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The Mercy Core Values and AI

The Mercy core values of respect, integrity, compassion, justice, and service are foundational to the academic mission of Georgian Court University. Integrating AI into the classroom, curriculum, and scholarship can uphold these values when guided by intentional and ethical practices.

This document explains how core values and AI might co-exist in academic spaces. Students and faculty should reflect on these connections at the beginning of the semester.

  1. Respect
    Honor the dignity and potential of every learner:
    • Utilize AI to personalize learning—adapting content or feedback to individual student needs while honoring diverse learning styles. 
    • Encourage students to cite and critique AI thoughtfully, recognizing it as a tool that supports, not replaces, human thought.
    • Discuss the ethics of authorship and intellectual property when students use generative AI, emphasizing mutual respect between creators and technologies.
    • Ultimately, students, not AI, need to make decisions about their academic careers.
  2. Integrity
    Promote honesty, academic rigor, and ethical learning:
    • Develop clear AI use policies in syllabi that reflect GCU’s academic honesty expectations.
    • Teach students how to verify AI-generated content and cross-check sources to prevent misinformation and plagiarism.
    • Encourage faculty modeling of ethical AI use in scholarship and teaching—for example, transparently disclosing when AI assists with research tasks.
  3. Compassion
    Respond to learners’ needs with empathy and care:
    • Use AI-powered tools to remove barriers for students with learning differences or language challenges.
    • Design AI-enhanced learning experiences that support mental health and workload management, such as time management apps or low-stakes self-assessments. 
    • Train faculty to address AI usage compassionately, not punitively—e.g., guiding a student through a plagiarism concern rather than defaulting to punishment.
  4. Justice
    Promote equity and belonging through education:
    • Examine how AI might implicitly reinforce cultural bias in data, literature, and algorithms—making it a subject of skeptical academic inquiry.
    • Ensure equitable access to AI tools across courses and departments, including support for under-resourced students.
    • Integrate interdisciplinary conversations about AI’s impact on society, race, gender, labor, and fairness—especially in core curriculum courses.
  5. Service
    Use knowledge and technology for the common good:
    • Encourage AI projects that address real-world needs, such as creating chatbots for campus services or tools for local nonprofits.
    • Integrate service-learning and research that explores AI’s role in public health, education, climate response, and other Mercy-aligned missions. 
    • Support faculty-student collaboration on ethical AI innovation rooted in GCU’s commitment to justice and compassion.