With Bowling Green State University (BGSU) welcoming artificial intelligence (AI) into classrooms, majors and events, the students these resources are for may not be as accepting.
BGSU progressed its use of AI in 2025 by holding events, launching AI + X bachelor’s degrees and incorporating the use of AI into classroom syllabi.
BGSU hosted the first-ever Great Lakes AI Week in early November, inviting 1,000 professionals and showcasing how “Bowling Green is embracing AI campuswide to drive innovation in the classroom and beyond,” as written in an article published by BGSU.
On Nov. 17, Google held an event on campus showcasing AI as a way to support students’ studies and research.
BGSU also officially opened applications for its AI + X bachelor’s degrees. The customizable degree is the first in the nation that combines AI with another bachelor’s degree. Students can combine AI with computer science, history, journalism, mathematics, physics or public relations. BGSU also now offers an AI and society minor.
There are also “AI use guidelines” that BGSU has created that professors include in syllabi. In most classes, AI can be used in the planning or brainstorming step of a project, but not in the actual completion phase.
Professors also have access to Turnitin, an AI detection software that uses AI to check if students have used AI in their work.
With all these advancements in BGSU’s use of the technology, some students feel that it has become too dependent on the technology within the school setting.
“I’m getting so sick of professors. [They’re] like, ‘Well, don’t use it to write your assignment, but use it to brainstorm.’ Are you so dumb that you can’t brainstorm this assignment? You know that’s part of your degree,” said Lillian Haines, a freshman criminal justice major.
Haines has also encountered issues with the program Tunitin, which flags content directly from students and allows content that is generated with AI.
“It [Turnitin] doesn’t even work half the time. It’s not accurate,” Haines said. “I got flagged. I don’t even use AI… and then my friend, she’s like, ‘I did 100% AI in that one, and they didn’t check it.’”
As a Bowling Green resident, Haines also sees problems with AI outside the university.
“I don’t like it, because it uses so much water,” Haines said. “I’m local to this area and they’re trying to put data centers in Waterville and Bowling Green. I’m paying so much for heating and air, and then you pay even more, because they’ll just put it on your bill to support the data center.”
Joslyn Stauffer, a junior criminal justice student, has noticed problems due to AI as early as middle school.
“I substitute teach. The kids in middle school will use AI, and they know nothing,” Stauffer said. “We were doing a writing assignment the other day. It was about themselves, like, ‘When was a time you had to be brave for somebody else?’ Then half of them broke out their computers… and I saw them using ChatGPT, and they [would ask], ‘When was a time I was brave for someone else?’ It [ChatGPT] would make these elaborate stories.”
Stauffer has also learned about an AI software that is used in her future field.
“They do have a law one. It’s not like using AI to write; it’s about finding documents… like previous cases. So I feel like that AI is much better, but also, I hope to never use that,” Stauffer said.
While against the use of AI, both students have used it in the past.
“I’m not going to lie, I’ve used AI for math to teach me how to do it,” Stauffer said. “My notes are not helping me right now. This homework makes no sense. It will show you how to do it, and then you can just copy it.”
While students are finding the faults and downsides of AI, the university keeps furthering its use of it, which has Haines feeling like it’s relied on too much.
“You can’t stop progress; you have to work with it. But I feel like we’re giving a little bit too much into it. We can look cool; we’ll be the only college with AI degrees, and that’s just the trend now,” Haines said.
For more information on BGSU’s AI resources: https://www.bgsu.edu/its/support/ai-resources.html
