlining/reorganizing — they suddenly stopped treating AI like a mysterious black box and started treating it like a tool they could command,” Brijbasi says. “Watching that shift from dependent to independent, self-directed learner happen was like watching someone discover the ‘good scissors’ in their mom’s kitchen drawer. Life-changing.”