LCU holds AI conversation with faculty on student needs
How best to prepare students for the future with the use of artificial intelligence was the topic of the second Guinn Conversations discussion at Louisiana Christian University on Thursday evening.
For this conversation, LCU President Dr. Mark Johnson brought together faculty members from different disciplines to discuss aspects of AI and how best to train students in this new technological tool.
Participants were Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Natalie Maxey, Dean of Education Dr. Victory Lindo-Lemons, Director of Distance Education Jason Mercer, Dean of Science Dr. Theodore Chiasson, and Evan Stewart, associate professor of physics.
Chiasson, an early adopter of AI, has been interested in it since he was in graduate school in the ‘90s and said it has gotten much smarter over time. However, it also has downsides if users choose not to use it ethically.
“It’s basically a force multiplier,” he said. “It can multiply your efficiency, and it can also multiply your laziness.”
Stewart has been following the use of AI in the news, he said, and has seen it used to great effect in the last year solving long-term problems that are thousands of years old.
“They have just gotten solved, mainly because of AI,” Stewart said. “I’m interested in AI as a way to solve problems that have not yet been solved, but I also have my concerns, mainly that it can really stunt education and intellectual development. I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen it used very well and also seen it used very poorly.”
Maxey, whose background is in engineering, said she sees a lot of potential in AI in improving effectiveness and efficiency in education. The key is to maintain the human element in the educational process.
It is important, as an institution, that LCU defines when and how students should be using AI, Maxey said.
“We must first define what is wise and ethical use,” she said.
Lindo-Lemons agreed that while it is educators’ responsibility to make sure students are equipped with how to use AI in their chosen discipline, it is equally important they are trained to be good stewards of the technology.
Students need to learn self-accountability, Maxey said. They also need to understand the dangers.
One of those, she said, is the “flattening” of responses. In other words, students are all producing the same AI-generated answers to questions and scenarios presented to them.
A goal of teaching AI to students should be to harness its power to make them more efficient and tackle things that are more difficult and take that and add the human element. That will distinguish them in the workplace.
“Students still need to be able to think critically and deeply about things,” Stewart said, “to discern truth from falsehood. Is the human mind a glorified computer, or is the human mind able to perceive things a normal computer never could and never would be able to? Depending on how you answer that, that will inform your relationship with AI. If you believe humans can access truth in a manner a computer never can, then the human mind is special. If that’s the. case, the human mind is something that deserves cultivation. It deserves attention and deserves a place of lordship over the tools that are around it.”
Faculty agreed that imparting knowledge to students will largely look the same.
“It will change less than we might think,” Stewart said. “Human nature remains the same. Students learn best under direct instruction with repetition. AI is not going to be able to provide that.”
Maxey echoed Stewart but said the educational process may look different in different disciplines. She said she believes AI could individualize learning for students who have different needs using different tools available.
“But in a lot of ways, it’s going to be just having the conversations and watching for when you see that spark in their eyes that says they understood what you just said,” Maxey said.
The biggest area of change for faculty, Mercer said, will probably be in assessments.
While the learning outcomes won’t change, academic programs will have to change how they ensure students are meeting those objectives.
“How are we measuring if students gained the knowledge?” Mercer asked. “In online learning, we are already looking at it. Do we still have four exams and a paper, or do we need to break those into discussion boards or a project-based activity that aligns with skills they’re going to need in the real world?”
Educators need to know what employers in their disciplines are expecting graduates to know about the use of AI coming into the workforce.
Finally, a big aspect of using AI is simply being literate about what it is, Chiasson said.
Students first must realize where the information is generated. Different AI models have different personalities, he said. The knowledge is gathered from what is fed into the specific model. The information it then offers the user may not line up with the individual’s worldview or belief systems.
“How do you interact with AI wisely and ethically if you don’t even know that?” he asked. “We need to encourage AI literacy.”
AI literacy was incorporated in the required Modern Communication that all LCU students take beginning in the spring of 2026.
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Media Release | August 24, 2026 | Pineville, Louisiana
Contact: Dr. Elizabeth B. Clarke, Director of University Communications | Elizabeth.clarke@lcuniversity.edu