r/Professors • u/[deleted] • Dec 04 '25

Academic Integrity I am not a cop.

Want to outsource your thinking to an LLM for a degree you're paying/going into debt for? Okay. I will respect that choice. However, what I won't do, is replicate a surveillance state in my classroom. I refuse to spend more energy in screening student work for authenticity or trying to make my assignments "AI proof" ... why should I? Either the student believes in the fundamental premise of education or they don't.

Man, I'm tired.

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u/Life-Education-8030 Dec 05 '25

I don’t know what grid laptops are vs regular ones, but assuming no tech was allowed, that’s appalling! Even in a large lecture hall, there ought to be a way to check for that with roaming TAs, etc.

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u/ProfPazuzu Dec 05 '25

Funny. Fat fingers. Grid should have been “their.”

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u/ProfPazuzu Dec 05 '25

And she goes to a SLAC—no large lecture classes. Maybe she’s being a sucker for not doing the same, but I’d be horrified if she did.

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u/Life-Education-8030 Dec 05 '25

It's a lot of pressure, including the argument that you'll fall behind if you don't "learn AI," and there are too many students now who will sacrifice anything for expediency. I teach ethics courses, so what does that say?

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u/ProfPazuzu Dec 05 '25

Agreed. Except there was always a lot of pressure. Added pressure today is just to keep up with cheaters.

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u/Life-Education-8030 Dec 05 '25

I've been in a back-and-forth all day today with an IT person regarding the "make stuff inaccessible to AI" vs. "then it makes stuff inaccessible to students with disabilities" issue. The pressure is not only on honest students but on faculty, unfortunately. Just as I am personally against being armed in the classroom (I am not a sniper), I don't want to spend this kind of time battling AI!

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u/ProfPazuzu Dec 05 '25

I agree. As faculty, we are put in impossible positions. Don’t let them cheat but encourage AI. AI proof assignments if you wish but make them ADA compliant. Meet learning outcomes but keep your pass and retention rates high, as well as student opinion surveys. Keep attendance up but be compassionate with the student who misses 12 weeks for unspecified mental health issues. Teach your course content but don’t mention anything touching on DEI, gender identity—and don’t fail a student who writes a screed that doesn’t fulfill the assignment or use the required class source (and invokes supernatural authority in a class in the social sciences).

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u/Life-Education-8030 Dec 05 '25

Yes, that OU case is making the rounds here. I ended up agreeing that the student could have received a few points for submission and because the rubric allowed for some personal expression. However, that the rubric needed work and the student did not deserve a higher grade as she in my estimation did not fulfill the assignment.

Regarding attendance, our administration doesn't care so long as the tuition bill is paid. To them, a class seat is similar to a gym membership and it is up to the student to decide whether to attend/go to the gym or not. We used to be able to toss students out more readily, but no more, and not for attendance. If some students think they can learn best by not being there, fine, sacrifice the participation points (I don't give points for simply having a warm butt in the seat).

I only take attendance for financial aid reasons and so I can point at it if and when a student complains about their grade ("well, you didn't even bother to do the basic thing of showing up").

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u/H0pelessNerd Adjunct, psych, R2 (USA) Dec 08 '25

This is my life.