With AI Requirements and Courses, Colleges Eye AI Fluency

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the workforce, several colleges and universities are introducing AI requirements to general education curricula, majors and certificate programs this fall. 

Some institutions—for example, Miami University, Ohio State University and the State University of New York system—are embedding AI competencies into pre-existing majors and coursework. Others, including Northwestern University and the Wentworth Institute of Technology, are introducing AI-specific major programs. Still others, like Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, are introducing required courses on AI.

Their approaches may differ but their motivations are the same: Employers are, at breakneck speed, increasingly asking for graduates who know how to effectively use AI. It’s called AI fluency, said Ray Schroeder, a senior fellow at the online and professional education association UPCEA, and it “can be a decisive factor between getting a job and not, especially at entry level,” he said. 

“Corporate HR departments who do the hiring are requiring or evaluating how much experience and ability applicants have in [AI], and it’s very important to those corporations because AI is becoming very important in their day-to-day operations,” he added. 

As of March, more than a third—35 percent—of entry-level jobs require AI skills, up from 13 percent six months prior, according to the most recent job outlook survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. About 58 percent of surveyed employers said they assign interns tasks that “use AI tools and skills.” Although 70 percent of respondents said college graduates are “somewhat prepared” to use AI in the workplace, they also reported that of the skills they look for in graduates, AI skills are the weakest and lag behind teamwork, technology, communication, critical thinking, professionalism, career and self development, and leadership. 

Starting this fall, all incoming undergraduates at Indiana’s Kelley School will be required to take two AI classes: a 101 course in the fall, which will teach students how to use AI effectively and ethically, and a 201 course in the spring that dives deeper into business applications of AI, said Brian Williams, an accounting professor and chair of the Virtual Advanced Business Technologies Department at Kelley. The 101 course is an “extensive revamp” of a previous generative AI 101 class open to all students and employees, he said.

Purdue University was one of the first institutions to announce plans to integrate AI into the curriculum. In December, the university unveiled “AI@Purdue,” a comprehensive approach to AI, which includes an AI graduation requirement as well as several AI-specific degree programs. All students will be required to take one of 22 possible AI courses at some point during their studies, said Haley Oliver-Jischke, senior vice provost for academic and student success at Purdue. Faculty members designed the courses from scratch or by “upgrading” existing classes to add AI components.

“There were 331 plans of study that had to be modified,” she said. “This task was just a tremendous lift, and everyone had it done and ready to go by April 1 so that our inbound freshmen this year would, in their plans of study, have an AI requirement.” 

We’re trying to get students to think about AI as a tool, not as something that’s going to save them or something that will make their lives inherently better.” 

—Adam Johnson, Coastal Carolina University

The push for AI fluency comes as faculty members grapple with how to use AI in their own work and how to enforce and encourage academic integrity from their students. Purdue is making an effort this fall to ensure that every syllabus has guidance about how students can and can’t use AI in class, Oliver-Jischke said. 

“I think students get most frustrated when there isn’t clear guidance,” she said. “Be clear. Be specific. Be prescriptive, so that everybody’s on the same page.”

Coastal Carolina University’s new AI course—Artificial Intelligence in the Research Process—was developed to serve students in every discipline, according to Adam Johnson, a learning technologies and data librarian who helped create the course. Students don’t have to take it, but if they do, it satisfies their human and social behavior core curriculum requirement. Coastal Carolina is starting the class with one 25-student section this fall.

Rather than focus on how AI works or is built, the class will “get students to understand how human interaction with a large language model affects the outcome of their research,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to get students to think about AI as a tool, not as something that’s going to save them or something that will make their lives inherently better.” 

Johnson and his colleagues came up with the course after noticing that students were being pushed into using AI without realizing it, he said. A Google search, for example, now almost always returns a Gemini summary of results at the top of the page. Several large library databases like ProQuest have also turned on AI assistants by default, he explained. 

“Students are using it without realizing what it is,” he said. “There’s a real gap in terms of information literacy and a tendency to trust things without considering the academic integrity side or the ethical issues.”

He likened AI’s impact on students’ research to the rise of Wikipedia in the mid-2000s. 

“When Wikipedia came on the scene a long time ago, people were like, ‘Never use Wikipedia,’ and now it’s a common part of our research tool kit,” Johnson said. “Wikipedia is one of those things we do not frown upon anymore because we now know how to use it and we know how to get them to go back and be transparent and check references.” 

AI Courses Must Stay ‘Fresh’

AI’s capabilities are changing rapidly. Any effective course or curriculum will need the flexibility to adapt to those changes, Schroeder said. At Kelley, professors will integrate weekly “What’s New in AI” lessons that “keep the class fresh,” Williams said. At Coastal Carolina, Johnson and his colleagues aligned the broad takeaways of the course to the Association of College and Research Libraries’ framework for information literacy, and will adjust projects and individual assignments as AI tools change. 

Schroeder recommends that faculty members stay “in tune” with the employers in their field and consider inviting guest speakers to class to discuss how their industry is changing. 

“One of the responsibilities of faculty and departments is to be familiar with the employers who hire your graduates and meet with them and, perhaps more importantly, with the director of HR to see what they’re looking for, how far ahead they’re looking and what skills they’re expecting from [graduates]. And then, make those part of the learning outcomes for the degree and the learning outcomes for every course,” he said.

In lieu of—or in addition to—one freshman-year course on AI, Schroeder also suggests that colleges offer regular open seminars “for students to get a continuing flow of information.”

At Purdue, faculty and administrators will regularly monitor the new AI curriculum for potential changes, Oliver-Jischke said. But they’ll also be paying attention to students’ critical thinking. 

“I think that’s what everyone’s really genuinely concerned about, and rightfully so. With the interface of this technology, are we done thinking? Are we done being critical?” she said. “At Purdue, we are actually going to begin measuring, across the institution, students’ development of critical thinking. We’re just getting started, but that’s where I see the future of this actually going.” 

It’s likely that the number of colleges offering AI-specific courses or programs will grow. Endicott College is planning to introduce a degree in AI implementation in fall 2027. Suffolk University is rolling out an AI “co-major” that pairs with almost any other major. 

Interested in creating an AI class? Start with the library, Johnson advised. 

“The library can play a much more central role, at least in terms of forming these kinds of courses. Because we see research from all angles and in all disciplines, we’re a natural fit to help integrate something like this,” Johnson said. “Lean on those research point people at your institution.”