Colleges and universities across the country are scrambling to respond to the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. Another Christian university is looking to welcome technology and graduate students who are “irreplaceable.” Cornerstone University wants to show other higher education institutions that the goal should not be to keep AI out of the classroom, but rather to help students learn to use it wisely.
“We want to lead,” Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño told Fox News Digital. “We want to be ahead of other institutions, but we need the understanding of experts in the market right now who can give us the guidance, direction and understanding to do this and do it well.”
Cornerstone University, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently announced the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. The board is made up of experts in several fields, including philosophy, engineering, business AI, theology and higher education. Members are tasked with advising Cornerstone on AI curriculum, ethics and long-term strategy.
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Cornerstone University, a Christian school, is looking to address the question of how students use artificial intelligence responsibly. (Don Wu via iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Moreno-Riaño said the board was created to ensure that Cornerstone’s curriculum is in line with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, facilitate the ability to adapt to technology and ensure that the university’s approach remains grounded in its Christian values.
Top universities across the country are taking different approaches to AI as the technology becomes more widely available. However, many do not have school policies and instead ask faculty to apply their understanding in their classrooms.
Harvard University does not have a university-wide policy on AI, but instead requires faculty to inform students of their policies. The university has three model policies that faculty can use, but also allows them to make their own guidelines. One policy prohibits the use of productive AI, such as ChatGPT, in all phases of work, while another encourages students to “test” the technology’s limits.
Cornerstone University is looking to lead the way as higher education faces the challenge of how to deal with AI. (Cornerstone University)
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Vanderbilt University also encourages faculty to establish their own policies on the use of productive AI for their courses, as long as they are consistent with the school’s Honor Code. While the university doesn’t have a clear policy regarding productive AI, it does manage faculty members to clearly define their expectations for their students.
Moreno-Riaño said that kind of different approach is exactly what Cornerstone hopes to avoid.
“I’ve talked to a lot of college presidents and experts and I feel like a lot of universities right now don’t know what to do with artificial intelligence,” he said. “They don’t have a consistent strategy and focus, and what’s happening is that both students are suffering, and faculty and staff are suffering. There’s no guidance and direction.”
“Therefore, we want to ensure that we prepare and develop our faculty well, our staff and how we share this in a way that continues to build our students, not just inform them. And prepare them with wisdom, not just knowledge,” he added.
The president of Cornerstone also said that higher education institutions often focus on the potential dangers of students using AI to cheat, rather than trying to teach them how to use it responsibly. Moreno-Riaño suggested that many higher education experts who ban AI because of potential cheating are not approaching the technology the right way. He agreed that AI is wrong, but said that those who focus only on the negative, failed to see how it can be used for good.
“Our job in higher education institutions is to prepare our intelligence and finally our students are able to use it with understanding and for the institutions to use it to increase access to what they achieve and frankly, reduce the cost of what is needed to deliver education,” he said.
Cornerstone University President Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño aims to create “irreplaceable” students in the age of AI. (Getty Images)
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As AI becomes more powerful and accessible, the conversation surrounding its relationship with higher education has expanded beyond the classroom. Students and parents are increasingly asking what degrees and career paths will matter as AI reshapes the modern workforce. However, Moreno-Riaño believes they are asking the wrong question, saying AI will replace almost all jobs.
“I don’t think there is a safe job or a safe diploma, a safe officer. I think the whole field will be changed a lot by this. But I think the question we have to ask is that we have to think about producing degrees that cannot be changed,” Moreno-Riaño told Fox News Digital.
For Cornerstone’s president, it comes down to producing graduates who are “irreplaceable” in their fields. He argued that this doesn’t necessarily mean teaching them to code or focusing on AI-driven or passive career paths; rather, it requires universities to nurture the characteristics of their students’ personalities that cannot be replicated.
“I think jobs will be changed and changed. There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “But the human power of wisdom and understanding is irreplaceable.”
Moreno-Riaño said students are not smart enough to memorize the correct answer to a question, saying the program played an important role in their development. He remembers a high school math teacher who insisted that students show every part of their work rather than just writing an answer.
“The problem with AI is it gives you the right answer, but it takes you away from the struggle,” he said.
Moreno-Riaño asserted that the struggle to solve problems, work through mistakes and develop judgment, is what ultimately produces “irreplaceable” students. He added that universities should use AI to improve students’ learning experiences with the goal of helping them develop intelligence, something he thinks will be key as people question the value of a college degree in the age of AI.
“Academics must be sources of wisdom for our students,” he said.
What makes Cornerstone’s approach unique, according to Moreno-Riaño, is the university’s efforts to adapt to cutting-edge technology while remaining faithful to its Christian values.
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“I think Christianity has a lot to say here, we understand what a person is, we are God’s image bearers, this means something,” he told Fox News Digital. He added that America’s founding fathers understood this principle, which he said still rests “at the heart of Christianity and the highest principle of Christianity.”
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Ultimately, Moreno-Riaño believes that universities should not resist AI and should instead find ways to ensure that AI remains a tool that helps people rather than replaces it.
“It’s going to stay here,” he said. “Now we have to learn how to use it and make sure it serves our good intentions, not that we serve its purposes.”
