It started with a dinner party. A small group of faculty members representing two institutions of higher learning had gotten together for a night of good food and some casual conversation. As sometimes happens when educators get in a room, the subject matter drifted toward students and teaching methods, and then, of course, the always-imposing presence of technology—more accurately, AI.
One faculty member was particularly proud of how she had recently caught a student cheating in the final exam using ChatGPT. She proudly said that immediately, she failed the student as if it were a triumph over academic integrity. Around the table, nods of agreement echoed her sentiment—a collective sigh of relief that the sanctity of traditional assessment had been upheld. I couldn’t stay silent.
“Is it really cheating,” I asked, “if the student is simply using the tools available to them?”
The table fell silent, and a couple of puzzled looks came my way. I pressed on: “When workers use tools like Excel, coding assistants, or AI software to do their jobs, we reward them for their resourcefulness and efficiency. Why should students be any different?” Faces showed curiosity, some disgust.
I continued to press my argument—the ways in which we assess our students in higher education are both antiquated and ill-serving for a technology-transformed world. In the process, if we cling to traditional examinations and assessments that ban the very tools driving progress, we risk preparing students for a past that no longer exists. Predictably, my argument was resisted—more than one was convinced that by the time ChatGPT and other AI tools make learning easy for students, they do all the work, hence never thinking critically.
Fair Do’s: Not All AI Use Is Suitable
Now, before defenders of traditional education start sharpening their pitchforks, let me hedge all the bets: I am not suggesting we give all students their diplomas for merely copying and pasting what prompts they have asked from ChatGPT; obviously, there is some sand in the line between leveraging it to facilitate learning and enabling one to avoid it fully. Asking ChatGPT to write a 10-page essay and then taking that and submitting it verbatim? That is not ingenuity; that is academic laziness of thieves.
Yet, this does not necessarily justify a complete ban on the use of this tool. It is not a question if AI use is right or wrong but, in fact, it is one about how it is going to be used. It could be an excellent sparring partner during a brainstorm, an academic sidekick doing research, or a tool that improves critical thinking—something educators truly do produce more authentic assessments that involve significant students. In most aspects and much like with a hammer, the potential utility and destruction that AI bears lies completely and solely with its handler.
Instead of grumbling over the misuse, perhaps now is the time to teach students the right way to wield the tool.
The Faculty Roadblock: Progress vs. Tradition
The dinner party was not just an entertaining anecdote but proved to be the symptom of a greater and deeper problem. Faculty members tend to act as barriers, knowingly or unknowingly, in the way of progress in higher education.
Other sectors, like technology, business, and even medicine, have moved to embrace AI/automation and continue to do so. However, American postsecondary education hobbles forward at best like a snail across concrete because, at its core, way too many of its educators cling desperately to traditionalism as their version of the life preserver onto which one clings through the roiling ocean of change. Rather than accommodating modern technologies, for the most part, many professors press forward by relying evermore on old teaching methods and older methodologies for student assessment, as if preserving the latter has magical powers and can make time freeze for these so-called academicians.
I understand that resistance, of course. After all, change is uncomfortable, and embracing the tools like AI means admitting that the way we’ve been teaching probably doesn’t work anymore. But let’s be real: the problem here isn’t that AI makes learning too easy, it’s that AI makes our jobs harder. It forces us to rethink teaching and redesign assessments. It also means learning along with your students, and this takes effort. That’s some effort that faculties just aren’t willing to make.
The result is that higher education becomes slower to adapt than nearly any other sector. And the irony is that students are better prepared to handle the real world than their educators.
The Problem With Traditional Assessments
The story of that faculty member who caught the student “cheating” presents a case in higher education struggling to come up with the realities of modern technologies. Traditional assessments—such as timed exams, rote memorization, and isolated essays—have their origins and designs rooted well within the pre-digital era. These methods are implicitly grounded in the idea of a brain stored with knowledge which can then be accessed whenever required. But if you have an information source on tap, literally at a single click of a finger, such skills are clearly inadequate.
These days, professionals are valued for an application of knowledge, rather than a possession of knowledge. Employers reward creativity, problem-solving, and critical engagement with tools like AI. Thus, the same action that brings reward to the marketing professional who uses AI to create a campaign, or to the software developer using coding assistants to lighten the load of work, becomes a reason for punishment for students doing the same thing.
The Relevance Crisis: Are Degrees Losing Value?
As I argued at the dinner table, unless higher education changes course, some degrees are on their way to becoming irrelevant. This is a provocative assertion, but one for which there is evidence. Employers in many fields have growing skepticism about traditional higher education degrees, especially for areas where skills evolve much faster than curricula.
Take technology and business as examples:
- Tech Industry: For companies like Google and IBM, skill-based hiring has been the norm for years. Short-term coding bootcamps, certifications, and self-paced learning programs now serve as the go-to alternatives to traditional college degrees. Tools like GitHub, Stack Overflow and AI assistants are not optional—they are essential parts of the job.
- Business and Marketing: Platforms such as LinkedIn Learning and Coursera offer micro-credentials that focus on actionable, targeted skills, ranging from data analytics to AI-driven marketing. These certifications are far more agile and cost-effective than traditional degree programs, making them appealing to both employers and learners alike.
The question we must ask ourselves is this: What value does a degree offer in these fields if students graduate unprepared for the tools and challenges they’ll face? If higher education does not align itself with industry needs, it will lose its credibility and relevance.
A Better Way Forward: Modernizing Assessments
The solution lies not in banning these AI tools but in a shift towards reimagining how to assess learning. Educators and institutions should instead welcome modern authentic assessments that better represent performance in real-life skills and contexts. Some of these promising alternatives include project-based assessments, portfolio-based learning, and AI-integrated assignments.
Conclusion: The Dinner Table Lesson
That dinner party stayed with me. It revealed a deep divide between those clinging to outmoded methodologies and those of us who see AI as a transformative opportunity to rethink education. The way we assess students must evolve to keep pace with rapid changes in technology and society. Penalizing students for using AI tools is like punishing employees for delegating the job while being aware of all the details—it misses the point entirely.
But here’s the real issue: higher education’s problem isn’t technology. It’s the unwillingness of faculty to adapt. Institutions must invest in changing not just policies and curricula but the very mindsets of educators. If they don’t, higher education risks becoming irrelevant. And when students graduate unprepared for the real world, it’s not just their problem—it’s ours.
